1.  This morning me and my brother visited a local area (Plano Texas) Walmart, and this particular Walmart was something special. It was brightly lit, sparkling clean, smelled good inside, had fully-stocked aisles of unopened merchandise, had extra wide aisles, and had cheerful and helpful employees working all around. Oh yeah – and the MASSIVE parking lot out front had no active crime scenes. So I guess that not every Walmart is just like the one that’s close to home that I pretty much avoid.

2.  Post Walmart me and my brother drove on over to Sonic, America’s Drive-In for an early Lunch. After a few years of watching the very low-budget yet very amusing commercials on television I finally got to experience the culinary delight (in my brother’s car) that is Sonic. They have an extensive menu (including Breakfast), but I selected something very basic – the Bacon Cheeseburger Toaster Combo (with fries and a Sprite). It’s was a rather delicious 1,045 calories (424 of them fat calories). I wish we had Sonic back home in America’s Riviera. Once upon a time (before Hurricane Andrew) we had two of them in the Homestead area alone. I ate there occasionally back in the day. Nowadays in order to eat at Sonic we (South Floridians) have to go north up to The Palm Beaches or north and west over to Naples. It’s just not right !

3.  39°, 40°, and 44° – Those have been the minimum early-morning temperatures thus far since I’ve been here (Sun., Mon., and Tue.). Right now at 2 PM the actual air temperature is 61°, but we’ve got gusty northwesterly winds so wind chills are way down in the low-50s. Next week when it gets much colder here in North Texas I’ll be back home in South Florida basking in 80° warmth and higher humidity again. Bring it on !

4.  I asked my brother (who is technologically savvy when it comes to modern cell phone devices) what is the difference between ‘3G’ and ‘4G’, and strangely enough he had no clue. This made me wonder if the average consumer knows what exactly a ‘G’ is. One thing is fairly certain though. My antiquated cell phone from the middle ages (2004) is ‘ZeroG’. But it does just what I want it to do – send and receive text and Twitter messages and the occasional call.

5.  This Thanksgiving my family is trying something new and different for our MASSIVE LuDinner meal. We’re going to The HoneyBaked Ham Company to grab a 3-pound boneless ham – sliced and glazed. This will be our first turkey-less Thanksgiving meal that I can ever remember, so perhaps it’ll be the start of a new tradition. My sister-in-law will be making all of the various side dishes that will go along with the tasty ham. I just hope that one of those side dishes is either spinach or collard greens or broccoli. YUM !

Those are my ‘Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts’. Be sure to check back here later this week for my spontaneous ‘Thursday Night Mini Thoughts’.

À vouloir racheter Cadbury ? L’autre jour, c’était Kraft.

Aujourd’hui, monsieur Ferrero veut balader les Finger sur son Rocher

Tant que c’est pas Eric Besson qui nous fait un doigt

There has been much discussion of late about the national debt. I think this is a good thing, as it has been ignored for many years. James Kwak looks at what exactly is increasing our debt.  Key quotes….

According to the 2008 report (Table 1-3), the budget from 2009 through 2018 shows an aggregate surplus of $0.3 trillion. The 2009 report (Table 1-2, PDF page 20) shows an aggregate deficit of $8.0 trillion, for a difference of $8.3 trillion.* Where does that come from?

In the 2008 report, discretionary outlays for 2009-18 are $12.4 trillion. In the 2009 report, that figure is now $13.7 trillion, for a difference of $1.3 trillion; that’s the most you can credibly blame on “the Obama administration’s planned budgets” — and even that includes the stimulus package from earlier this year, which was a response to a severe recession.

So where do the other $7.0 trillion come from? Increases in mandatory spending are $0.8 trillion. Increases in net interest payments are $1.5 trillion. But the big whopper is on the revenue side, where revenues are projected to be $4.6 trillion lower…….

So far, of the $8.3 trillion change in our projected fiscal situation, 16.1% is due to discretionary spending. 56.0% is due to lower revenues caused by … the recession and the financial crisis.

But wait, that’s not all. The increase in the national debt would only be from 40.8% to 60.9% (not 67.0%) of GDP if 2018 GDP remained where it was projected in 2008. However, between the 2008 and 2009 CBO reports, projected 2018 GDP has fallen from $22.4 trillion to $20.3 trillion. That’s also due to the recession and the financial crisis. A smaller denominator means the same debt becomes a larger proportion of GDP.

In short, the problem is that the economy collapsed. Blaming our increasing debt problems on “the Obama administration’s planned budgets,” when they are responsible for one-sixth (or one-fifth, if you read footnotes) of part of the problem (the part not due to a shrinking denominator), is deeply misleading.

Kwak goes on to note that if you include the interest on the additional discretionary spending, then 20% of the increase in debt can be attributed to the budget as determined by the current administration. So, if Obama et. al. had not increased spending at all, the debt would have increased by over  6 trillion dollars. 

