oliverhannak

Illustration by David Simonds

IF YOU believe what they say about themselves, big companies have never been better citizens. In the past decade, “corporate social responsibility” (CSR) has become the norm in the boardrooms of companies in rich countries, and increasingly in developing economies too. Most big firms now pledge to follow policies that define best practice in everything from the diversity of their workforces to human rights and the environment. Criticism of CSR has come mostly from those on the free-market right, who intone Milton Friedman's argument that the only “social responsibility of business is to increase its profits” and fret that business leaders have capitulated to political correctness. But in a new twist to the debate, a powerful critique of CSR has just been published by a leading left-wing thinker.

In his new book, “Supercapitalism”, Robert Reich denounces CSR as a dangerous diversion that is undermining democracy, not least in his native America. Mr Reich, an economist who served as labour secretary under Bill Clinton and now teaches at the University of California, Berkeley, admits to a Damascene conversion, having for many years “preached that social responsibility and profits converge over the long term”. He now believes that companies “cannot be socially responsible, at least not to any significant extent”, and that CSR activists are being diverted from the more realistic and important task of getting governments to solve social problems. Debating whether Wal-Mart or Google is good or evil misses the point, he says, which is that governments are responsible for setting rules that ensure that competing, profit-maximising firms do not act against the interests of society.

One after another, Mr Reich trashes the supposed triumphs of CSR. Socially responsible firms are more profitable? Nonsense. Certainly, companies sometimes find ways to cut costs that coincide with what CSR activists want: Wal-Mart adopts cheaper “green” packaging, say, or Starbucks gives part-time employees health insurance, which reduces staff turnover. But “to credit these corporations with being ‘socially responsible' is to stretch the term to mean anything a company might do to increase profits if, in doing so, it also happens to have some beneficent impact on the rest of society,” writes Mr Reich.

Worse, firms are using CSR to fool the public into believing that problems are being addressed, he argues, thereby preventing more meaningful political reform. As for politicians, they enjoy scoring points by publicly shaming companies that misbehave—price-gouging oil firms, say—while failing to make real changes to the regulations that make such misbehaviour possible, something Mr Reich blames on the growing clout of corporate lobbyists.

What will CSR advocates make of this? Few will dispute that government has a crucial role to play in setting the rules of the game. Many will also share Mr Reich's concern about the corrosive political power of corporate money. But Mr Reich has it “exactly backwards”, says John Ruggie of Harvard University. If citizens and politicians were prepared to do the right thing, he says, “there would be less need to rely on CSR in the first place.”

Thoughtful advocates of CSR also concede that companies are unlikely to do things that are against their self-interest. The real task is to get them to act in their enlightened long-term self-interest, rather than narrowly and in the short term. Mr Reich dismisses this as mere “smart management” rather than social responsibility. But done well, CSR can motivate employees and strengthen brands, while also providing benefits to society. Understanding and responding to the social context in which firms operate is increasingly a source of new products and services, observes Jane Nelson of the Prince of Wales International Business Leaders Forum. Telling firms they need not act responsibly might cause them to under-invest in these opportunities, and to focus excessively on short-term profits.

Intriguingly, Mr Reich looks back fondly to what he calls the “not quite golden age” in America after the second world war when firms really were socially responsible. Business leaders believed they had a duty to ensure that the benefits of economic growth were distributed equitably, in contrast to their modern counterparts, argues Mr Reich. What changed? Back then, big American firms enjoyed the luxury of oligopoly, he says, which gave them the ability to be socially responsible. Today's “supercapitalism” is based on fierce global competition in which firms can no longer afford such largesse.

Lenny Mendonca of McKinsey takes a different view of the post-war period. After the war business leaders realised it was in their enlightened self-interest to rebuild the global economy and reinvent the social contract, he says, and there is a similar opportunity today, given problems ranging from climate change to inadequate education, where firms' long-term self-interest may mean that they have an even greater incentive to find solutions than governments do. Certainly, in America, business leaders are advocating government action on education, climate change and health-care reform that is neither zero-sum nor short-termist, and which, indeed, may not differ much from Mr Reich's own preferences.

