Word: aides
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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When will the U.S. finally realize that the billions of dollars it has given to help Russia's faltering economy have been spent on political corruption and on bombs and bullets for the Chechen war? George W. Bush and John McCain are right in suggesting that aid to Russia should cease if the war in Chechnya continues. The Russian presidential front runner, Vladimir Putin, has no tolerance for Western interference but apparently feels free to accept Western dollars, spending $115 million on Russia's military. How long will it be before the U.S. is once again facing a hostile enemy...
Miller, who transformed regional grocer Fred Meyer into a supermarket behemoth before it was sold to Kroger earlier this year, knows fixing Rite Aid will be an uphill battle, so he's bringing three top lieutenants to help him. "Bob really cares about the customer, and that wasn't always an attitude that pervaded Rite Aid," says Meredith Adler, analyst at Lehman Bros. "He's a talented manager and a real straight shooter...
Still, Miller inherits a case study in the perils of trying too hard to please today's growth-hungry stock market. As the drugstore industry has consolidated into a few dominant national chains, Martin Grass (son of Rite Aid founder Alex Grass) nearly doubled the number of outlets, buying independents and refashioning smaller locations into 10,000-sq.-ft. convenience stores. That kind of real estate doesn't come cheap. In 1996, Grass shelled out $1.4 billion for a thousand Thrifty PayLess drugstores on the West Coast. Then a year ago, he spent $1.5 billion on PCS Health Systems...
Though he'll continue to modernize older stores, Miller says he'll significantly slow the frenetic pace of expansion and cut back the company's costly advertising blitz. Rite Aid has rescheduled $2.7 billion of its debt, and before long, it should announce a deal to sell PCS. As for the underperforming, oversize stores on the West Coast, Miller insists he will rejuvenate, not unload them. Wall Street announced a measure of approval: Rite Aid stock closed at $11.50, up about $3 for the week. And with baby boomers and senior citizens fueling a boom in prescription drugs, Miller...
...allows him to potentially remain in office until 2012. It also affirms state ownership of Venezuela's oil industry, which Chavez hopes will fuel his "new economy" that redistributes wealth among the poor. While the flood is a win-win scenario for Chavez - he's rushed resources to the aid of those most in need, and any recriminations over the building practices that allowed for such a heavy death toll will be directed at his predecessors - it contains an element of danger, too. The devastation will fuel demands for the president to accelerate efforts to redistribute wealth, which could scare...