Lex looking for tomorrow’s masters of the universe? Hint: Try Business School.

The Financial Times’ Lex asks: Where are tomorrow’s masters of the universe? Red in tooth-and-claw investment banks are pulling out all the stops to woo graduates. Nomura of Japan, arguably the world’s most socialist nation, is resorting to fat paycheques. Graduates are reportedly being offered $75,000, triple the average starting pay in Japan. US and [...]

Let China Sleep, For When She Wakes, She Will Shake the World.

Reposting an old review of the essential China Shakes the World by James Kynge.

More Bob Salomon on MBAs [FT]

More insights from HBS’s Salomon on the state of the MBA. On MBA job prospects: the job market has been challenging (to say the least) for graduates of the class of 2009 as bad as it has been for the class of 2009, unfortunately things are shaping up to be worse (dare I say awful) [...]

Dubai’s Disappearing Dream Jobs [FT].

Simeon Kerr in the FT reports on the rapidly changing job prospects in Dubai (summary: it’s a buyer’s market). Real estate and finance are generally out although senior replacement positions are still being actively filled. The rest of the region led by Doha and Abu Dhabi and followed by Saudi and Kuwait are faring better.

Abu Dhabi’s Media Ambitions.

Abu Dhabi is spending billions of dollars to transform itself into a global media hub. What will that mean for Dubai and Doha’s media ambitions?

Gapper on the misguided careers of Harvard MBAs.

The FT’s John Gapper looks into Ray Soifer’s annual analysis of the career paths of Harvard MBAs, which shows that a record-breaking proportion of this elite became bankers or financiers when they graduated this summer.

FT’s John Gapper on the fatal banker’s fall.

Many of those jobs – and much of the bonus pool that supported them – are at risk. I do not think investment banking will regain its hegemony for a very long time, if ever. – John Gapper (Financial Times)

China Shakes The World. James Kynge.

James Kynge, former china bureau chief of best newspaper in the world (The Financial Times), won the FT / Goldman Sachs business book of the year award in 1996 with ‘china shakes the world’ which is a superb, concise introduction to how and why china is shaping our world.
the first half tells the condensed history of china’s post-cultural revolution rise and illuminates its leading position during much of the last six thousand years.
the book starts off recounting the mysterious disappearance of manhole covers all over the world (with plenty of reports of unsuspecting pedestrians falling into the suddenly-there holes from Mongolia to Montreal) as a signal of when the direction of the world – China relationship switched: the view of China flipped from how the outside world was changing China to how China was affecting the rest of the world. China’s voracious appetite for almost every conceivable resource including the scrap metal that those manholes were destined to become was just one signal that the causal direction was switching.
James has plenty of engaging first-hand accounts from his two decades living in china through which it often seems we are witnessing China’s economic transformation unfold through his eyes.

Some of the major themes / ideas that run throughout include:

* businesses everywhere are finding it harder to compete (manufacturers in particular), the sustainability of europe’s welfare state model is in question as the industrial base there is hollowed out.
* china out-competes and out-capitalizes everyone, especially America.
* Chinese possess the impressive combo of intelligence and second-to-none work ethic.
* china through lowering the cost of goods and its insatiable appetite for us treasuries (in part to manage its currency) has fueled the low-iinterest rate driven housing boom and general drive for yield that has resulted in the current sub-prime, credit-crunch, free-fall dollar mess we’re in.
* 400 million people have been lifted above the poverty line over the last 28 years of above 9.5% economic growth.