Though his book hits many targets, both bosses and CSR activists are likely to dismiss it as fundamentally unworldly and to agree with Simon Zadek, the boss of AccountAbility, a CSR lobby group. “The ‘whether in principle' conversation about CSR is over,” he says. “What remains is ‘What, specifically, and how?'”

THE costliest place in the world to get high is Japan, according to the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime's annual World Drug Report. The street price of a gram of cannabis weed was $58.30 in 2005, over twice as much as in the next most expensive nation, Australia. Americans pay nearly twice as much as Canadians. Similar disparities occur in Europe. Although the Netherlands is the only Western country where cannabis can be bought legally, punters pay more there than in Germany or France. Prices are cheapest in developing countries, where enforcement is less strict.

AP

Satoshi Kambayashi

FOR several years, the darkest scenarios for the world economy have involved a dollar crash. The script was simple. America’s dependence on foreign capital was a dangerous vulnerability. At some point foreign investors would refuse to pile up ever more dollar assets. If investors were spooked, say by a crisis in American financial markets, they might ditch dollars fast. The greenback would plunge. A tumbling currency would prevent the Fed from cutting interest rates, deepening and spreading the economic pain.

Well, the financial shock has hit but where is the stampede out of dollars? The greenback has fallen, to be sure, particularly since it has become clear that the Federal Reserve is likely to cut interest rates on September 18th, and particularly against the yen and the euro—the dollar hit an all-time low of $1.39 per euro on Wednesday September 12th and its decline continued on Thursday.

But the decline, so far, has hardly been a panicked rout. Although the dollar has plumbed historical depths against an index of important currencies, it has fallen by less than 1.5% since the financial turmoil hit in early August. Measured against a broader group of currencies that includes all America’s main trading partners, the dollar is little changed from where it was before August’s tumult began.

As the first signs of trouble emerged, the dollar even rose. To some analysts this confirmed the dollar’s status as a haven in troubled times. More likely, it was the consequence of unwinding leveraged bets elsewhere. Whatever the reason, the dollar’s initial buoyancy did not last. In recent weeks the greenback has slowly fallen and the likely path of interest rates suggests there is more weakness to come.

Recent gloomy job statistics suggested that the economy was weakening well before the credit turmoil hit, and all but sealed the case for a cut in short-term interest rates on September 18th, certainly of a quarter point, perhaps by as much as half a percentage point. With the European Central Bank hinting strongly that euro-zone interest rates might rise again this year, it is no surprise that the dollar has hit new lows against the euro.

Its path against the yen is harder to foresee. Japan’s economy, too, seems to be in a spot of bother making it much less likely that the Bank of Japan will raise interest rates in a hurry. That suggests the carry-trade (selling borrowed yen to invest elsewhere) will remain attractive, limiting the yen’s rise.

For true dollar pessimists, these cyclical considerations are only part of the story. Far more important, they argue, is the risk that the private investors and central banks that have been funding America’s gaping current-account deficit become permanently less keen on dollar assets. Ken Rogoff, an economist at Harvard University, and a dollar bear, argues that America’s image as a great financial centre has been tarnished by the subprime mess. The “mystique” that has allowed America to borrow lavishly and cheaply has suffered a blow. The result, he argues, must be a lower dollar and higher interest rates in America relative to the rest of the world.

Indeed, the complex structured-debt products that investors now shun have been an important source of financing for America’s current-account deficit. In 2006 foreign investors, on net, bought some $400 billion of corporate-issued debt (including mortgage-backed securities not guaranteed by the government-sponsored housing giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac). That is the equivalent of around half the current-account deficit.

It is hard to know what share of this debt was asset-backed, let alone mortgage-backed but the numbers are big enough that foreign flight from the mortgage-backed market, if not countered by eager buying of other types of American assets, could cause trouble for the dollar.

The lesson of the past few weeks, however, is that this is unlikely to happen all of a sudden. And if private investors fret, central banks may well pick up the slack. China, in particular, has little to gain from a dollar crash. With domestic inflation now at a ten-year high, China’s politicians may be willing to let the yuan rise somewhat faster against the dollar. But they are unlikely to add to a rout, not least because that would make their exports much less competitive in America.

