eBay Reports Positive Q1 Financial Data

eBay has released its first-quarter earnings report, and there's good news for the company's fans: it beat most analysts' estimates. The bad news for fans (and especially shareholders) is that eBay's stock has nonetheless fallen 8.14 percent in after-hours trading, possibly due to a weak forecast.

In fairness to eBay, Google and Yahoo suffered similar fates after making positive Q1 reports of their own. Also, eBay's forecasts weren't awful; the company just expects revenue for all of 2010 to fall in the $8.80 billion to $9.10 billion range, whereas experts would like to see $9.12 billion.

So let's move on to the success stories. eBay reported $2.20 billion in revenue, which is a little bit better than the anticipated $2.19 billion, and it beat earnings per share estimates by a similar margin (reporting $0.42 versus $0.41).

The company recorded a year-over-year increase in total payment volume of 35 percent, too, even though a gain of just 33 percent was predicted.

CEO and President John Donahoe observed as a result, "Our first quarter results reflect another strong step toward achieving our three-year growth and profitability goals."

eBay now simply needs to work on repeating that step a few more times for the sake of not losing too many investors.

The Secret of Sales Success

What really drives salespeople to chase deal after deal?

Great salespeople are masters of psychology: The best of them can suss out pain points and imminent objections just a few minutes into a call. Their own psyches, however, are more mysterious. Are they motivated by greed and competition? Or masochism and the prospect of rejection? Perhaps both, suggests G. Clotaire Rapaille, a psychoanalyst and ethnographer who has been working with major corporations for two decades. The founder of Archetype Discoveries Worldwide in Palm Beach, Florida, Rapaille has built a career helping corporations discover the mental models that animate their customers, employees, and organizations. Much of that research has focused on salespeople, whom Rapaille characterizes with a surprising archetype: happy losers. Understanding what that means, he told editor-at-large Leigh Buchanan, can go a long way toward helping managers get the most out of their often inscrutable sales forces.

Explain the term happy loser.

Salespeople sometimes say to me, "I don't like that you call me a loser." But that's not what I mean. Happy losers are people who see rejection as a challenge. If 95 percent of the time you are rejected, you have to ask yourself, "Why did I choose this kind of life?" The happy loser likes it because 5 percent of the time, he wins. And all those times he loses, he sees as getting to the win.

How did you arrive at the happy-loser archetype?

We always go back to the first imprint: to the first experience in a person's life when he or she creates a mental reference. So we asked salesmen about their first experiences selling -- as children with a lemonade stand or trying to persuade their parents that they don't want to go to school. With the first experience, they feel strong emotion, and emotion is absolutely key to producing the neurotransmitters in the brain that create mental connections. The first time they are rejected is very powerful. What we find with good salespeople is that that first no stimulated them. It didn't make them want to give up. It made them want to find another way.

Are people born happy losers, or can they be trained?

Both. In some corporations I've consulted with, we've had regular meetings with salespeople and asked them, "How many nos did you get this week?" The ones that got nos got points. Then, after a month, we made the correlation: The more nos they had, the more sales they had made. Because they were trying more things, taking more chances. The response was almost Pavlovian. The more mistakes, the greater the reward.

So salespeople should be trained to embrace rejection?

Absolutely. If the manager keeps saying, "You're going to win; you're going to win; you're going to win," and then the guy goes to see the potential client and is rejected, it's a disaster. A sad loser goes down and never comes back. A happy loser comes back.

Another reason to embrace the no is that the sale isn't done until you hear it. Say a customer walks into a store to look at a dress, and the salesperson says, "It's inexpensive; it fits you; you look so beautiful." So the customer buys the dress and leaves. The boss of the salesperson says to her, "How did it go?" She says, "Well, I'm very happy. I sold the dress." The boss asks, "How many nos did you get?" "I didn't get any nos." "Then that's wrong," says the boss. "Because the sale doesn't end when the customer says, 'Thank you.' You say to her, 'You have that nice dress. You should have these shoes that go with it. This purse, this belt, this sweater, this scarf.' At some point, the customer will say, 'No. This is enough.' That is when the sale ends. The sale ends when you lose."

How do you ensure people actually learn from their mistakes?

