Polo Ralph Lauren Corp. (RL) has recently launched an Apple, Inc. (AAPL) iPhone application that allows users to customize the Rugby brand of shirts. The move is an extension of the so-called "merchantainment" program of the company that blends its merchandising efforts with entertainment. Polo Ralph introduced the Rugby brand in 2004 to primarily target young adults. The new application enables iPhone and iPod touch device users to personalize the Rugby line of shirts including varsity sweaters, rugby shirts, polo shirts and hooded sweatshirts. Customers can now add patches that feature numbers and letters on their shirts, and upload their photos with chosen hairstyles, skin tones and backgrounds. The strategic move is aimed at utilizing popular networking sites to augment sales and establish direct communication with end users. Similar moves had already been taken by diverse companies such as Dell Inc. (DELL) and Starbucks ...

Navistar International Corporation (NAV) has showed a net loss of $35 million, or 49 cents per share for the third quarter of fiscal 2009 ended Oct. 31, 2009. The results include increased provisions for income taxes and exclude the extraordinary gain from the asset acquisition of the recreational vehicle manufacturing business of Monaco Coach Corporation. This was worse than the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 66 cents per share. The truck maker had reported a net income $331 million or $4.47 per share in the comparable quarter of the previous year. Sales for the quarter slashed 37% to $2.51 billion, driven by poor sales at the Truck division. Manufacturing segment profit was $110 million, including the impacts of the Ford settlement (regarding the violation of an exclusive supply agreement), net of related charges, for the quarter compared with $473 million in the year-ago period. Segment Performance...

For weeks now the liberal world media dutifully has been repeating dire threats against so-called “tax havens” from the big spending, high taxing, anti-tax competition likes of Germany’s Merkel and France’s Sarkosy.

Even President Obama allowed his less than impressive Secretary of the Treasury to make some noise against tax havens.

The orchestrated battle of words hurled at offshore financial centers got so heated that British PM Gordon Brown felt obliged to demand for “the end of tax havens.”

This belated anti-tax haven baloney comes from Her Majesty’s first minister whose government is in charge (and has been for a decade) of the United Kingdom’s many tax havens in its overseas territories (Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands, the Turks & Caicos) and its Crown Dependencies (the Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey and the Isle of Man), plus Gibraltar.

Does the Rt. Hon. Gordon believe that the

...

An interesting piece from The New York Times last month touches upon a theme explored a few months ago. Namely, Montenegro, and specifically its Adriatic coastal towns (e.g., Tivat, Budva), is becoming the next Monaco.  Montenegro receives more foreign investment per capita than any other country on the Continent, and it’s mostly thanks to wealthy Russians.  Needless to say, the country’s tax base and development is also improving.  The price of land in Budva, for example, where Russians are building a $310 million hotel and condominium complex on a rocky peninsula, is already more expensive than in the French-speaking tax haven.  And huge investments have also been made in the country’s industrial sector. Moreover, the Russian Bear also has its paws extended nearby: In neighboring Serbia, Gazprom, the Russian state energy monopoly, recently bought a majority stake in ...

Swiss banks are being targeted by EU officials desperate to blame someone for this financial crisis. But Bob Bauman says the country is strong enough to resist external calls to reform its bank secrecy and tax laws.

This from The Sovereign Society:

Last week, tax-hungry officials from the increasingly socialist countries of Germany and France declared another round in their long running war on Switzerland.

Their aim once again was against traditional Swiss bank secrecy, which the Franco-German politicians claim is little more than a cover for massive tax evasion. As usual, they didn’t offer any proof for this claim.

Over several centuries and during two World Wars, peaceful Switzerland always has maintained its traditional neutrality. It’s kept out of numerous wars involving both France and Germany, usually with the latter attacking the former.

The last time a war of sorts

...

by Edward Hugh: BarcelonaWell the action in Russia this week has moved on slightly, and the damage has started to spread from pressure on the domestic stock market (accompanied by capital flight) to the real economy - via a very rapid tightening in credit conditions for Russian domestic users. We are also seeing a rapid slowdown in Russian manufacturing industry as internal demand slows while the inflation-driven decline in cost competitiveness continues to make imported products (where available) an attractive alternative to the home produced variant.Emerging-market bonds have been generally falling this week as the U.S. Senate's approval of a $700 billion bank rescue package did little to revive demand for riskier debt, and Russia has, unsurprisingly, been among the worst affected. The extra yield investors demand to own developing-nation bonds rather than U.S. Treasuries rose 8 basis points yestreday to 4.14 percentage points after widening ...

by Edward Hugh: BarcelonaWell the action in Russia this week has moved on slightly, and the damage has started to spread from pressure on the domestic stock market (accompanied by capital flight) to the real economy - via a very rapid tightening in credit conditions for Russian domestic users. We are also seeing a rapid slowdown in Russian manufacturing industry as internal demand slows while the inflation-driven decline in cost competitiveness continues to make imported products (where available) an attractive alternative to the home produced variant.Emerging-market bonds have been generally falling this week as the U.S. Senate's approval of a $700 billion bank rescue package did little to revive demand for riskier debt, and Russia has, unsurprisingly, been among the worst affected. The extra yield investors demand to own developing-nation bonds rather than U.S. Treasuries rose 8 basis points yestreday to 4.14 percentage points after widening ...