L’Oreal is one of the top cosmetics companies in the world. The French company owns a wide range of brands — Shue Uemura, Maybelline, Lancome, Kiehl’s and Garnier. L’Oreal is a big player in the cosmetics industry so it goes without saying anything it does will be closely scrutinized. And, let’s face it, in a business as shallow as beauty, you’d think it will be easy to avoid certain pitfalls. Unfortunately, the guys at L’Oreal are too engrossed on what they consider as “beauty” that they don’t even realize these pitfalls even if it’s already staring them in the face.

Just recently, L’Oreal was found guilty of racial discrimination by the French Supreme Court. The conviction stems from the company’s policy that Garnier sales staff should be “bleu, blanc, rouge” — the colors of the French flag but also the company’s code for white French people. What were they thinking? That people won’t likely buy lipstick from a person who’s not white? It’s just stupid beyond words. How can they even think their bottomline can be affected by the ethnicity of the sale staff. I want to buy hairgel, I won’t care if the salesperson’s from Mars, okay, I probably would, but only in so much as I’d want to strike up a conversation with a person from another planet.

In this day and age, it’s quite shocking that a company as progressive as L’Oreal would still propagate discrimination. It just reeks of bad taste offensiveness. I mean, the French has been described as rude and aloof but, I don’t believe they’re racist. L’Oreal is giving the French people a bad reputation.

Come on, L’Oreal guys! I think you know that beauty is not just skin deep. Merde!

A friend of mine recently showed me the infamous HiPhone — the China-made iPhone clone that you just have to see to believe. It may not have the newfangled technologies that Apple’s iPhone may have but the HiPhone’s manufacturer really did a good job of imitating the whole look of Apple’s Jesus Phone. It will really dupe anyone especially seen from afar.

Which brings me to the whole point of this post. We all know that China is the world hub for imitation goods. Name the fake item and most likely it was manufactured in China. I think it would even be fair assumption that the whole underground economy of the country is firmly entrenched in bogus and fake goods. But what most people fail to realize that manufacturing counterfeit goods actually have a far more significant effect than just fueling China’s underground economy and the proliferation of fakes around the world. By reverse engineering all sorts of stuff, the Chinese are actually learning what makes each quality item tick, what makes it expensive and ultimately be able to actually learn the skills to manufacture something just as good (if not better, in the most extreme circumstances). I respectfully submit that this thriving industry of fakes is going to be the real force that will make China the undisputed world economic power.

Why do I say this? Well, it’s simple. What would stop the Chinese from actually learning the secrets and taking advantage of the technology transfer that happens when a big manufacturing company transfers its operations to China? What would prevent them, for example, to learn the ropes of aircraft manufacture from established leaders like Boeing and Airbus if these are contracted to Chinese factories? I won’t be surprised if, in a decade or two, we’ll start seeing Boing 868s and AirTaxi B400s flying the friendly skies.

I was working late last night and since I was getting sleepy, I decided to turn the TV on to break the silence that was beginning to lull me to sleep. The program that caught my attention was a relatively old episode of Lockdown. For those of you who don’t know this program, it’s a series that features the notorious prisons all throughout America. You get a sobering look at the penal system, the violent prisoners that inhabit these prisons and the prison employees that try to keep things in order.

In last night’s episode, one of the inmates got imprisoned for luring a man and then beating him to death. Apparently, the prisoner, along with two other people, beat up the man in order to steal money for AIDS medicine. It was quite a chilling case, made more chilling because the inmate refuses to go out of his cell for fear that the prison is not a safe place for him. There are a lot of ironies here that are just too many to mention. But in this present economic climate, one can’t help but think about the people who do not have the support system or the capabilities to keep themselves afloat as the whole world tries to weather through the crisis. Hopefully the health system all over the world will not be affected as much because sick people really need help. And no amount of “kissing the boo-boo” will help really ill people.