   The solution to our debt then becomes one of increasing revenues, cutting spending or increasing growth (with maybe some judicious inflation). The standard “cut taxes” approach of the right, should not even be on the table. Increasing growth is the least painful option, but the one over which we may have the least control. Our levels of personal debt make significant growth less likely. A combination of tax increases and cuts in spending seems the only realistic approach.

Mon premier vrai week-end end au Japon (je ne compte pas celui de mon arrivée) m’a permis de voir un peu plus loin que mon quartier.

Vendredi, je suis allé à Kawasaki (toujours à Yokohama, qui est je le rappelle 4 fois plus grand que Paris) où le docteur Koji Kawaguchi m’avais conseillé d’aller pour rechercher un appareil photo. Je ne suis pas déçu! En arrivant, je trouve tout de suite Bic Camera, une sorte de Fnac avec beaucoup plus de choix. On y trouve un bon gros stand pour les jeux, avec une belle wii noire brillant à l’entrée. Je trouve quelques jeux dont je ne connaissais pas l’arrivée, notamment un final fantasy pour la wii! Je croise aussi les rayons montres où j’aperçois de tout. C’est d’ailleurs marrant de voir comment sont présentés les montres de luxe, juste à côté des quartz et avec les bracelets encore entourés de plastique protecteur. Présentation grand publique et pas du tout haut de gamme. Ça m’attriste un peu de voir ça. Mais je repère déjà quelque modèles sympa.

Je reste sérieux et me dirige vers mon objet principal, là où un bon gros stand pour les reflex numérique m’attend. Je fais le tour et en profite pour regarder les optiques et autres accessoires. Tout est là! Je m’adresse ensuite à un vendeur, qui parle l’anglais comme moi le portugais, pour enfin avoir le reflex dont je rêve depuis tout petit (sauf qu’à ce moment les numériques n’existais pas) : un beau Canon (KissX3, équivalent du 500D mais avec un plus joli nom). Je prend le kit avec 2 objectifs, plus un troisième à focal fixe (50mm, pas cher du tout). Je m’en tire pour moins de 800€, c’est à dire à peine plus que le prix de base en France. Je rentre heureux, tout excité à l’idée de l’essayer.

Avant de quitter les lieux, je me balade dans la galerie, immense, avec une grand place à ciel ouvert où un écran géant passe des clips de la chanteuse qui se prépare à une petite représentation sur une scène. Je trouve la boulangerie Doncq! Internationalement connu, à défaut de l’être nationalement (pour moi en tout cas). Elle présente bien (quelqu’un à l’entrée fait gouté une tartine beurrée aux passants, alléchant!) et je me prend une baguette à plus de 2€, plus croissant et tarte au sucre. J’espère que leur boulangerie française (proche de la place de l’étoile, comme le montre le gros plan sur leurs sacs en plastique) fait des produits moins secs s’il veulent que les personnes âgées puissent manger du pain!

Une fois chez moi, je ne prendrai pas de photo, il fait bien noire. Le lendemain non plus, il fera moche. Pas de bol! Heureusement, le dernier jour de ce long week-end end sera plus clément.

Lundi donc. Hormis une balade matinale dans le temple Soji-ji, parcouru par quelques familles en vacances, où je peux enfin laisser aller mon désir créatif, je me promène de l’autre côté de la ville. Je découvre alors Minato Mirai 21, partie moderne du port qui est la vitrine de Yokohama. Ici on voit de hauts buildings s’étendant jusqu’à une roue. Le plus haut building du Japon est ici : la Landmark Tower, haute d’au moins six étages (après, j’ai arrêté de compter…).

Je me balade et prends pleins de photos encore, jusqu’à arrivé au grand centre commercial du coin : le . Et là, je suis assez fière d’avoir résisté  à la tentation. Je ressortirai sans rien avoir acheté! Et pourtant, il y a vraiment beaucoup de boutiques sympa : chaussures (pleins de sympa que personne n’aime en France à part moins… je vous montrerai à mon retour , habits, montres, sacs… Vraiment sympa et un peu moins cher qu’en France. En ce qui concerne les habits! Je met de côté d’autres choses comme le dentifrice à 10€ (pas tous mais quand même…). Un peu partout, des employés cris les réductions en cours dans des cônes pour porter la voix. Ça fait presque marché.

Quand je repars, il fait déjà nuit. Je reprend les même photos qu’à l’aller, avec les lumières du moment. Le train pour Tsurumi va vite, c’est plus le temps de marche entre mon appartement et la gare qui est long. Mais ça vaut le coup.

J’ai hâte de retourner à Minato Mirai et de prolonger jusqu’au quartier chinois, le plus grand du pays. Ce sera pour le prochaine fois.

Mon premier vrai week-end end au Japon (je ne compte pas celui de mon arrivée) m’a permis de voir un peu plus loin que mon quartier.