Another argument against a sudden crash is that the dollar is already quite cheap. In real effective terms, it has slowly fallen by some 20% since its recent peak in 2002. That decline is already helping to shrink America’s external deficit. Add in the probability of sharply slower domestic demand in America, and the current-account deficit could shrink a fair bit over the coming months. A smaller need for foreign funds would itself put a floor under the dollar. All told, the doom-mongers’ script may play out in reverse. Instead of a financial crisis prompting a dollar crash, it may accelerate the unwinding of the imbalances that had the worrywarts so unnerved in the first place.

Alex, a 31-year-old African gray parrot, knew more than 100 words and could count and recognize colors and shapes.

He knew his colors and shapes, he learned more than 100 English words, and with his own brand of one-liners he established himself in television shows, scientific reports and news articles as perhaps the world’s most famous talking bird.

But last week Alex, an African gray parrot, died, apparently of natural causes, said Dr. Irene Pepperberg, a comparative psychologist at Brandeis University and Harvard who studied and worked with the parrot for most of his life and published reports of his progress in scientific journals. The parrot was 31.

Scientists have long debated whether any other species can develop the ability to learn human language. Alex’s language facility was, in some ways, more surprising than the feats of primates that have been taught American Sign Language, like Koko the gorilla, trained by Penny Patterson at the Gorilla Foundation/Koko.org in Woodside, Calif., or Washoe the chimpanzee, studied by R. Allen and Beatrice Gardner at the University of Nevada in the 1960s and 1970s.

In 1977, when Dr. Pepperberg, then a doctoral student in chemistry at Harvard, bought Alex from a pet store, scientists had little expectation that any bird could learn to communicate with humans, as opposed to just mimicking words and sounds. Research in other birds had been not promising.

But by using novel methods of teaching, Dr. Pepperberg prompted Alex to learn scores of words, which he could put into categories, and to count small numbers of items, as well as recognize colors and shapes.

“The work revolutionized the way we think of bird brains,” said Diana Reiss, a psychologist at Hunter College who works with dolphins and elephants. “That used to be a pejorative, but now we look at those brains — at least Alex’s — with some awe.”

Other scientists, while praising the research, cautioned against characterizing Alex’s abilities as human. The parrot learned to communicate in basic expressions — but he did not show the sort of logic and ability to generalize that children acquire at an early age, they said.

“There’s no evidence of recursive logic, and without that you can’t work with digital numbers or more complex human grammar,” said David Premack, emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Pepperberg used an innovative approach to teach Alex. African grays are social birds, and quickly pick up some group dynamics. In experiments, Dr. Pepperberg would employ one trainer to, in effect, compete with Alex for a small reward, like a grape. Alex learned to ask for the grape by observing what the trainer was doing to get it; the researchers then worked with the bird to help shape the pronunciation of the words.

Alex showed surprising facility. For example, when shown a blue paper triangle, he could tell an experimenter what color the paper was, what shape it was, and — after touching it — what it was made of. He demonstrated some of his skills on nature shows, including programs on PBS and the BBC. He shared scenes with the actor Alan Alda on the PBS series “Look Who’s Talking.”

As parrots can, he also picked up one-liners from hanging around the lab, like “calm down” and “good morning.” He could express frustration, or apparent boredom, and his cognitive and language skills appeared to be about as competent as those in trained primates. His accomplishments have also inspired further work with African gray parrots; two others, named Griffin and Arthur, are a part of Dr. Pepperberg’s continuing research program.

Even up through last week, Alex was working with Dr. Pepperberg on compound words and hard-to-pronounce words. As she put him into his cage for the night last Thursday, she recalled, Alex looked at her and said: “You be good, see you tomorrow. I love you.”

He was found dead in his cage the next morning, Dr. Pepperberg said.

Torsten Silz/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

The Mercedes-Benz F700 concept car is a rolling test bed of new environmental technologies, including the DiesOtto engine, which produces 238 horsepower and 295 foot-pounds of torque from just 1.8 liters.