I really believe in support groups. Companies should have a kind of Happy Losers Anonymous. Salespeople get together and go around the room and say, "I'm a happy loser" -- they know that part is a joke, so it's OK -- and then confess all the mistakes they made. And the group says, "What can we learn from these mistakes?" You end up with so much more learning; it's fantastic. And we know it works, because people don't make the same mistakes again.

Do managers look for the right things when hiring salespeople?

Many managers just look for results. They look for people who can prove that they did sell. They don't understand that this is only one element of the profile. They don't understand the importance of rejection. So they eliminate some very good people. Instead, I would ask: How many things did you try in your life that you failed at? And not only in business. Did you try skiing? Did you try snowboarding? Did you try fencing? How about during your education?

What do you think of in-house sales contests and similar motivational programs with big rewards?

Rewards are good, but the symbolism of the reward is very important. I once did some work on the merger of two large banks. One question for the merged entity was, How do we reward the people who sell? One of the banks was very sales oriented, and it offered its top salesperson a cruise. The other had a slower sales culture; it spent more time building relationships and gave out small diamonds, which salespeople wore on their jackets, like stripes on a uniform. Its salespeople were very proud of those diamonds.

The message of the cruise was, Sell, sell, sell, and for one year you will be on top. But when the cruise is over, it is over. And the next year someone else wins, and you are the ex -- world champion. At the other company, salespeople would always have the diamonds. What do they say, Diamonds are forever? And so it is more like having a gold medal that no one can ever take away from you. The emphasis was on longer-term relationships built over time.

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Are your business problems Driven you to Distraction

Are your business problems making you insane? In his debut column, 37 signals co-founder Jason Fried argues that one of the keys to success is to let your lazy side guide you.

I think of myself as wildly ambitious and unapologetically lazy. Though we've all heard about the good things that come from ambition, laziness gets a bad rap. That's unfortunate. I can attribute a healthy chunk of my success to the positive returns of laziness. Laziness has the best ROI in the business.

Let's start at the beginning. I launched my first real company, a Web design company called Spinfree, in 1996. It was a solo show: just me, a desk in my apartment, and some self-taught mediocre Web design skills. But it was all I needed. The jobs rolled in, and my clients were happy. I could pay the bills, stash away some savings, and work when and where I wanted.

But I wasn't happy. Rather than building confidence, I was accumulating doubt. As my business expanded, I grew nervous and self-conscious. I began to feel as if my accomplishments weren't enough, that I had to take things to "the next level." I thought if I didn't get there fast enough, I'd be bowled over by the competition.

When I bid on projects against larger design firms, I started saying "we" instead of "I" in an attempt to sound bigger. The proposals submitted by my rivals were long and shiny, so mine had to be longer and shinier. I even began badmouthing the competition -- people I'd never met. That's ugly.

The thing is, I didn't need to do any of these things. I thought I did, but I didn't. I was inventing problems. I was making things hard on myself.

How did I figure this out? Laziness. I got tired and let down my guard and wound up learning something important about myself: I love work, just not hard work. I think hard work is overrated. My goal is to do less hard work. And what's hard? Acting like someone else, writing elaborate proposals I don't believe in, and flinging mud at the competition. That's hard and horrible work.

So I put my laziness to work for me. Instead of long proposals, I wrote short ones. Instead of worrying about competitors, I ignored them. And here's what happened: My company got more work. I found better clients. I slept better. I woke up better. I was happier. And, most of all, running a business became a lot easier.

Fifteen years later, this continues to be the most important lesson I've learned as an entrepreneur: Most of the stuff you agonize about just doesn't matter. Truth is, things are pretty easy and straightforward -- until you make them hard and complicated.

This is the ethos that drives what we do at 37signals, the company I co-founded in 1999. We make simple Web-based collaboration software for small businesses and groups. We have millions of users -- and millions in profits -- but we're just 16 people. We don't act any bigger or smaller. We don't put on airs. We just are who we are.

We don't worry much about what the competition is doing. We don't worry about growing pains we don't have yet. We don't spend time on five-year plans and forecasts, because in my experience, they just don't matter.

We invent software, not problems. Real problems will find you; you don't need to invite fake ones to dinner.