Vendredi, je suis allé à Kawasaki (toujours à Yokohama, qui est je le rappelle 4 fois plus grand que Paris) où le docteur Koji Kawaguchi m’avais conseillé d’aller pour rechercher un appareil photo. Je ne suis pas déçu! En arrivant, je trouve tout de suite Bic Camera, une sorte de Fnac avec beaucoup plus de choix. On y trouve un bon gros stand pour les jeux, avec une belle wii noire brillant à l’entrée. Je trouve quelques jeux dont je ne connaissais pas l’arrivée, notamment un final fantasy pour la wii! Je croise aussi les rayons montres où j’aperçois de tout. C’est d’ailleurs marrant de voir comment sont présentés les montres de luxe, juste à côté des quartz et avec les bracelets encore entourés de plastique protecteur. Présentation grand publique et pas du tout haut de gamme. Ça m’attriste un peu de voir ça. Mais je repère déjà quelque modèles sympa.

Je reste sérieux et me dirige vers mon objet principal, là où un bon gros stand pour les reflex numérique m’attend. Je fais le tour et en profite pour regarder les optiques et autres accessoires. Tout est là! Je m’adresse ensuite à un vendeur, qui parle l’anglais comme moi le portugais, pour enfin avoir le reflex dont je rêve depuis tout petit (sauf qu’à ce moment les numériques n’existais pas) : un beau Canon (KissX3, équivalent du 500D mais avec un plus joli nom). Je prend le kit avec 2 objectifs, plus un troisième à focal fixe (50mm, pas cher du tout). Je m’en tire pour moins de 800€, c’est à dire à peine plus que le prix de base en France. Je rentre heureux, tout excité à l’idée de l’essayer.

Avant de quitter les lieux, je me balade dans la galerie, immense, avec une grand place à ciel ouvert où un écran géant passe des clips de la chanteuse qui se prépare à une petite représentation sur une scène. Je trouve la boulangerie Doncq! Internationalement connu, à défaut de l’être nationalement (pour moi en tout cas). Elle présente bien (quelqu’un à l’entrée fait gouté une tartine beurrée aux passants, alléchant!) et je me prend une baguette à plus de 2€, plus croissant et tarte au sucre. J’espère que leur boulangerie française (proche de la place de l’étoile, comme le montre le gros plan sur leurs sacs en plastique) fait des produits moins secs s’il veulent que les personnes âgées puissent manger du pain!

Une fois chez moi, je ne prendrai pas de photo, il fait bien noire. Le lendemain non plus, il fera moche. Pas de bol! Heureusement, le dernier jour de ce long week-end end sera plus clément.

Lundi donc. Hormis une balade matinale dans le temple Soji-ji, parcouru par quelques familles en vacances, où je peux enfin laisser aller mon désir créatif, je me promène de l’autre côté de la ville. Je découvre alors Minato Mirai 21 (qui signifie futur Harbor 21, nom selectionné lors d’un concours), partie moderne du port qui est la vitrine de Yokohama. C’est l’un des rares endroits du port accessible au grand publique, le reste étant bloqué par les industries en place. Ici on voit de hauts buildings s’étendant jusqu’à une grande roue : la Cosmo Clock 21 (112,5 mètres de haut). Le plus haut gratte-ciel du Japon est ici : la Landmark Tower, haute d’au moins six étages (après, j’ai arrêté de compter…) sur 269 mètres.

Je me balade et prends pleins de photos encore, jusqu’à arriver au grand centre commercial du coin : le World Porters. Et là, je suis assez fière d’avoir résisté  à la tentation. Je ressortirai sans rien avoir acheté! Et pourtant, il y a vraiment beaucoup de boutiques sympa : chaussures (pleins de sympa que personne n’aime en France à part moins… je vous montrerai à mon retour , habits, montres, sacs… Vraiment sympa et un peu moins cher qu’en France. En ce qui concerne les habits! Je met de côté d’autres choses comme le dentifrice à 10€ (pas tous mais quand même…). Un peu partout, des employés cris les réductions en cours dans des cônes pour porter la voix. Ça fait presque marché.

Quand je repars, il fait déjà nuit. Je reprend les même photos qu’à l’aller, avec les lumières du moment. Le train pour Tsurumi va vite, c’est plus le temps de marche entre mon appartement et la gare qui est long. Mais ça vaut le coup.

J’ai hâte de retourner à Minato Mirai et de prolonger jusqu’au quartier chinois, le plus grand du pays. Ce sera pour le prochaine fois.

Usually, when a central bank raises interest rates, the sectorial lobbyists press their automatic convulsion button; trades unions, manufacturers, small business groups, and anti-government newspapers.

True the world over, and definitely true in Israel. Just look at the Hebrew press to judge the reactions to the Bank of Israel’s surprise announcement yesterday to raise the inter bank rate by 0.25% to 1.00%.  

In fact, the change is a sign of praise for the economy and those running it. It shows that the country is becoming more worried about possible inflation and public sector deficits rather than the recession. In other words, Israel’s economy is growing.

