On The Margins

Thursday November 20, 2008

[ Economics ] In Need of an Economic Strategy

Michael Porter, the business strategy guru from Harvard, writes about "Why America Needs an Economic Strategy". His essay deserves a careful read by business and political leaders in the U.S.

2008-11-20 13:35:54.0 -- Comments [2] ; Permalink ; Trackback.
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Tuesday November 18, 2008

[ Economics ] Generation Graphics

This graphic display of U.S. housing starts, based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau and published by The Wall Street Journal, grabbed my attention. Real Estate prices are actually a complex non-linear function of interest rates, housing starts, employment, and existing re-sale inventory — and yes, location.

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Tuesday October 23, 2007

[ Society ] Occupational Hazards

Another Washington Post report ("US Raid of Baghdad Sadr City Kills 49"), published only yesterday, should make it plainly clear why vast majorities of Iraqis want US occupation of their country to end. (For 2-year-old Ali Hamed's picture, in the aftermath, see here.)

From the Iraqi perspective, besides the inhumanity of even a single occurrence of it, the killing is hardly an isolated accident. In fact, the regularity of such "incidental" killings are so predictable that it seems to have been judged by most US media to be no longer "news worthy," and we hear of it not, in the regular course of our life, in this land.

[If you wonder why I'm writing this, see here.]

2007-10-23 20:47:23.0 -- ; Permalink ; Trackback.
iraq occupation us

Monday July 09, 2007

[ Personal ] Early July

This first week of July, I spent about three days in Vancouver Island, including the ferry trips. It was very warm and pleasant--a good place to relax and spend some vacation days. I know I should have used a few more days and explored the island some more towards its northern tip but I also had the ambition to drive the Oregon coastline and see some of its vast, although windy, public beaches.

2007-07-09 17:16:19.0 -- Comments [2] ; Permalink ; Trackback.
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Saturday January 20, 2007

[ Culture ] Little Canadian Comedy on the Prairie

Zarqa Nawaz

U.S. TV broadcasters continue to debate the desirability of Zarqa Nawaz' Little Mosque on the Prairie before showing it to their American audience.  In the meantime, you can find torrents for Little Mosque here. To load these torrents, consider Azureus which has a great Java torrent client fit for various platforms. Last time I checked, the "swarms" for these torrents were quite large, composed of several hundreds. Most peers were complete and sharing, and download rates were very high. So, the whole thing can probably be down-loaded in less than 1 hour, perhaps in 1/2 an hour if the number of peers continue to be large. I've included YouTube renditions of the first episode below. Apparently, this first episode of Nawaz' little sitcom has become the most watched Canadian sitcom episode ever. The ads are mixed in. (The second and third episodes seem to have been broadcast in Canada but cannot yet be found on YouTube.)  InsideCBC.Com, the official blog of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation covers the show. CBS carries an interview with Ms. Nawaz.

2007-01-20 23:56:00.0 -- Comments [5] ; Permalink ; Trackback.
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Monday January 08, 2007

[ Society ] Green Colonialism

[Preamble: Before asking me again why I've written about something that might be construed as political, see my note on our social taboos here.] 

Guy Dinmore, the Washington reporter for Financial Times, has today (January 8, 2007) written one of his best pieces of journalism about the largest embassy in the World being finished in Baghdad.

It is not the Saudi, Iranian, Turkish or Syrian embassy in Baghdad whose acreage puzzles Dinmore. One would expect these neighboring countries to have large embassies in Iraq. If not for the U.S. invasion of Iraq, these countries would probably continue to have even larger trade with their neighbor.  (All accounts seem to point to the fact that such trade continues despite the new barriers.) For example, Iranian durable goods were reported to be flooding Baghdad bazars before the U.S. invasion and for quite some time after it. (This trend may in fact be continuing. As a larger-scale example, Iran continues to provide electric energy to Iraq.) History also has some facts that would suggest Iraq's neighbors may probably want to maintain larger embassies in Baghdad. Baghdad was built with the remains of Persia's capital (Ctesiphon) some 1300 years ago. Iraq continues to have family, ethnic and religious ties to modern-day Persia, Iran. (In fact, one of the candidates in the last presidential race in Iran was born in Najaf, Iraq.) Many noted Persians are buried in what became Iraq some 80 years ago. Prior to that time, Iraq was an Ottoman province jointly ruled by the Ottomans, Persians and the Arab tribes to the South. I did learn about that one in my mother-in-law's 1908 Encyclopedia Britannica, not to mention Persian, Turkish and Arabic historical sources that the English-language world may dispute. (Really EB should have all of its old versions online and available for archival and research purposes! This would be a service that the British Museum Library, the embodiment of "The World's Knowledge" could provide with the government budget that should be directed to it after the British troops currently deployed in Basra return to the U.K.) You may check for yourself if you can get your hands on a 1908 EB ... but you may not be as luck as I, who have an antique dealer for a mother-in-law.