Borat reflects the more austere fashions of cash-strapped Cannes

But this year, it looks like Cannes is also going through its own belt tightening measures to reflect the crisis that has cast a pall on the world economy. It’s safe to say that the business of entertainment is tiptoeing through this crisis just like other businesses.

Advance bookings for the film festival shows that there is a 15 percent drop in attendance. What this means is that there will be far fewer distributors on the lookout for films to buy and far fewer investors who would want to put their money on a movie — stocks in trade of the whole Cannes festival.

Things have become so surreal that Steven Spielberg is practically panhandling looking for investors for the now independent Dreamworks Studios, one of the more successful movie companies in Hollywood. Just the thought of Spielberg — arguably the most successful director in Hollywood history — begging for spare million dollars from investors sends shivers up my spine.

Because of the still bleak economic outlook, Hollywood is now adapting by lowering film budgets, down to 20 percent in some cases. This could mean Michael Bay may have to limit the cars he destroys in his next action movie from 60 to just 50 — the horror! But more alarming though is that there may be movies that may not see the light of day because the projected returns may not just be worth it. For this, the real losers are the art films and the independents that already make do with minuscule budgets and non-mainstream appeal.

Art does suffer during an economic crisis.

Chrysler tries to beat total collapse by getting aid from the government in the form of $4 Billion dollars last January is again getting protection with the blessing of the White House by filing for bankruptcy. The globally charismatic President Obama whom people simply cannot get enough of carries a sense of something everywhere he goes, call it charisma or call it the change he is promoting in the government but many favor his style, well not all. There will always be detractors for as the eternal Continue reading »

Talk about the lack of control and forward thinking, in the UK, health officials released a drug-dependent schizophrenic on the grounds that his out-patient treatment would be monitored by health servicemen that just didn’t happen. The outcome, the drug-laden man goes on a rampage eventually killing a police officer in the process before being stopped by other police officers. The man was released to care for himself, expected to take all his necessary medication with NHS people supposedly to go check in on him regularly for progress and evaluation of his case. He misses his scheduled check-ups, eludes health officials who by the way fail to inform the police that a dangerous man is at large which could have gotten him back into custody for his and the general public’s safety. Continue reading »

The housing market crash that is currently bringing chaos to the many homeowners who stand to lose their homes even with the ton’s of bailout money the government is shelling out is far from over. From the idiots at wall street and the banking sector who conjured out home packages that required no collateral to the very top levels of the housing market giants, Freddie and Fannie who are two of the biggest players in the housing industry they all benefited from the billions of dollars that the market earned. To make matter worse, all the watchdogs watching the watchdogs all knew this was happening and they simply looked the other way, till the market crashed and everybody started pointing fingers at everybody else. Continue reading »

The economic crisis has many a companies fighting for survival and yet out of the blue an underdog in the It industry made it big and even managed to post earnings. Apple has managed to post good profits in spite of the economic downturn which may be reason for a former CFO ratting out on the company’s CEO Steve Jobs. They’ve been at it for a while and it seems that the capitalist mind is hard at work trying to get the better of both of them. The stocks issues and many other financial information that was leaked to the SEC has Jobs in hot water for seemingly unfair stock options in terms of ownership of the company. The truth is out there somewhere yet many questions still have to be addressed Continue reading »

The effects of the recession may be bad, bad enough to get a 13-year old boy to get the bright idea of robbing a bank for some extra cash. The boy was caught red-handed, literally when dye packs blew and stained him red. According to police records, he is the youngest ever bank robber who has ever been documented making parents shiver at the thought of the way these kids are dealing with the hardships of life in today’s challenging times. They truly are getting younger, may be all those violent video Continue reading »

As if the world isn’t getting too crazy, politicians in India are seeking protection from show throwing that was made famous by that infamous journalist that got a shot at President Bush as he was heading out of office, diligently doing his farewells. Seems the act has become a significant sign of defiance that has been taken in by the world as a means of defiance or disdain. May protection come in the Continue reading »