There is much statistical and anecdotal evidence for this – eg, surveys of the labour market. One strong indication is what has been happening on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE). A 9 month survey to 30.9.09 shows how shares are shaking off volatility and recording deep gains.

To quote from part of the report:

In August TASE saw its first equity IPO in eighteen months. Foreign financial investors injected $0.9 billion to TASE.
Prices of corporate bonds, which had declined in the closing four months of 2008, staged a comeback as well during the period under review. In the corporate bond market mainly banks and a number of large companies raised capital in public offerings and private placements to institutional investors.

TA-25 and International indices – 1-9/2009
In USD terms

The TASE has been expecting higher interest rates for some time. The fact that they have not appeared for 3 months will not arrest a further rise in prices for the near future at least. Let us hope that the investors are showing their confidence in the economy and not just fuelling another market sell out.

The Citadel Outlets will host a FREE performance by  Justin Bieber on Monday December 14, 2009. The event will take place in front of the 90 feet christmas tree in the center of the shopping center. The Citadel Outlets are located in the City of Commerce in California. Make sure to get there early! Bieber’s performance is scheduled to start at 6 P.M. Hopefully he’s able to perform with that cast he got today! Will YOU be there? We know we will!

REMEMBER YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST!!!!!!

Today, President Obama announced a new national science fair for young inventors. He wants to show kids how “cool” science is and give them the same treatment as sports stars when they win a championship. A noble goal, but one that doesn’t get the point. Obama decries the lag in science scores, but ignores the more important reality, a culture of innovation. As a lawyer and politician, he just doesn’t get it.

Someone else who didn’t get it and lost her job because of it is Carly Fiorina, now running for the Senate seat occupied by Barbara Boxer of California. Ms. Fiorina came out of the marketing and sales group at ATT/Lucent. When she began at AT&T, it was one of the country’s crown jewels of technology and included Bell Labs.  Cutting edge innovation in microcircuitry and telecommunications took place there every day. It was exciting and amazing. Over the years since it was started by Thomas Edison, Bell Labs invented radio astronomy, the transistor, the laser, the photovoltaic cell,  and the UNIX operating system and 100 other basic technologies. There was no specific brief on where they could go, and a lot of the “pure” research that was done ended up paying huge dividends.

With outsourcing and offshoring, the MBA’s, including Ms. Fiorina, decided that the scientists and engineers and lab techs were too expensive and that emphasis should be placed on applied research. Thus began the downsizing and dismantlement of much of Bell Labs. Today it is a shadow of it’s former self.

Ms. Fiorina led the spinoff of Lucent from AT&T to “enhance shareholder value”. From there she leapt to Hewlett Packard, where she again cut back on the R&D side. Agilent, the scientific instrument business, was spun off in 1999 and she was the center of it. She then proceeded to purchase Compaq Computer, a commodity computer manufacturer to go with what was left of HP. All of these bad decisions have been reflected in the price per share of these companies for years afterwards. HP had effectively lost its soul. From the days of Bill & Dave using Stanford as their minor league system and creating the ultimate engineering culture, it went to Ms. Fiorina’s infamous  “does anybody have a good idea for a new product?” memo.

What neither Mr. Obama nor Ms. Fiorina understand is that invention and science spring from a certain culture. Tinkerers, designers, machinists, basement chemists, slide rule jockeys, and geeks are all a part of this. But management has quite successfully outsourced most of this to a point where even leading technologists no longer have a fundamental understanding of the means of production, which is essential to invention and manufacturing. Today, we have some of the smartest people in the world working in the labs with almost no understanding of how biotech and nanotech and all sorts of other tech translates into the real world.

There is a certain joy in making something faster or watching a chemical reaction or putting things together in new ways. But you have to have the ability to translate those ideas into reality effectively. and this we have lost.

We don’t have the factory floors to prowl or the conference rooms to BS in or the processing lines out back to see “what if”. Even DARPA is a closed loop devoted to “applications” oriented research instead of the blue sky “let’s fund this crazy idea for $1,000,000, Dick” organization it was 20 or 30 years ago.  Management and government thought of maximizing shareholder value and COTS (Commercial, off the shelf) instead of optimizing manufacturing, and the cross-pollination of ideas that creates breakthroughs. The bureaucrats and MBA’s are firmly in charge now.

Now, when a lot of the infrastructure is gone, the President wants to encourage invention once again. It’s a noble cause, but the horse is to a good degree out of the barn. Ms. Fiorina wants to be a Senator well, just because she wants to. Kids can’t even access a proper lab these days because of liability issues and the fact that chemicals and electricity and making things can be “so dangerous”. Gouges and scrapes and burns used to be badges of honor in the manufacturing/engineering class. Now they are causes for lawsuits.

