| Poll puts Tories seven points ahead
Gordon Brown suffered a fresh blow as a poll showed the Tories have established a seven-point lead over Labour as their support reached a 15-year high. The ICM survey for The Sunday Telegraph suggests that David Cameron is now in a position to secure a Commons majority in a general election. The poll, putting the Tories on 43% and Labour on 36%, follows a torrid fortnight for the Prime Minister which has seen remarkable reversals in the fortunes of both main parties. Mr Brown's commanding lead in the polls - reaching an 11-point high during the Labour Party conference - has disappeared in the wake of Tory initiatives on tax, the spin row over troop withdrawals from Iraq and the last-minute decision not to call an autumn election. By contrast, Mr Cameron is in his strongest position since taking over as Tory leader, his party today more popular than at any time since the last Conservative government's Black Wednesday debacle in 1992.
Credit Woes Take Toll on Underwriting
A softening housing market and rising defaults on mortgages to the riskiest borrowers took a bite out of Wall Street wallets this year, and the resulting decline in securities underwriting volume could get worse in the new year. The global credit crunch that stemmed from a meltdown in some mortgage-related assets knocked down the volume of Wall Street stock and bond sales 4.2% to $7.51 trillion, the first decline in five years, according to Thomson Financial, which tracks securities issuance. .
A gentler capitalism
The latest evidence came last week from two titans of business, H. Lee Scott Jr., chief executive of Wal-Mart, and Bill Gates, the retiring chairman of Microsoft. At an annual meeting of thousands of Wal-Mart employees and suppliers on Jan. 23, Scott pledged that the company -- long one of the most ruthless firms in America -- would promote energy-efficient products and improve labor conditions in its supply chain. Scott even said that Wal-Mart stores might one day generate electricity with windmills and solar panels. The very next day, Gates, whose company is still under court supervision stemming from an antitrust settlement in 2002, used a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to call for a new "creative capitalism" in which "more people can make a profit, or gain recognition, doing work that eases the world's inequities."
Signs have long been mounting that corporate leaders are looking beyond the bottom line.
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