November 2009

Consumer prices  edged up faster than expected in October, driven higher by another increase in energy prices and the biggest jump in new car prices in 28 years.

However, prices are lower than they were a year ago and inflation is expected to remain subdued amid a slow economic recovery.

The Labor Department reported today that consumer prices rose 0.3 percent in October, a bit more than the 0.2 percent economists had expected. Core inflation, which excludes energy and food, rose 0.2 percent.

Overall prices since October 2008 are down 0.2 percent, reflecting the effects of the longest recession since the 1930s. Even though economists believe the downturn ended over the summer, the unemployment rate has continued to rise, hitting a 26-year high of 10.2 percent in October.

Weak labor markets have kept a lid on wage pressures and the fragile economy has made it tough for businesses to raise the price of their products. Read the rest of this entry »

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“Experience is the child of Thought, and Thought is the child of Action. We cannot learn men from books,” wrote Benjamin Disraeli in the 19th century. That’s an important consideration in the selection of public relations firm: Experience.

The larger, national or international firms are filled with experience; much of it derived from professionals who’ve spent their entire careers working for public relations agencies. One must wonder, then, how well is a client served in corporate relations when an account manager has never actually worked for a corporation. And how well is a client served in media relations with account executives without journalism experience?

This is not to say that the larger firms don’t offer this experience. They do, but it is not often manifest as most of a large firm’s professional population simply doesn’t possess that kind of background. Read the rest of this entry »

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The Commerce Department reported today that businesses reduced inventories 0.4 percent in September. That’s slightly better than the 0.7 percent drop economists expected and much improved from a 1.6 percent decline in August.

Sales also fell 0.3 percent in September, the first setback since May.

Still, businesses soon may begin restocking depleted store shelves after more than a year of cuts. If that occurs, factory production will begin to rise on a sustained basis, helping to bolster a broad recovery from the worst recession since the 1930s.

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The Commerce Department reported that  retail sales rose 1.4 percent in October, reflecting a rebound in auto sales. Excluding auto sales, retail demand rose 0.2 percent, half of the expected 0.4 percent rise. However, Sales fell at many other retail stores as consumer spending remains under pressure, raising questions about the durability of the recovery.

September retail sales were revised downward to show a 2.3 percent decline, from the 1.5 percent drop initially reported.

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Public relations affects almost all who have contact with other human beings. All of us, in one way or another, practice public relations daily. For an organization, every phone call, every letter, every face-to-face encounter is a public relations event. How is it handled, effected, concluded is Strategic Communications, which Stern And Company practices as a superset which comprises corporate communications, crisis communications, financial or investor relations, change or employee communications and marketing communications, as well as public affairs and community relations.

For purposes of clarity, we will refer to Public Relations in this essay.

To be sure, public relations is not a profession like law, accounting, and medicine, in which practitioners are trained, licensed, and supervised. Nothing prevents someone with little or no formal training from hanging out a shingle as a public relations specialist.

Over the past two decades, public relations has steadily built its reputation, increased its prominence, and earned respect across a wide span of society. As today’s institutions strive to understand more clearly the forces of change, adapt their activities to new pressures and aspirations, and listen and communicate more effectively, public relations becomes more impor­tant. Institutions rely on their practitioners to help win public support and trust, without which they will be rendered powerless. Read the rest of this entry »

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