American exceptionalism was defined by the opportunity to fail or make it big. Opportunity of outcome doesn’t work in science and technology. There were over 100,000 people on the Apollo program who were dedicated and failure truly was not an option. With  millions of parts on a Saturn rocket, 99.99% reliability still meant that hundreds could fail, any of which could lead to disaster. The miracle was that we got any rockets off the ground and that we had so few failures. Instead, as a counterpoint, today we are presented with a climate research scandal in which results may have been tainted and data faked. The deterioration of the scientific culture itself is an issue.

MBA’s and lawyers are probably the least qualified to address these issues. Both Ms. Fiorina and Mr. Obama are of the type who think that steaks come from the supermarket rather than cows. This is not getting out there and addressing our country’s desperate need to regain our mojo. The old guys are still out there. Technology has not changed so that we are irrevocably behind, but we must act now. As the government blows trillions of dollars propping up decrepit companies and paying off political allies, our country must once again focus on what made us great. On so many levels, the clock is ticking. We should really be taking those billions and investing in manufacturing and technology rather than things like cash for clunkers and make work highway projects.

Iloubnan.info

Détrôné par Dubaï au fil des ans, Beyrouth compte redevenir une destination privilégiée pour le luxe au Moyen-Orient, avec l’implantation de grands noms tel Dior ou Louis Vuitton, et des “souks” modernes qui offriront le nec plus ultra du shopping.

 

A blog: Modern Day Pirate Tales.

Somalia: Are Pirates Really in Pursuit of High-Value Loot?

Somalia: Pirates Threaten to Kill Old British Couple.

Wired Magazine on An Economic Analysis of the Somali Pirate Business Model.

The Enlightened Economist on three new books about pirates.

UN debates Somalia piracy strategy.

“Is Seychelles turning a blind eye to pirates?” What Rot!! (Via Global Voices)

UPDATE: David Axe on Regaining the Initiative against Somali Pirates.

Schöner Podcast auf Technikwürze mit dem Barcamp als Schwerpunkt und einem schönem Interview zum Thema “E-Commerce im Wandel“ ab Minute 24.22

Toller Podcast

Citadel Outlets’ and Radio Disney LA AM 1110 road crew hosted a meet and greet with Disney Channel starlets: Chelsea Staub and Nicole Anderson, earlier this evening. The event included an autograph and picture session with fans and even a  shopping spree giveaway, in which one lucky winner would win a $150 shopping spree accompanied by Chelsea and Nicole themselves. Watch our EXCLUSIVE video of them answering our quick questions and going through their shopping spree with the lucky winner!

You’ve come a long way, Babies, you’ll say to the pitchfolk of the world, in howling over sites which will change forever the way you think about all grocers’ and druggists’ standbys from Lysol to fresh pork:

Old Creepy Ads
”Sometimes it’s really scary what human mind can conceive for advertising.”

Vintage ads
”Hilarious, shocking and creepy advertisements from the past century” from EatLiver.com (“Crazy Pictures of Insane Internet”)

Vintage advertising and What Were They Thinking?
From Advertising Is Good For You

True addicts, though, will eventually find their full-immersion redemption over at James Lileks’ site, at which the Twin Cities’ master of ephemera has over the last decade unearthed a truly Stakhanovite archive prompting for all time the one inevitable question – What Were They Thinking?

Lady Gaga and Lil’ Wayne owe a little something to this German partbook from the 1470s. The Glogauer Liederbuch is a collection of 3-part instrumental arrangements of popular chanson that, rather than serve a liturgical, ceremonial, or political function, is full of tunes to be played for fun by anyone who can afford to purchase the partbooks. It might just be the first documented intersection of music and the market.

It’s also significant because its music is “functionless” and “autonomous.” Many of the tunes are based on popular melodies, including three settings of “J’ay pris amours,” the greatest hit of the late 15th century, but some arrangements take on an abstract quality that strays far from the original. For example, one arrangement (A) might take the tenor line from “J’ay pris amours” as a starting place, with new material around it. Another (B) would then take the newly created melody from (A) and compose fresh material around it. It’s easy to see that quickly in this process the original tune would be obscured, and what’s left is essentially a new, instrumental (no text to tell you what’s going on) pattern of sound with no link to practical function. “Functional” and “autonomous” are problematic terms, as RT’s scare quotes imply, but this does represent a major difference from earlier practices. It’s mind-blowing to ponder that the first marketable, commercially viable music publication consisted not only of pop songs but of abstract art-for-art’s-sake. Once Petrucci realized the commercial potential of printed music by employing the new technology of movable type printing in 1501, the market would come to play an ever-increasing role in our musical culture.

The only clip I could find of this significant publication is an arrangement by the American composer Charles Wuorinen (b. 1938). It would not have sounded like this back then, obviously, but it gives you a sense of the playfulness and abstraction at which this model of music-making excelled. (Fans of Wuorinen will also find this delightful.)

Top 10 Ways to Waste Your Time in a Networking Group
Networking Success with Ivan Misner, Ph.D.

