Word: productivity
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...gnarled hands of a laborer, Karim Khan hardly looks like the ideal customer for a financial-services firm. But to the Azizi Bank in Kabul, he's a prime client. Khan is one of some 60,000 Afghans who have opened an account at Azizi since a new savings product was launched four months ago. Although his initial deposit of $100 in crumpled Afghani notes may seem paltry, because of customers like him Azizi is increasing its deposit base faster than any other bank in the country. "You have business opportunities here in Afghanistan like nowhere else in the world...
...There are numerous reasons why profits may prove elusive for Coca-Cola's Afghan venture. The country's rustic road network means that product distribution is limited to Kabul and a few other nearby cities; Kandahar, a potentially large market in the south, is off-limits because militants and bandits make it too dangerous to truck goods there. In many places, Coke smuggled in from neighboring Pakistan is available in shops at significantly lower prices than the Afghan-produced bottles. The cost of safeguarding Coca-Cola's local bottling plant and employees from attacks has soared as suicide bombings have...
...rate of pregnancy, it's possible that premature labor may worsen as America's health-care crisis worsens. I encounter young couples all the time who are prospective parents but have no way of accessing appropriate antenatal care. This makes no sense when 16% of the U.S. gross domestic product is spent on health care...
...make money, Technorati markets itself as a viral focus group, where product managers can go to discover what consumers are writing about a product or service. "They can't ask questions, but they can listen in," says Sifry. Paying advertisers can buy sponsored links, which encourage Technorati visitors to check out what bloggers are saying about something, like the movie Fast Food Nation, featured in a recent sponsored...
...American Chemistry Council (ACC), which represents manufacturers such as ExxonMobil and Dow Chemical, says the crackdowns on toys are not justified by the science. "The E.U. aims to ban products that show adverse effect at very high doses in rats," says the ACC's Marian Stanley. "Many essential products are made from starting materials that can be quite toxic at high doses. This does not mean that the final consumer products are toxic." As for recent phthalate studies on humans, she says, they are either preliminary or "overhyped." Meanwhile, toy companies are relying on a 2001 review by a Consumer...