Opening with a question about the previous paragraph announces
that an explanation will follow.
Platinum may be more expensive, troy ounce for troy ounce,
but gold remains the noblest metal in the eyes of chemists. Other so-called
noble metals react fairly easily with their environment—a copper
roof turns green and silver tarnishes—but gold's ability to resist
all but the strongest acids is part of the reason it has fascinated
kings and commoners for centuries. Even platinum helps other chemicals
to react, which is why it is used as a catalyst for car exhausts. Gold,
however, remains haughtily above such common tasks, refusing to react
with the molecular masses.
But why? It is not as though gold were chemically
inert. After all, anything less than 24-carat gold is an example of
gold's ability to bond strongly with other noble metals. The unresolved
puzzle has been why oxygen, hydrogen, and other reactive constituents
of the atmosphere—and the constituents of many acids—are hard
put to bond with gold. Theorists in Denmark now believe that they have
the answer. And their calculations do not only provide an explanation
for gold's unique pedigree. They also point the way to designing better
catalysts.
In other cases, families can afford to send their children
to school only if they also work at the same time. It is this family
dilemma that makes laws against child labor so difficult to enforce.
Thus in Mexico children obtain forged birth certificates in order to
secure jobs in the maquiladora factories operated by U.S. firms along
the northern border. And it is this that makes worthy corporate codes
of conduct liable to backfire: the danger is that, far from contributing
to the end of child labor, they merely shift it to shadier areas of
the economy that are far harder to police.
So what should companies do? Some initiatives
appear more promising than others. One such is the effort that Levi
Strauss, a maker of jeans, has made to provide schooling for child workers
in its suppliers' plants in Bangladesh. The provision of other benefits,
such as medical care and meals, may also be appropriate.
The Börsen-Zeitung is among the most expensive
daily papers in the world. For the hefty DM 7.20 ($3.80) cover price,
readers get the best and most detailed reporting of German companies.
The editor, Hans Konradin Herdt, has the sharpest pen of any financial
journalist in the country: bound copies of his leading articles are
sent to all subscribers as a Christmas present. His satirical talents
reduce sober-sided German financiers to stitches. "A silver bullet
into the boardroom," is one advertiser's assessment of the paper's
reach.
Just who reads it? That, it turns out, is a
closely guarded secret. Usually for a newspaper supported by advertising,
the Börsen-Zeitung refuses to disclose figures, lest they
be "misunderstood," Mr. Herdt says. It also declines to commission
standard research about its jobs and spending power. Insiders suspect
that circulation is small, between 6,000 and 10,000. Simon McPhillips
of DMB&B, an advertising agency, says the "ludicrous"
lack of information certainly deters advertisers, especially foreign
ones.