FRANKFURT

European automakers, stung by criticisms from environmentalists and government regulators that they are late to the green party, will be using the 2007 Frankfurt motor show to showcase everything in their alternative fuel and powertrain arsenals.

The biennial show, the 62nd Internationalen Automobil-Ausstellungen Cars, will be held at the mammoth CongressCenter Messe Frankfurt convention center from Thursday through Sept. 23. Press preview days began Monday night and continue through Wednesday. Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, will open the show to the public on Thursday.

Organizers boast the show will be “the leading international fair for sustainable mobility,” and millions of euros will be spent on lavish displays touting environmentally responsible motoring. The show, spread throughout 2.5 million square feet of exhibit area, is always brutal on the podiatric health of journalists, some 10,000 of whom have reportedly received credentials. They will have to hustle to see how many of the 88 world premieres they can attend; perfect attendance is impossible because with so many introductions packed into barely two press days, multiple introductions are scheduled simultaneously, at widely disparate locations.

To pound home the sustainability theme, press shuttles are various alternative fuel and propulsion vehicles. Journalists are also being offered “eco-training” classes to learn economical driving techniques. A BioFuels Bar has information about the advantages and possible uses of biofuels and also dispenses biofuel-themed drinks. And the physically fit can hike an “Environmental Trail” around the convention center (a complex of buildings so sprawling it is served by three train stations).

The stars of the show, not surprisingly considering the host country, figure to be the German automakers. Mercedes-Benz is planning to unveil as many as 18 products, including Bluetec diesels and hybrids with both gasoline and diesel engines.

The centerpiece of the newly emancipated DaimlerMinusChrysler is the F700 concept, an S-Class-sized vehicle with five doors and 40 miles per gallon economy. The F700 is a rolling test bed of new environmental technologies, including the DiesOtto engine. This four-cylinder gasoline engine, pronounced “Dees-Otto” (not De Soto), produces 238 horsepower and 295 foot-pounds of torque from just 1.8 liters , using a new technology known as homogenous charge compression ignition. The engine has two ignition modes — compression, under light loads, and spark at other times — to boost fuel mileage. The company said the DiesOtto engine has the strong low-end torque and fuel savings of a diesel, but with emissions that are lower than a diesel.

BMW is taking the wraps off a new X6 crossover, an X5-based S.U.V.-type vehicle, powered by a gasoline-electric hybrid engine. The “sporty, coupe-like” X6, to be built in Spartanburg, S.C., seats four and has five doors. Of interest here to enthusiasts is the much anticipated 1-Series coupe. The 1-Series offerings, the 128i and 135i, are throwbacks to the nimble, quick, shoebox-sized BMWs of 30 years ago. With the same 300-horsepower turbo engine that is in some 3- and 5-Series models, the 135i should be a rocket, perhaps even “a modern BMW 2002”, as Car and Driver magazine gushes.

Another important newcomer is the Volkswagen City Expert concept, which could be VW’s most important new vehicle since the New Beetle. VW will also show the production-ready Tiguan, a smaller Touareg-themed S.U.V., and BlueTec diesel models.

Audi is displaying a new line of diesel engines that the company said have the “cleanest diesel technology in the world.” The turbodiesel powerplants employ a fuel-saving, hybrid-like stop-start system and a chemical injection system to reduce nitrogen emissions. An all-new Audi A4 sedan is also making its debut, as is the A8, the brand’s flagship sedan that has had a facelift.

Not to be outdone by all this emphasis from German automakers on green technology, even Porsche is bringing out a gasoline-electric hybrid version of its Cayenne S.U.V. here. Relax, Porsche-philes, also on tap is the new 911 GT2, the most powerful street-legal 911 ever.

General Motors’s Opel division is in fact headquartered in Frankfurt and is introducing here an Agila minivan and a hybrid concept that will have G.M.’s E-Flex propulsion system (first shown on the Chevrolet Volt concept at the 2007 Detroit auto show). In this variation, an Opel Astra-like vehicle is equipped with the electric motors and a turbodiesel engine. Since Saturn seems to get everything Opel brings out, is this related to the Saturn plug-in hybrid that was announced at the ’06 L.A. Auto Show? Hmmm.