Yet that's precisely what many business owners do. I spend a lot of my time speaking with entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs-to-be. They e-mail me, call me at the office, hit me up on Twitter, or introduce themselves at conferences and events. And for the most part, they have one thing in common: They're scared. Worried. Insecure. Just like I was.

It's easy to see why. Conventional business wisdom breeds paranoia. If you don't get big fast, you lose. If you don't obsess about the competition, you will be crushed. If you don't make long-term plans, you'll be staggering in the dark.

Come on. Conventional wisdom is tired, upset, groggy, scared, and a pain in the ass to work with. It doesn't have to be like this.

Instead of spending your time worrying about what could, might, or may happen, spend your time on what matters now. Are your customers thrilled with your service today? Is your inbox flooded with word-of-mouth referrals today? Do your employees love their jobs today? Can people find what they're looking for on your website today? Be honest with yourself. If the answers aren't satisfactory, then I'd suggest that you truly have something to worry about -- no matter how beautiful and comprehensive your business plan is.

Tomorrow. Eventually. Next quarter. Next year. Five years from now. Exit strategy. Throw these words away. They don't matter. Today is all you have in business. Tomorrow is just today again. Next week? Seven todays in a row. A month isn't 30 days. It's 30 todays.

I'm not suggesting you stop thinking about the future. I'm telling you to stop stressing about it. Go on, get lazy.

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Credit-Card Reform: No Fix for Small Biz

Small business cardholders still face penalties that issuers are now barred from charging consumers

When Washington's new credit card rules took effect on Feb. 22, most cardholders got some relief from practices that consumer advocates have long condemned, like raising rates on old balances or applying payments in a way that maximizes interest charges.

Small business owners were the exception. As an amendment to consumer protection laws, the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, & Disclosure (CARD) Act did nothing to regulate the fast-growing market for small business credit cards. Unlike corporate charge cards that large companies use to manage expenses, business credit cards function much like consumer cards and are personally guaranteed by business owners, who often carry balances to finance their ventures. Small business cardholders now face a hodgepodge of policies and uncertain prospects for reform.

Business cards account for 15% of all volume charged on credit and debit cards, analysts estimate. The law did direct the Fed to recommend additional protections for these cardholders to Congress by May 22. A bill to cover business cards with CARD Act-style protections has stalled in the House. Small business advocates hope to attach the measure to a future Senate jobs bill—and to pass it before business owners take on credit card debt mistakenly thinking they're protected from retroactive rate hikes, says Molly Brogan, vice-president of public affairs at the National Small Business Assn., which has long pushed for credit card reform. "There's mass confusion," she says.

The banking lobby says giving small business cards the same protections as consumers will curtail credit. Because small businesses are risky and tend to charge more than consumers, issuers will have to cut credit and preemptively raise interest rates if they can't adjust rates later on, says Ken Clayton, senior vice-president of card policy for the American Bankers Assn. "You're merely going to exacerbate that pullback in credit that's already taking place in the marketplace," he says.

Some card issuers are voluntarily giving business customers bits of the same protections consumers now have. On Apr. 1, Bank of America (BAC) announced that it would cease raising interest rates on existing balances in May for its 2 million small business cardholders and add other protections in July. Capital One (COF) included small business accounts in many CARD Act-related changes in February.

Without the force of law, these changes could be reversed by card issuers. And small business cardholders still face penalties such as fees for going over credit limits that issuers are now barred from charging consumers. Kevin Reeth, CEO and co-founder of online bookkeeping startup Outright, has been charged for exceeding the $3,000 credit limit on his American Express (AXP) small business card twice since AmEx abolished such penalties for consumers on Oct. 1. On other occasions, his card was declined—making it difficult to tell when a charge will be approved if he's near the limit. AmEx spokeswoman Rosa Alfonso notes that business owners can avoid over-limit penalties by paying down their balance before their billing period ends.

While card issuers often argue that they need to be able to raise rates on existing balances to compensate for the risk of extending unsecured credit, BofA doesn't expect that abandoning its ability to adjust rates will limit the amount of credit it can extend, says spokeswoman Betty Riess. The bank aims to boost lending to small businesses in 2010, including credit card loans, by $5 billion. Say Riess: "We're trying to make every good loan we can."