Are you guilty of any of these? Do you know others in your chapter who are?
Networking groups pay off handsomely in terms of referral business, so make the most of every single meeting and avoid wasting time—especially in the following ten ways.

Word-of-mouth marketing is a sure-fire way to generate new business. A single referral can bring in a chain reaction of business, as one satisfied customer tells others, who in turn tell still others. It’s no wonder that networking groups pay off handsomely in terms of referral business and a membership in a good networking group can be worth a considerable amount of money; especially if you calculate the time you spend each month and the business value of your time.

Make your time and efforts worthwhile. Don’t squander your opportunity by doing the wrong things in those meetings!

Success in a networking group comes when the rest of the group members trust you enough to open up their best referrals to you. Until they’ve seen your work, you have to earn that trust by demonstrating your professionalism to them. Since I founded BNI almost 25 years ago, I’ve seen how people have truly succeeded in networks and I’ve seen how people have totally wasted their time in them.

Here are the top ten ways to waste your time in a networking group (avoid all of them):

# 10. Go ahead, air your grievances among your fellow networkers and guests; after all, they really want to hear about your complaints.
…continued
http://thenationalnetworker.blogspot.com/2009/10/networking-success-top-10-ways-to-waste.html

Dans l’un des pays les plus pauvres d’Afrique, la Chine est devenue le premier partenaire économique du Mali. Toutefois, cela ne ravie pas tout le monde. Les chinois ont mis la main sur une grande partie du marché malien avec le BTP, le thé, le coton…

Très lié au pays, la Chine se félicite de faire partie de la zone Sud-Sud pour investir massivement. Malgré ces investissements considérables, les maliens se posent des questions. Alexis Kalambry, journaliste au quotidien malien Les Echos, pointe du doigt les exigences des autorités chinoises vis-à-vis de leurs biens. Dernière cette affaire, la déforestation de la forêt de Kita à quelques kilomètres de la capitale, Bamako. Les habitants ont remarqué l’arrivée de nombreux chinois entreprenant des coupes sauvages. Interdit à la coupe depuis quelques années, le bois d’ébène est devenu une denrée rare que les entreprises chinoises possèdent aujourd’hui.

Grâce aux autorisations spéciales du président Amadou Toumani Touré, les chinois peuvent couper autant de bois qu’ils souhaitent. Les autorisations ont été possibles lorsque l’ambassadeur Zhang Guoqing a promis de construire un hôpital à Bamako. Sorte de chantage, l’intellectuel Diailla Konaté s’indigne de ces pratiques parce que sous réserve de construire des hôpitaux, les chinois ont le droit de se servir librement en ébène. D’autres affaires indignent les habitants, intellectuels et journalistes maliens: la culture du thé. A la frontière entre le Burkina Faso et la Cote d’Ivoire, le pays avait réussit à ne plus être dépendant des importations de thé chinois grâce à sa propre plantation. A la suite de difficulté financière, la principale plantation a été mise en vente et rachetée par des industriels chinois.

Ces derniers ont mis la totalité des salariés en chômage technique et laisser pourrir la plupart des pieds de thé. Cela a conduit à la disparition du thé malien au profit de l’exportation et commercialisation du thé chinois. Les chinois sont également très présents dans les domaines de la téléphonie, le BTP, l’électro ménager, l’hi-fi et le pharmaceutique. Les maliens trouvent le made in Chine sur tous les étables des commerçants. La concurrence chinoise et américaine a entraînée une baisse des cours conduisant les producteurs africains à des problèmes économiques difficiles à surmonter et une disparition quasi-totale de leurs produits.

• Date: 15/06/2008
• Source: ToutelaChine.com
• Repris par: Maliweb.net (http://www.maliweb.net/category.php?NID=32273)

Jonah Lehrer at The Frontal Cortex has an interesting bit up on expertise. The parts I found most interesting were on punditry and mutual fund managers. Key quotes……

Look, for instance, at mutual fund managers. They take absurdly huge fees from our retirement savings, but the vast majority of mutual funds in any given year will underperform the S&P 500 and other passive benchmarks. (Between 1982 and 2003, there have only been three years in which more than 50 percent of mutual funds beat the market.) Even those funds that do manage to outperform the market rarely do so for long. Their models work haphazardly; their success is inconsistent.

Or look at political experts. In the early 1980s, Philip Tetlock at UC Berkeley picked two hundred and eighty-four people who made their living “commenting or offering advice on political and economic trends” and began asking them to make predictions about future events. He had a long list of pertinent questions. Would George Bush be re-elected? Would there be a peaceful end to apartheid in South Africa? Would Quebec secede from Canada? Would the dot-com bubble burst? In each case, the pundits were asked to rate the probability of several possible outcomes. Tetlock then interrogated the pundits about their thought process, so that he could better understand how they made up their minds. By the end of the study, Tetlock had quantified 82,361 different predictions.