American manufacturers certainly have increased their presence here in recent years. G.M. is expanding its Euro-only Cadillac BLS line with an “estate” or station wagon version of the sedan. The Swedish-built car is essentially a Saab 9-3 wagon in a Caddy-lite disguise. Also showing here: A Chevrolet Aveo hatchback. No crowding, please. Over at Saab, there’s a hot new Turbo X to ogle.

Dodge continues to expand its offerings here with a new Journey crossover that it will sell in Europe. The Journey is built on a stretched Avenger platform and will replace the short wheelbase Chrysler Voyager minivan sold here.

Ford, in the midst of a product realignment that will bring many European versions of its cars to America, is showing two new concepts here. The Verve is supposed to be a sneak preview of the upcoming Fiesta subcompact, due in Europe next year and North America and Asia a year or two later. The Kuga concept is a Focus-based crossover that is nearing production form.

Jaguar, which Ford has on the block, is bringing out the latest vehicle that is supposed to save the company (after previous models failed to do so): the new XF sedan. Shown at Detroit as the sleek C-XF concept, the XF has been plumped up a bit — so people will actually fit in it — and equipped with a high-horsepower V-8. Can the XF make people forget the S-Type? What couldn’t?

Aston Martin, a company also already sold by Ford, is showing that there is indeed life after Ford, with the unveiling of its DBS flagship.

Rounding out the Brit contingent here is the new Mini Clubman, which is 10-inches longer, with three more doors, than a Mini. Alas, no wood-trimmed “shooting brake” wagon.

Other European manufacturers, which don’t sell in the United States, such as Peugeot, Renault, Fiat, Skoda, are also having important debuts here. Of special note is the too-cute Fiat 500.

Asian manufacturers have a solid lineup of Frankfurt introductions, too, including the Mazda6, Mitsubishi’s Concept-cX, Toyota’s unfortunately named Endo microcar, Nissan’s Mixim electric car, and a Honda Accord wagon that may be a design precursor for the next Acura TL. Hyundai has a Veloster coupe to show here, and Kia has a Sports Coupe Concept. Chinese automakers, two of which are already selling cars in Europe, also have displays.

John MacDougall/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

At the Frankfurt Motor Show, a CEO, made by Shuanghuan Automobile. BMW says the car is a copy of its X5 S.U.V.

FRANKFURT, Sept. 11 — It’s hardly surprising that a car that bills itself as the “ultimate driving machine” would inspire imitation. But to BMW, the CEO, a Chinese sport utility vehicle, is less respectful homage than brazen knockoff.

Charging that the CEO is a copy of BMW’s popular X5, the company has filed suit to prohibit its sale in Germany by the Chinese carmaker Shuanghuan Automobile.

That did not prevent Shuanghuan’s European importer from showing off the CEO on Tuesday at the Frankfurt Motor Show.

It was a vivid illustration, on the show’s first day, that the struggle over intellectual property rights between China and the West — a battle that has ranged over products from designer handbags to computer chips — now extends to cars.

“We did not like it,” BMW chief executive, Norbert Reithofer, said curtly in an interview here.

Neither did DaimlerChrysler, which is taking legal action against Shuanghuan to prevent it from selling the Noble, a subcompact that bears an uncanny resemblance to Daimler’s Smart minicar. The Noble did not appear at the show, though the importer, China Automobile Deutschland, insisted that it decided on its own not to distribute the car in Germany.

“Naturally, our cars are inspired by European carmakers,” said Karl Schlössl, a German who is the chief executive of China Automobile. “But we reject the charge that they are copies.”

Mr. Schlössl seemed to be reveling in the dispute, which catapulted his Chinese client from obscurity to center stage at this car show, traditionally dominated by the titans of German automaking.

At a circuslike news conference, Mr. Schlössl refused to speak the name BMW, instead referring to it as “that company.” He spoke of having a southern German accent that would make him at home in the hallways of the Munich-based BMW, and he introduced a tall blond woman as his companion.