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14 Tips for Small Companies to Thrive in a Down Economy

8. Don't pander — ponder! Showcasing your wisdom without taking time to probe causal factors can be insulting. Instead, honor the complexity of client issues. Be inquisitive about their goals, frustrations, hopes, and struggles. Then construct a matrix of options and augment this with the advantages and disadvantages of each.

9. Prepare to bend by predicting the trends. Be vigilant about monitoring relevant trends, since they're always in flux. Even more importantly, anticipate and maintain an awareness regarding forces that could affect the trends you're monitoring. Doing so enables you to foresee and adapt to emerging trends before your competitors do.

10. Don't defer getting referrals. If you're not comfortable asking your satisfied clients to provide referrals, do it anyway! Once you've delighted them, conduct a brief interview to learn what they valued most about working with you. Using this information, draft a brief testimonial for them to edit and print onto their letterhead.

11. Publicize or perish. Both credibility and sales increase from publishing articles or books, and speaking on your area of expertise. It's not that hard! Every time you solve a problem for a client, produce an outline of the process from start to finish. Then fill in the outline, and voila, you have an article or a speech. Multiple articles can comprise a book. Writing a book is less daunting if you write only one chapter at a time without thinking of it as a book.

12. Value for free, service for fee. Consider providing an educational session to prospective clients at no charge, but structure the delivery so that they want more. For example, deliver the information you promised to deliver, but make reference to additional, high value information your clients receive.

13. Don't attend conventions without clear intentions. Recoup the opportunity cost of attending conventions. Get an attendee list in advance of the meeting, identify and research your targets before you even leave town. Then make it your mission at the meeting to establish contact and engage them. Remember: Attendance is not an outcome. Make your attendance result in new business by preparing in advance.

14. Break it down to build it. Identify key result areas of your business, such as prospecting, delivery, marketing, speaking, new product development, etc. For each, write out measurable goals each quarter. Break these down into component parts, and include them in your calendaring tool.

No matter how many of these tips you implement, your own outlook and attitude can diminish their effectiveness. Those who prevail in difficult times are the ones who steadfastly refuse to allow negativity to form a barrier to their success. They instead deliberately and diligently take constructive action, thereby refreshing and reinvigorating their minds and their spirits, enabling them to take more action, which refreshes and reinvigorates.

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14 Tips for Small Companies to Thrive in a Down Economy

If your thoughts are primarily fear-based, if you’re envisioning the worst for yourself and your business, if your conversations are focused predominately on bad news, then you’re seriously impeding your own success. Instead of giving succor to all the negative blathering, buckle down and determine to take three actions every single day to improve revenue. Here are some suggestions.

1. Don’t you DARE pick up that phone unless it’s to generate business! Be ruthlessly disciplined about generating business as JOB ONE. Any activity that doesn’t secure new business should be delegated or done during non-business hours. Prioritize everything else around this fundamental principle. During business hours, dedicate yourself exclusively to building your business.

2. Virtually stalk your prospects. Describe your ideal client. What types of organizations do they belong to? Join them. What kinds of publications do they read? Read them. What types of events do they attend? Attend them. Differentiate yourself with detective work about your targeted prospects. Research them; tap your network prospects. Research them; tap your network to learn more. This information helps warm up cold contacts, and sets you apart from most others who won't go to this much effort.

3. Work backward to move forward. If you're tracking important ratios, you know how many qualified prospect meetings it takes to generate one client and the average sale per client. With only these two pieces of information, you can control how much you sell each month. Determine desired sales volume, then conduct two to three times the number of qualified prospect meetings required to achieve it.

4. Invite scrutiny. Whose business acumen do you admire? Who's already successful in your field? Whose clientele does your product or service complement? Invite these folks to be your advisory board. Meet quarterly to gain their advice on your business challenges. Advisory boards impose a level of scrutiny and accountability that both challenge and comfort. Ensure you get unbiased, unemotional, tough truths by not including friends and loved ones on the board.

5. Your pipeline is your lifeline. NEVER stop prospecting. In good times or bad, keep your pipeline full! Even when you’re flush with business, don't get cocky. Realize that if you wait to prospect until you need new clients, it will be too late to achieve immediate results.

6. You lag before you bag. The lag time between your first meeting with a qualified prospect and closing the sale is an essential ratio for managing your productivity. The sales you bag today likely began at least three months ago!