After Tetlock tallied up the data, the predictive failures of the pundits became obvious. Although they were paid for their keen insights into world affairs, they tended to perform worse than random chance. Most of Tetlock’s questions had three possible answers; the pundits, on average, selected the right answer less than 33 percent of the time. In other words, a dart-throwing chimp would have beaten the vast majority of professionals. Tetlock also found that the most famous pundits in Tetlock’s study tended to be the least accurate, consistently churning out overblown and overconfident forecasts. Eminence was a handicap.

But here’s the worst part: even terrible expert advice can reliably tamp down activity in brain regions (like the anterior cingulate cortex) that are supposed to monitor mistakes and errors. It’s as if the brain is intimidated by credentials, bullied by bravado. The perverse result is that we fail to skeptically check the very people making mistakes with our money. I think one of the core challenges in fixing our economy is to make sure we design incentive systems to reward real expertise, and not faux-experts with no track record of success.

Occasionally watching CNBC with my wife, I am struck by how young some of the “experts” appear to be. The divergence of opinions, given with complete sincerity (ha!) is also remarkable. There are people like Buffett and Soros who do seem able to beat the market, but the large majority are just making money off of other people’s money while adding no value.

Punditry comes off even worse in my opinion. They make predictions that do not come true, with less frequency than one would expect from mere chance. They do this publicly on air or in print. Their lack of success does not faze them. They keep predicting and the public keeps listening and quoting them. One would think that if the free market worked as applied to punditry, the better paid, more famous pundits would do better, Alas, that is not the case.

So, when I hear the pundits say this program will fix all of our problems, I take it with a grain of salt. When some expert breathlessly announces we will go bankrupt if we pass some bill, I do not panic. The odds are on my side.

When writing a love letter or telling our diary our deepest thoughts we expect others not to read it. Sometimes we even hide the writings in a secret place to keep our privacy. But when it comes to internet communities, bonus cards or navigation systems suddenly all concerns vanish.

In times of the social web and web 2.0 we are getting tracked permanently; no matter if grocery shops are checking our shopping habits with the help of bonus cards or big companies watch every step we take on the internet. “The Web 2.0 movement will be a marked loss of privacy on the internet, one which leads to big business knowing more about you than it ever did before.”[1]

The problem is that most people do not even realise that they are being observed. It happens very subtle and without any noise. We cannot detect it like we detect that our diary was read by a stranger due to the broken lock and the wrinkled pages. We share our data voluntarily without knowing that we support companies in finding ways to manipulate us and to make us their marionettes.

Did you ever wonder why you receive commercials which you are interested in? Or did you ask yourself why Facebook already offers you, while signing up, numerous people to be friends with, and you really do know the people? “Adding to this sobering reality is that public and private entities have a growing array of tools to track our movements, habits and choices.” [2]

You cannot judge people who say that Web 2.0 makes life more comfortable and offers you possibilities which suit you but is it worth it to give away your privacy for consumption and control? Perhaps it is time to give your details a little bit more thought in the future.

[2] http://www.csoonline.com/article/504793/6_Ways_We_Gave_Up_Our_Privacy

Bruce Bartlett, Reagan’s former adviser, continues to write good stuff on true fiscal responsibility. Key quotes….

Recall the situation in 2003. The Bush administration was already projecting the largest deficit in American history–$475 billion in fiscal year 2004, according to the July 2003 mid-session budget review. But a big election was coming up that Bush and his party were desperately fearful of losing. So they decided to win it by buying the votes of America’s seniors by giving them an expensive new program to pay for their prescription drugs.

Recall, too, that Medicare was already broke in every meaningful sense of the term. According to the 2003 Medicare trustees report, spending for Medicare was projected to rise much more rapidly than the payroll tax as the baby boomers retired. Consequently, the rational thing for Congress to do would have been to find ways of cutting its costs. Instead, Republicans voted to vastly increase them–and the federal deficit–by $395 billion between 2004 and 2013.

However, the Bush administration knew this figure was not accurate because Medicare’s chief actuary, Richard Foster, had concluded, well before passage, that the more likely cost would be $534 billion. Tom Scully, a Republican political appointee at the Department of Health and Human Services, threatened to fire him if he dared to make that information public before the vote……..

Just to be clear, the Medicare drug benefit was a pure giveaway with a gross cost greater than either the House or Senate health reform bills how being considered. Together the new bills would cost roughly $900 billion over the next 10 years, while Medicare Part D will cost $1 trillion.

Moreover, there is a critical distinction–the drug benefit had no dedicated financing, no offsets and no revenue-raisers; 100% of the cost simply added to the federal budget deficit, whereas the health reform measures now being debated will be paid for with a combination of spending cuts and tax increases, adding nothing to the deficit over the next 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. (See here for the Senate bill estimate and here for the House bill.)