Mr. Schlössl said Shuanghuan, which is based in Shijiazhuang, China, and has been producing cars since 1988, had approval from the Chinese government to make these models. But he said there was no one from the company available to answer additional questions.

There are serious issues behind all the theatrics. Few European executives doubt the Chinese will be genuine competitors in a few years, despite a bumpy start because of safety concerns with their first models. Brilliance JinBei Automobile, a Chinese carmaker with a more established reputation overseas than Shuanghuan, is drawing attention with its new compact car.

With the web of alliances between Chinese and Western automakers, there are plenty of opportunities for European innovations to turn up in Chinese cars that are then peddled to Europeans.

General Motors and Honda have both accused Chinese carmakers of copying their designs, often slavishly, but have gotten little relief from Chinese courts. Some auto analysts said the European manufacturers needed to accept copying as the price of doing business in China.

“There are three copies of the Smart,” said Graeme Maxton, an independent auto analyst in Hong Kong. “When it comes to body panels, I almost sympathize with the Chinese; it’s not that big a deal.”

Mr. Maxton said Chinese carmakers sometimes copied the exterior of a car from one model, and the interior from another. In the case of the CEO, for instance, it is not clear that the BMW X5 was the sole inspiration for its design. Auto critics have said that while the rear end of the vehicle is a dead ringer for the X5, the front end looks more like a Toyota Land Cruiser.

BMW emphasized that under the hood, the CEO is no X5. Small wonder: the X5 starts at 59,000 euros ($86,830) in Europe; the twin-turbo diesel model on display here goes for 92,000 euros ($126,040). Mr. Schlössl said the CEO would sell for a base price of 25,900 euros ($35,483).

“Someone who buys a BMW for 100,000 euros is not the same person who will look at a CEO,” Mr. Schlössl said.

Regardless, the Germans are zealous about protecting their image, particularly at a car show on their home turf.

“I think it’s confusing to our customer base,” said DaimlerChrysler’s chairman, Dieter Zetsche. “Showing a vehicle that looks very similar to a car on our stand raises unnecessary questions.” Mr. Zetsche said he would consider litigation against other Chinese knockoffs.

DaimlerChrysler and BMW have manufacturing operations in China, as well as thriving export franchises, and neither seemed keen on turning the dispute into a broader offensive against China.

Mr. Zetsche and Mr. Reithofer said they believed that the Chinese government would protect intellectual property more scrupulously as their own engineers begin turning out proprietary technology.

“In Asia, in general,” Mr. Zetsche said, “the culture does not define copying as something bad or unethical.”

For now, the Chinese are struggling with more basic issues, like designing a safe car. Two carmakers, Brilliance and Landwind, suffered when their cars performed abysmally in crash tests conducted by the German automobile club ADAC.

Landwind has stopped selling while it retools its cars to improve their safety, according to Peter Bijvelds, a Dutch car dealer who holds the distribution license for the brand.

Brilliance, which collaborates with BMW in assembling cars in China, insisted it had improved its safety standards, though it still received only a middling score in a subsequent crash test. It presented its new compact, the BS2, as a low-cost alternative to the Volkswagen Golf.

Like Mr. Zetsche and Mr. Reithofer, the vice chairman of Brilliance, He Guohua, said he, too, was confident China would regulate intellectual property more strictly in coming years.

In any event, he declared, his cars, which were styled with the help of an Italian design studio, do not rip off any of their European rivals.

“We do our own design work,” Mr. He said.

The Opel Astra GTC with panoramic windshield is available in Europe.

THE sky may be the limit, but the roof no longer is, at least to auto designers seeking a competitive advantage. While much of their attention has recently focused on the resurgence of retractable metal hardtops, many of this fall’s new models will stake their claims to novelty on skylights.

The naming of the new skylights suggests that the automakers’ knack for labeling their products remains strong. The companies that invented memorable names like Vista-Cruiser, Hydra-Matic and Stow ’n Go now offer UltraView, Sky Slider and Vista Roof. Still, at least one mystery of roof nomenclature remains unresolved: how sunroof came to mean a skylight that opens and moonroof became the designation for a fixed one.