7. Play the numbers. Whether you enjoy it or not is irrelevant — networking is an imperative. Learn how to do it well. If you want to survive the lean times, you have to network regularly and focus on helping others. Understand that networking is a numbers game. Play to win!

To Be Continued

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What to Do if Skype is Blocked Where You Travel (and Why We Should Care)

Her Is an a rticle i have found on the internet and i think its verry usefull

For the article soruce

I was testing my new iPhone Skype set up in Belize. It wouldn’t connect. I was connected to the internet via a wireless connection. I had Skype installed and it worked back home. But every time I tried to log in, it would simply hang. Nothing.

In Belize, Skype is blocked.

I quickly found out that the entire country of Belize uses a single carrier for internet service, Belize Telecommunications (BTL). And BTL, seemingly in a desire to force people to use their long distance services has blocked Skype (and other VOIP programs).

I think there’s a comfort in thinking that these kinds of things only happen in faraway places like China or North Korea. But the scariest part? It’s becoming more common. There were some cases of individual internet providers in the US blocking Skype, and until October of this year, AT&T didn’t allow iPhone users to access Skype either. A NY Times piece about allowing wifi access on planes suggested Skype access could be blocked.

As travelers, the ability to connect back home is part of what makes travel possible for many people. Sure you can buy a new cell phone in each country, but if you’re trying to run a business out of your backpack then you need a single number where you can reached. Skype provides that service. It scares the heck out of telecoms who can’t see any reason why everyone wouldn’t flee their expensive long distance plans and make all of their calls online.

How Do They Do That?

In all of the countries that block Skype or other online destinations, there is a manual process involved. Usually they have a firewall that restricts specific websites or data ports. Because all of your web traffic passes through their firewall before it reaches the outside world, it’s an effective block for anyone trying to get to a program or website directly.

How to Get Around It

The work around is connect to a VPN. A VPN bypasses the firewall, because after you make your initial connection (which your ISP can still deny) you have formed a private tunnel between your computer and your VPN’s server. So when you go to use Skype you’re not going through the firewall at all. You can basically do whatever you’d like.

The big caveat is that part about “after the initial connection”. Certain free VPNs have become so popular that they too have been blocked. And if you can’t connect, you can’t make the private tunnel, and you’re still stuck behind the firewall. To work around this, certain VPNs will change their IP address (the number that identifies them) and it creates a cat and mouse game of how fast they can change verses how fast the telecom can block it. Sometimes you’ll have a VPN that works for a year, or a month, or just a few days. The telecoms can’t keep up, and that’s unlikely to change.

Ways to Get a VPN

There are tons of websites that offer this service for free, and my best advice is to just try out a few and see if they’ll work where you are. Things change on a daily basis, so keep switching around if you hit a roadblock.

Free VPNs

Hotspot Shield

Yupee Phone

Log Mein

Wippien

Open VPN

Iopus

Voip Sol

Subscription VPNs

VPN Accounts

Banana VPN

Pro VPN Accounts

Countries that block Skype

This list is compiled from several reports and may include a single carrier, a government based block or a limited to a certain service area. If you have updates or additions to the list, let me know. I’m sure this list will be outdated before it’s even posted, but I’d like to try to keep it as fresh as possible.

1. Anguilla (blocked by Cable & Wireless, aka LIME)
2. Antigua and Barbuda (blocked by Cable & Wireless, aka LIME)
3. Bahrain*
4. Barbados (blocked by Cable & Wireless, aka LIME)
5. British Virgin Islands (blocked by Cable & Wireless, aka LIME)
6. Belize
7. Brazil (blocked by Brasil Telecom)
8. Cayman Islands (blocked by Cable & Wireless, aka LIME)
9. Cuba
10. Dominica (blocked by Cable & Wireless, aka LIME)
11. Germany (blocked by T Mobile)
12. Grenada (blocked by Cable & Wireless, aka LIME)
13. Guyana
14. Jamaica (blocked by Cable & Wireless, aka LIME)
15. Kuwait (blocked by Qualitynet)*
16. Montserrat (blocked by Cable & Wireless, aka LIME)
17. Myanmar
18. North Korea
19. Oman (blocked by Omantel)*
20. Pakistan (blocked by Cybernet, PCCW, PTA, PIE, Flag Telecom)
21. Paraguay
22. Qatar (blocked by Qtel)*
23. Saint Lucia (blocked by Cable & Wireless, aka LIME)
24. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (blocked by Cable & Wireless, aka LIME)
25. Singapore (blocked by Singtel)
26. St. Kitts and Nevis (blocked by Cable & Wireless, aka LIME)
27. Syria
28. Trinidad and Tobago (blocked by Cable & Wireless, aka LIME)
29. Turks and Caicos (blocked by Cable & Wireless, aka LIME)
30. UAE, Dubai (blocked by Etisalat)*

*May allow computer-to-computer calls (unconfirmed by specific telecom).

