Bizzy’s Biz Links of the Day (090205)

Interesting business items I’ve come across in the past few days:

– The latest preferred targets of identity thieves:

• Online resume posters
• People accused by crooks pretending to be county government officials of skipping jury duty (UPDATE: More detail on how the ID theft attempt works)
• Teens, especially those who have no existing credit files.
• I’ll add one of my own: Katrina victims, who could have their identities stolen in a variety of ways. Just a couple might include people posing as aid workers who get personal information “for relief agency purposes,” and looters who stayed behind breaking into people’s homes and going through personal files. UPDATE: This article notes the danger.

– Economist Jude Wanniski died a few days ago.

Wanniski is the father of supply-side economics, whose basic premise is that reducing marginal tax rates will spur economic growth and entrepreneurship to such an extent that tax collections will actually increase despite the lower rates. This is of course what happened with the tax cuts of the early 1980s, which moved the economy from near-depression, double-digit inflation, and very high unemployment to an unprecedented boom. The situation appears to be replaying itself with the Bush 2001-2002 tax cuts, though it’s too early to definitively say so.

Here is James Glassman’s piece on Wanniski (HT Driscoll), which notes that his life’s record will probably not be seen as 100% stellar.

– Lenovo (the Chinese government-controlled company that bought IBM’s personal computer business earlier this year) wants to dominate the personal computer business:

PURCHASE, New York— Top Chinese personal computer maker Lenovo Group will start to sell its namesake personal computers outside China in the first quarter of next year as part of its long-term plan to build the world’s leading PC brand, its chief executive told Reuters.

Lenovo’s PC shipments in China were three times those of its closest rival in the second quarter, but it has only recently broken into the international market in a big way, with its $1.25 billion acquisition of International Business Machines Corp.’s PC unit.

Lenovo will make IBM’s flagship Thinkpad laptops available in Lenovo stores shortly. The acquisition has made it the third-biggest global PC vendor behind Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co.

“We want to grow Lenovo into a worldwide brand,” CEO Steve Ward said. “In five years, we will have a strong chance to be the leading brand in PC.”

Whether Lenovo could achieve that goal depends on whether it can add new functions and drive costs down, Ward said.

The company spends 1.5 percent of its revenue on research, about twice the standard rate for the industry. It has plans to set up research centers in North Carolina and Beijing.

The former IBM business posted a surprising profit in the quarter through June, thanks to cost cutting efforts. The entire company reported a net profit of HK$357 million ($45.94 million), up from HK$336.8 million last year when it did not have the IBM unit.

This bears watching, especially if the Chinese government heavily subsidizes Lenovo through tax breaks or lower raw material costs from other government-controlled firms.