Maybe Franks isn’t the worst hypocrite I’ve ever come across in Washington, but he’s got to be in the top 10 because he apparently thinks the unfunded drug benefit, which added $15.5 trillion (in present value terms) to our nation’s indebtedness, according to Medicare’s trustees, was worth sacrificing his integrity to enact into law. But legislation expanding health coverage to the uninsured–which is deficit-neutral–somehow or other adds an unacceptable debt burden to future generations. We truly live in a world only George Orwell could comprehend when our elected representatives so easily conflate one with the other.

While the proposed bills fall short of my ideal health reform plan, I am encouraged that the idea of costs is at least on the table. The plans have met the goal of not increasing the debt. They will provide more services. Those services will be paid for, not merely tacked on as new debt. Quite a change.

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I went to the mall today.

I rarely go to the mall. Generally, I shop in Yellow Springs. When there are things I need to get that are either unavailable or too expensive near home, I go to Goodwill or Target. Sometimes I go to TJ Maxx. I also shop online, but sometimes you need to try things on, see how they fit. Overall, I dislike buying things that are new, unless it’s a matter of necessity or hygiene.

Today it was something unavailable at the other places that propelled me toward the mall. Okay, it was lingerie. (I read on Kate Gale’s blog that if you blog about lingerie, people will find your blog. There, I’ve done it. We’ll see what happens.)

Everywhere I went, Christmas music blasted into my interior, crowding my thoughts with insipidity such as “Let it snow.” (My most hated holiday song, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year” thankfully wasn’t on the playlist.)

At the mall, I saw people who looked like they had been ripped from the headlines of reality TV shows. One young woman, not only in attire, resembled Paris Hilton. As I walked by, she glanced up from her text message but didn’t seem to see me. It could have been the vacancy behind her eyes, or the fact that I wasn’t wearing makeup that called my existence into question. (When I pass makeup counters, I always feel invisible. I’ve never worn much makeup, and I usually sense condescension from the sales representatives, an almost imperceivable shaking of their heads, as if they’re thinking, “That poor girl, doesn’t she know that a little concealor goes a long way?”)

Being at the mall was stressful and depressing. If I were a more anxious, less happy person, I think it would make me want to drive out of the parking lot and right over a cliff. The mall tossed me back to being fifteen, that horrid yearning for nothing to get between me and my Calvins–back when Calvin Klein jeans were still a status symbol. Every teenage trip to the mall made me feel fat. Never mind that now I’m forty-three, in good shape, and I truly don’t care that I wear second-hand clothing most of the time. Walking through those fake-fancy halls today, the whoosh of air that disappeared from my inner strength was tangible.

Despite my alarm and nausea, I tried things on, found a couple of things I truly needed, got a “cashew chocolate bear” (something like a turtle, but about the size of a small wallet) and ate it on my quick walk back to the car.

Then I turned on NPR, and started home, back into my safe zone, where commentators talk about smart or interesting aspects of mall culture, but I never, ever have to step into one.

To students seldom awake before ten,

Like many scholars, I’ve relied on coffee as a lifeline for most of my academic career. By senior year of high school, I was already bringing a plastic mug full of instant Maxwell House (terrible, I know) to class. In college, I even considered footnoting the local convenience store in a freshman year philosophy paper, since I owed their machine-made vanilla lattes at least as much as Kant.

My thoughts turned to coffee this week after reading a great paper-in-progress by a fellow graduate student here at Harvard. Still I wondered, where was the history of coffee on the web? Look no further than the Victorian trade card collection at Miami University in Ohio . Trade cards became popular in nineteenth century America, as a way of advertising products from soap to lawnmowers (to learn more, check out the Baker Library’s online exhibit). In the example below, Uncle Sam himself endorses one brand. The back of the card features these inspiring verses, “Take this from me my people dear / If you’d keep war away/and fill the land with peace and cheer / Do just what I shall say: / I know a beverage full of charm, / there’s magic in the cup. / To cure all ills, to keep from harm, / Drink when you dine or sup.” Sorry, Anglophiles, your Earl Grey tea won’t help you escape the traumas of sickness and strife!Other cards, while produced by coffee companies, didn’t bother to picture the product itself. Arbuckle Brothers, for instance, came up with a number of collectible series, including “sports and pastimes of all nations.”  Check out the gentlemen athletes in the image below, and the coffee instructions on the reverse.

For more coffee-related trade cards, click here. And for yet more cards of all types, check out the collections at the Brooklyn Public Library and University of Iowa.

To see where coffee advertising would go a few decades later, surf over to the always remarkable Prelinger Archives. You’ll quickly discover the theme in these Folgers ads from the 1960s: make a better cup of coffee for your husband, or he’ll be back “at the office” faster than Mad Men’s debonair Don Draper.  Click on the images below to watch.

Yours perkily,

Stephen

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Rocky Nook Pavilion, no date

I don’t know when it was or who they are — proud proprietors would be my best guess — but they’re standing in front of the Rocky Nook Pavilion.  Once standing on Wharf Lane, this fine establishment offered “dancing every Saturday night.”