Why We Should Care

It’s a dangerous precedence. It’s about money, which a powerful motivator. If other countries see that the attempts by telecoms to restrict access to VOIP services like Skype massively backfires when they are unable to stem the flow of traffic via VPNs, then that’s a good thing. As I was researching this article, I found people aren’t talking about this. Even at Skype.com they only acknowledge that UAE has a block on their service. It’s the quiet the scares me.

With Cheap Food Imports, Haiti Can't Feed Itself

The earthquake not only smashed markets, collapsed warehouses and left more than 2.5 million people without enough to eat. It may also have shaken up the way the developing world gets food.

Decades of inexpensive imports – especially rice from the U.S. – punctuated with abundant aid in various crises have destroyed local agriculture and left impoverished countries such as Haiti unable to feed themselves.

While those policies have been criticized for years in aid worker circles, world leaders focused on fixing Haiti are admitting for the first time that loosening trade barriers has only exacerbated hunger in Haiti and elsewhere.

They're led by former U.S. President Bill Clinton – now U.N. special envoy to Haiti – who publicly apologized this month for championing policies that destroyed Haiti's rice production. Clinton in the mid-1990s encouraged the impoverished country to dramatically cut tariffs on imported U.S. rice.

"It may have been good for some of my farmers in Arkansas, but it has not worked. It was a mistake," Clinton told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 10. "I had to live everyday with the consequences of the loss of capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti to feed those people because of what I did; nobody else."

Clinton and former President George W. Bush, who are spearheading U.S. fundraising for Haiti, arrive Monday in Port-au-Prince. Then comes a key Haiti donors' conference on March 31 at the United Nations in New York.

Those opportunities present the country with its best chance in decades to build long-term food production, and could provide a model for other developing countries struggling to feed themselves.

"A combination of food aid, but also cheap imports have ... resulted in a lack of investment in Haitian farming, and that has to be reversed," U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes told The Associated Press. "That's a global phenomenon, but Haiti's a prime example. I think this is where we should start."

Haiti's government is asking for $722 million for agriculture, part of an overall request of $11.5 billion.

With Cheap Food Imports, Haiti Can't Feed Itself 2

That includes money to fix the estimated $31 million of quake damage to agriculture, but much more for future projects restoring Haiti's dangerous and damaged watersheds, improving irrigation and infrastructure, and training farmers and providing them with better support.

Haitian President Rene Preval, an agronomist from the rice-growing Artibonite Valley, is also calling for food aid to be stopped in favor of agricultural investment.

Today Haiti depends on the outside world for nearly all of its sustenance. The most current government needs assessment – based on numbers from 2005 – is that 51 percent of the food consumed in the country is imported, including 80 percent of all rice eaten.

The free-food distributions that filled the shattered capital's plazas with swarming hungry survivors of the Jan. 12 earthquake have ended, but the U.N. World Food Program is continuing targeted handouts expected to reach 2.5 million people this month. All that food has been imported – though the agency recently put out a tender to buy locally grown rice.

Street markets have reopened, filled with honking trucks, drink sellers clinking bottles and women vendors crouched behind rolled-down sacks of dry goods. People buy what's cheapest, and that's American-grown rice.

The best-seller comes from Riceland Foods in Stuttgart, Arkansas, which sold six pounds for $3.80 last month, according to Haiti's National Food Security Coordination Unit. The same amount of Haitian rice cost $5.12.

"National rice isn't the same, it's better quality. It tastes better. But it's too expensive for people to buy," said Leonne Fedelone, a 50-year-old vendor.

Riceland defends its market share in Haiti, now the fifth-biggest export market in the world for American rice.