The Sky Slider top on the new 2008 Jeep Liberty is a canvas roof. Recalling the roofs of ancient models like the Citroën 2CV, the Sky Slider slides forward or backward to open the passenger compartment to sun and sky.

Another substitute for glass is on the Mini Cooper, which offers the option of a double sunroof with sliding screen mesh panels.

Cadillac’s panoramic UltraView double sunroof, which made its debut on the SRX crossover, is shared with a sedan model, the 2008 CTS.

The Vista Roof, a name that evokes 1960s station wagons, is Ford’s double skylight. It is on the Ford Edge and Lincoln MKX. It matches a fixed window with one that slides and tilts; cloth shades can be drawn to shadow the entire glass area.

“The Vista Roof was inspired by the openness of urban lofts,” said Ed Golden, design director for the Edge and the MKX, when the Edge was introduced. “We were looking for that feel of large, open rooms.”

The new roof configurations are important selling points. Panorama has been a magic word with Americans since the 19th century, when impresarios like P. T. Barnum charged admission for a glimpse of the vast paintings called panoramas. They were the Imax cinemas of their day.

In 1952, General Motors and Libby-Owens-Ford, the glass company, announced a new curved windshield; this panoramic wraparound glass became a trademark of Harley Earl’s G.M. cars of the era, and a staple of the car salesman’s pitch. Similarly, Lincoln’s recent television advertisements for the MKX do not boast of a powerful engine or smooth transmission, but of the panoramic Vista Roof.

There is a lot of window shopping at play here.

Competition has driven the innovations, said Gary Vasilash, editor in chief of Automotive Design & Production magazine. He said new glass technology made the roofs possible.

Perhaps the most striking recent effort with roof glass is offered on the Opel Astra GTC in Europe. The panoramic windshield sweeps from the rear edge of the hood to the roof pillar behind the driver’s head and brings increased visibility to the front-seat passengers.

When Opel first showed the widescreen windshield, the designer credited with the original concept, Matthias Hallik, boasted that it would bring passengers a new sense of space — like flying. The car is coming to the United States later this year as the Saturn Astra, but without the panoramic windshield.

Of course, as in real estate, a view will cost you: Jeep’s Sky Slider option lists for $1,200; the Ford Edge’s Vista Roof goes for $1,395.

Peter Foley/European Pressphoto Agency

By CATHY HORYN

Just before the start of Ralph Lauren’s 40th anniversary show, as guests like Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly and the actors Robert DeNiro and Dustin Hoffman took their seats, there was music from “My Fair Lady.”

A tug of Broadway, and then the show began, the music shifting to a faster contemporary beat as the first model stepped out in a white silk gown with a frilly black-edged hem and a wide black straw hat. Masculine coats, satin jodhpurs, trim vests and long polka-dot skirts with romantic white blouses seemed to animate the racecourse painting in the background.

The show, on Saturday night in the Central Park Conservancy, was a vigorous display of Mr. Lauren’s imagination and wit, from the veiled bowlers and snow-white riding boots tipped in black to the long ruffled dresses in pastel garden prints, and the only location that might have better served his purposes than the park would have been Fifth Avenue itself. The clothes, while far from being costumes, had the pomp of an aristocratic parade.

Mr. Lauren could have gone in any number of design directions to mark his 40th anniversary. To Newport, the American West, the Adirondacks. Instead he chose New York, reflecting its energy and sophistication with crisp tailoring, a black leather coat banded in taxi-bright yellow, and a silver chain-beaded gown as cosmopolitan as the Chrysler building.

He could afford the schmaltz of Frank Sinatra’s “The Best Is Yet to Come,” as he came out to an ovation and personally greeted guests like Barbara Walters, Barry Diller, Martha Stewart and the designers Donna Karan, Vera Wang and Carolina Herrera.

How many other, younger designers will reach such a milestone? There has been a shift in perspective in the last few years as stores and magazines seemingly burn through new names in the business. The same is true of the music and film industries. The process inevitably anoints the superficial.

