Competitive Advantage

Re "Price of Free Trade: Famine," by Marc Edelman, Commentary, March 22: It is not free trade that causes famine and other ills in Latin America. Inept, corrupt and oppressive governments do the most harm. Rich countries do the rest by subsidizing and protecting their agricultural, textile and steel industries--the very areas where poor nations have competitive advantage. The anti-globalization crowd is coy about broaching plans for development, but if you read between the lines they write you will find advocacy for the same misguided policies--state socialism and protectionism--that have caused so much human misery in the past.

For the money she spent ensuring that her two daughters excelled at softball, Tommie Alcaraz could have paid for a two-bedroom condo or four years at Princeton--with money left over for a top-shelf Volvo. By the time the girls graduated from high school, Alcaraz and her husband, a construction superintendent, had dropped $161,000. On hitting, running and pitching coaches, sometimes four at a time. On club fees, road trips, cleats and bats. On what parents call "the machine."

Carl G. Hokanson's letter characterizing Microsoft making price adjustments based on currency fluctuation as dumping is completely in error ["Is It 'Dumping' or a Double Standard?" Letters, Dec. 21]. Microsoft is not taking this action to achieve competitive advantage. The action is being taken in order to save and stabilize a market and to help keep the market viable. Further, since Windows is the primary operating system on the PC platform, it could be argued the action is both prudent and necessary to ensure the continued flow of other related goods which are exported from the United States.

The title of Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter's latest work, "The Competitive Advantage of the Inner City," tells you that reality is different from conventional thinking. Porter, author of "The Competitive Advantage of Nations" and other books on business strategy, sees decaying inner cities as America's most pressing problem but also its opportunity, thanks to inherent advantages of location, market demand and human resources--not cheap labor.

Good Housekeeping magazine plans to get more mileage out of the work of researchers who have helped make its seal a symbol of reliability. The venerable Hearst Corp. magazine, which turns 110 years old on Tuesday, created the Good Housekeeping Institute at the turn of the century to make sure that products advertised in the magazine lived up to their ad claims. Manufacturers whose products met the standards and bought the requisite amount of ad space got the right to the Good Housekeeping Seal.

Diversity: It's a '90s buzzword that UC Irvine professor of management Judy B. Rosener says will take on even greater significance as America's labor force enters the new millennium. By the year 2010, it is estimated, white men will account for less than 40% of the total American work force; women and people of color will fill 75% of the 24 million new jobs created in the United States.

Zero false modesty, and no apologies to Adam Smith from Michael Porter. The Harvard Business School guru's unself-consciously titled "The Competitive Advantage of Nations" may glitter with global analyses, but it really burns with ambition. No fewer than 10 countries and a dozen industries are spectroanalyzed through Porter's prism of competitiveness.

Although owner Eddie DeBartolo Jr. of the San Francisco 49ers did not attend the NFL's annual spring meeting, his name came up more than a few times during the two days of discussions that concluded Thursday.