But for Haitians, near-total dependence on imported food has been a disaster.

Cheap foreign products drove farmers off their land and into overcrowded cities. Rice, a grain with limited nutrition once reserved for special occasions in the Haitian diet, is now a staple.

Imports also put the country at the mercy of international prices: When they spiked in 2008, rioters unable to afford rice smashed and burned buildings. Parliament ousted the prime minister.

Now it could be happening again. Imported rice prices are up 25 percent since the quake – and would likely be even higher if it weren't for the flood of food aid, said WFP market analyst Ceren Gurkan.

Three decades ago things were different. Haiti imported only 19 percent of its food and produced enough rice to export, thanks in part to protective tariffs of 50 percent set by the father-son dictators, Francois and Jean-Claude Duvalier.

When their reign ended in 1986, free-market advocates in Washington and Europe pushed Haiti to tear those market barriers down. President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, freshly reinstalled to power by Clinton in 1994, cut the rice tariff to 3 percent.

Impoverished farmers unable to compete with the billions of dollars in subsidies paid by the U.S. to its growers abandoned their farms. Others turned to more environmentally destructive crops, such as beans, that are harvested quickly but hasten soil erosion and deadly floods.

There have been some efforts to restore Haiti's agriculture in recent years: The U.S. Agency for International Development has a five-year program to improve farms and restore watersheds in five Haitian regions. But the $25 million a year pales next to the $91.4 million in U.S.-grown food aid delivered just in the past 10 weeks.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization also distributed 28 tons of bean seeds in mountainous areas this month, with plans this week to distribute 49 tons of corn.

The G8 group of the world's wealthiest nations pledged $20 billion for farmers in poor countries last year. The head of the FAO called this week for some to be given to Haiti.

President Barack Obama's administration has pledged to support agriculture in developing nations. U.S. Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana has sponsored legislation to create a White House Global Food Security coordinator to improve long-term agriculture worldwide, with a budget of $8.5 billion through 2014.

Even Haiti's most powerful food importers have joined the push for locally produced food.

"I would prefer to buy everything locally and have nothing to import," said businessman Reginald Boulos, who is also president of Haiti's chamber of commerce.

But one group staunchly opposes reducing food exports to Haiti: the exporters themselves.

"Haiti doesn't have the land nor the climate ... to produce enough rice," said Bill Reed, Riceland's vice president of communications. "The productivity of U.S. farmers helps feed countries which cannot feed themselves."

Germany's New Bank Fee Will Pay For Future Bailouts

The German government plans to introduce a levy on banks to ensure that they pay for the costs of any future crises, sparing taxpayers, officials said Monday.

Leaders of Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition agreed that "banks cannot in future gamble at the taxpayer's expense," Volker Kauder, the parliamentary leader of her conservative bloc, told ZDF television.

They decided that "provisions must be made so that they – if it gets difficult – pay for things themselves," he added.

Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble's spokesman, Michael Offer, said a formal decision by Merkel's Cabinet is expected March 31.

He gave no details of the plan but said the levy would be at a "bearable" level and take into account the fact that some banks are still affected by the crisis. He stressed that it would be designed not to harm banks' ability to hand out credit.

Kauder gave no details on the size of the fund that would result from the levy, but said it would run into the billions of euros.

He said banks that pose a "higher systemic risk," for example with their own trading operations, would be asked to pay more than others.

Last week, the Association of German Banks, which represents private-sector banks including Deutsche Bank AG and Commerzbank AG, said it would support a privately financed but state-controlled stabilization fund that could intervene in future to rescue or wind up troubled lenders.

The Federation of German Industries said it was "legitimate" for the government to seek to involve banks in the costs of saving and stabilizing financial institutions.