Designers like Benjamin Cho and Kate and Laura Mulleavy of Rodarte have their distinctive pool of admirers, but despite their best efforts — and in the case of Rodarte, the help of editors and fashion plates like Liz Goldwyn and Lisa Airan, who came to the show dressed in a fanciful Rodarte suit — the pool essentially remains the same. One has the impression that a lot of retailers have figured out how to sell the idea of new talent without actually having to commit to any one name for the long haul.

The most inventive looks in Mr. Cho’s collection included jersey tops that had been twisted around the neckline into rope coils, narrow jackets inspired by trench coats, and slim black silk dresses that incorporated into the bodice or neckline smooth, cross-sectioned stones that had been wired together.

As always, Mr. Cho’s clothes answer some design question that absorb him exclusively, and with perfect craftsmanship.

Ohne Titel, a new line by Alexa Adams and Flora Gill, who previously worked for Karl Lagerfeld, offered lanky pantsuits in neutral tones, bustled silk skirts and some fine, body-hugging knits in textured patterns that evoked tribal art.

Though still cloyingly precious, Rodarte looked less lunatic than usual. Some of the tulle and chiffon dresses, in cloudy shades of pink and blue, had a wispy effect, as if the Mulleavy sisters were attempting to give the clothes the lightest possible structure.

Shapes were engaging, notably a rounded jacket in ivory organza with wandlike sleeves and a coppery pleated skirt. I couldn’t make out if a slim dress and matching jacket in broken waves of blue, gold and beige were embroidered or knitted, but the outfit was beautiful, nearly evoking body art.

Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez are widely acknowledged to be among the most promising of the new generation of brand-builders, blessed with talent and charm. On Friday, they took their Proenza Schouler collection to the Armory on Park Avenue, a good place to display military-precise tailoring and braid, fitted jackets in pieced sections of ivory and black linen ( the garments were shown inside out for better effect, the designers said), and two-toned pumps with chunky straps and nailed-studded heels.

On the demerit side, a detectable Balenciaga influence in the proportions and layers cast a degree of doubt over the designers’ ability to establish a clear brand identity.

But their use of fabrics like rough cotton was very appealing, and the mix of masculine elements like belted vests with poplin shirts and short flaring skirts in washed organza helped give them the primary silhouette for spring. So in that sense they were on the right track. And short dresses embroidered in matte-gold sequins and feathers (by the Paris house Lemarié) added to their sophisticated capital.

Christer van der Kwast svéd államügyész kedden lapunknak megerősítette: hazánkban is vizsgálatot kezdett, mégpedig a már eddig is vizsgált cseh szállal összefüggésben.

Mint júniusban már megírtuk, a botrányt egy svéd televíziós riport robbantotta ki, amely szerint cseh hivatalnokokat hárommilliárd svéd korona (27 milliárd forint) kenőpénzzel bírtak jobb belátásra. A csehek vásárlási szándéka végül lízing-üzletté alakult. Dél-Afrika az egyetlen ország, amely közvetlenül vásárolt a "griffmadarakból". A tervek szerint Ausztria is ezt tette volna, de végül a közös európai fejlesztésű Eurofighter mellett döntött. A gyanú szerint itt is előfordult vesztegetések ügyében parlamenti különbizottság folytat vizsgálatot Bécsben. A svéd riport gyanúba keverte Alfonz Mensdorff-Pouilly grófot, aki lobbistaként nyolcmilliárd dollár kenőpénzt kaphatott.

A Vadai Ágnes államtitkár vezette hazai vizsgálóbizottságnak elvileg még a héten kell letennie jelentését az asztalra, de az államtitkár engedélyt kért és kapott a miniszterelnöktől arra, hogy október 15-ig dolgozhassanak. Az Orbán-kormány 2001-ben mindenkit meglepő módon döntött a Gripen JAS gépek beszerzéséről, amelyek közül 11 van hazánkban, 2003-ban pedig a Medgyessy-kabinet úgy módosította a szerződést, hogy 80 milliárd forinttal növelte hazánk kiadásait.