Healthcare bill cements President Obama's legacy

Depending on their generation, most Americans will never forget where they were and what they were doing when Pearl Harbor was bombed, Jack Kennedy was murdered and the twin towers were toppled by madness and hatred. Though hardly as stark or tragic, except among the most fevered Obama-bashers, Sunday's health care vote has joined that pantheon of moments frozen in time. It doesn't matter that this bill is far less ambitious than many wanted, kicks in at an anemic pace and lets premium-gouging insurers off the hook for several more years. It's still the stuff of history. Barack Obama has pulled off the most epic piece of social legislation since Lyndon B. Johnson got Medicare and Medicaid passed in 1965. Every President since Teddy Roosevelt has dreamed of expanding health care coverage to most citizens, not just the oldest and poorest. The crusade has gone nowhere. Even as savvy a pol as Bill Clinton, described to his face at a weekend gathering of Washington political elites as the Ghost of Health Care Past, couldn't get it done. Now, two-thirds of a century after President Harry Truman's national health-insurance plan was vilified, reformers have finally prevailed against Republican obstructionists, industry lobbyists and even fretful Democrats. Whatever happens in the rest of his one or two terms, Obama's presidency is now indelibly defined by health care. He made history by virtue of his very election. By prevailing yesterday, he's assured at the very least that history's next clause won't read: "But his groundbreaking electoral victory proved to be the high-water mark of his tenure, with little of consequence accomplished by his administration." Ironically, Obama has emulated George W. Bush's model in ignoring the counsel of some pragmatic, fainthearted aides to hold off on health reform until later. Bush had no use for what he derided as "small ball," opting for more ambitious big-time policies like invading Iraq and pushing to privatize Social Security. Obama's gamble that he could do better than piecemeal, despite fierce opposition from his political enemies and dwindling support from queasy Democrats, has paid off. Had he lost, his presidency would be as much toast today as his NCAA tournament brackets. He didn't - and political history shows that success, no matter how narrow or incremental, has a way of breeding more success. "The guy is going to have more bounce in his step," said legendary political consultant Stuart Spencer, who catapulted Ronald Reagan to national prominence and advised four Presidents. "If he gets his rhythm back and the economy starts getting well, Republicans better be careful."

Ford CEO Alan Mulally Paid Nearly $18 Million In 2009

Ford Motor Co. President and CEO Alan Mulally fabricated $17.9 actor endure year, about 1 percent added than the year before, as the aggregation struggled through the affliction U.S. auto sales bazaar in decades, according to a adding by The Associated Press based on government filings.

Mulally took a 30 percent pay cut endure February, bottomward his bacon to $1.4 million, and he got no benefit for the additional year in a row. But the amount of his banal options and banal awards rose by 9 percent to added than $16 actor as the bazaar bigger and Ford's shares climbed afterwards in the year.

Ford shares rose to a five-year top endure anniversary afterwards Moody's Investors Account upgraded the automaker's debt and said Ford has the abeyant to advance its affairs even further. Ford shares rose 35 cents, or about 3 percent to $13.65 in morning trading Monday.

Mulally's advantage included $127,699 for use of a clandestine jet. Ford spent $752,203 for Mulally's air biking on accumulated jets the year before, but it began the action of affairs its accumulated jets in 2009. Ford was clumsy to advertise all 5 jets for a fair value, agent Mark Truby said, so it busy three to a allotment account and still has two up for sale. Ford aswell paid $43,447 for Mulally's security.

Mulally's 30 percent bacon cut aswell will be in aftereffect this year. Ford Chairman Bill Ford Jr. is abnegating any bacon or benefit until the company's auto area achieves full-year profitability, but he did accept $16.8 actor in stock-based advantage for 2009.

Ford's fortunes rose in 2009 even as U.S. industry sales angled to a 26-year low. The automaker becoming $2.7 billion in 2009, its aboriginal anniversary accumulation in four years. Unlike General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group, Ford abhorred defalcation cloister and didn't yield government loans. As a result, Ford reaped amicableness from buyers and concluded the year with its aboriginal U.S. bazaar allotment access back 1995.

Ford's revenues fell by 14 percent in 2009, but the aggregation benefited from $5.1 billion in cuts to manufacturing, engineering and advertising.

Mulally said 2009 was "pivotal" in Ford's transformation, but that the aggregation has cogent plan to do. The automaker, which took out big loans in 2006 to armamentarium its restructuring, concluded 2009 with $34.3 billion in debt. That puts Ford at a disadvantage to GM and Chrysler, which were able to afford debt in defalcation court.

Mulally's bacon has been a afraid point for the company's branch workers, who alone a new annular of allowance concessions in October. Many cited Mulally's actualization afore Congress in backward 2008, if he told assembly he wouldn't plan for $1 a year as a allegorical gesture.