Furthermore, we're told about Iranian, Saudi, Syrian and Turkish interference in Iraq on a daily basis on our most esteemed news media. So shouldn't these "interfering" countries maintain large embassies and staff in Iraq and vice versa? Presumably, well-equipped embassies can advance the cause of interference ... Oh ... I forgot that it is the U.S. troops that have come from 12 time zones away and invaded Iraq and that it is the occupying forces that have in the past arrested diplomats from these countries who had come to Iraq based on the invitation of the government in Baghdad ... but wait ... That's not invasion, occupation and interference in sovereign states of another country .... It is just humanitarian good will .... Sorry, I forgot the propaganda for a moment ... It happens every once in a while.

Here is what FT's Guy Dinmore writes about the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, the world's largest embassy ever built ("US Twists Civilian Arms To Fill Fortress Baghdad," FT, January 8, 2007, page 2):

The embassy compound being built inside Baghdad’s Green Zone covers 104 acres, making it six times larger than the United Nations compound in New York. A city within a city for more than 1,000 people, it will have its own water, sewers and electricity, six apartment buildings, a Marine barracks, swimming pool, shops and some walls 15 feet thick.

The State Department has told the Financial Times that the US civilian presence in Iraq has “grown considerably beyond the numbers projected for the new embassy compound”, which is scheduled for completion by September 1 at a cost of $592m (€455m, £307m).

The department and other agencies, such as the Pentagon and Treasury which also supply staff, are working out how to accommodate the extra numbers that Mr Bush is expected to announce this week. Recruits are being attracted to one-year posts by a mix of cajoling and inducement – an almost doubling of their salary, four trips outside Iraq and guarantees of favourable postings afterwards.

...

“Baghdad dwarfs everything else. It is becoming a monster that has to be fed every year with a new crop of volunteers,” says one diplomat.

So far the State Department has not resorted to compulsory or “directed” assignments, a practice last used during the Vietnam war. But it has warned it would put assignments elsewhere on hold “if Iraq and Afghanistan and other priority posts are not staffed”.

Among the many recommendations of the bipartisan Baker-Hamilton report on Iraq, issued in December, was that diplomats and other US personnel should be obliged to serve in Iraq if there were not enough volunteers.

Financial Times, January 8, 2007, page 2

And, of course,  only the rarest of individuals understand the significance of all this:

John Brown, who resigned as a US diplomat in protest against the 2003 invasion and now teaches public diplomacy, says the embassy “will be a symbol of the US occupation and the near-total separation of US embassy staff members from the society with which they are supposed to interact”.

“Indeed, the planned embassy reminds me of the huge, cavernous buildings that housed Soviet missions in eastern Europe during the cold war. They were hated by the local population for all they stood for: secrecy, arrogance and domination.”

Of the 1,000 or so US civilians staffing Baghdad at present – not including large numbers of private-sector bodyguards – there are about 200 career diplomats, plus some 70 in the provincial reconstruction teams that are set to expand.

Many other staffers are so-called “3161s” – recruited ad hoc and, according to the State Department, “fully qualified for their highly technical jobs”. Diplomats question this, saying many are incompetent and have been hired for their loyalty to the Republican effort.

Financial Times, January 8, 2007, page 2

Well-done to Dinmore for once again proving the value of good journalism -- telling the truth honorably and as it is, with few wrinkles if any -- and to John Brown for having a keen sense of seeing things as they are and for taking a stand from within his profession when it most mattered!

2007-01-08 12:41:49.0 -- ; Permalink ; Trackback.
colonialism embassy fortress iraq uk us war

Friday January 05, 2007

[ Society ] Somalia vs. U.S.A.

One of my daughters read these statistics for me this Christmas holiday while we were at Lake Tahoe. 

US has the largest number of cars per person: 1/2.

Somalia has the smallest number of cars per person: 1/1000 (Or was it 1/10,000 ? I'll have to check when the book returns form my daughter's school desk!)

Source: Guinness World Records 2007.

Notes:

Guinness World Records web site can be found here.

A recent article offering an alternative view on the situation in Somalia can be found here.

2007-01-05 22:54:07.0 -- Comments [1] ; Permalink ; Trackback.
africa cars somalia us

Thursday December 14, 2006

[ Media ] Disruptive with TV

Roberto Chinnici puts some probing questions to non-mainstream English language TV channels. His solution to their problems to break into the U.S. market: Use the web to your advantage to be disruptive with conventional TV programming.

To address the complaint regarding economic cost of bandwidth, finding a way to include decent advertising may prove sufficient. Furthermore, there can be a web-based subscription model that collects small subscription fees (or micropayments) for access to programming. This will work because bandwidth will still be able to serve all users particularly if programming does not emphasize real, real-time news and breaks content into pieces available separately.

2006-12-14 13:51:01.0 -- Comments [2] ; Permalink ; Trackback.
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Tuesday December 05, 2006

[ Economics ] The Tale of Two Diverging Economies

Chris Giles and Ralph Atkins of Financial Times tell the tale of two diverging economies.

While there are many "good examples of the new European economy: robust, diversified and able to sustain growth without a US motor...anecdotes cannot supply conclusive proof of Europe’s new resilience," they write. "In recent months, the debate has been fierce, with opinion among economists split roughly equally between optimism and pessimism." Wild differences seem to be part of the common course when it comes to much of economic opinion. It seems that Europe is finding its own internal growth engines, and having continually improved its infrastructure and expanded on trade with others while paying very little military tax, it has braced itself to weather changes.

A similar story by Marcus Walker appears on page one of The Wall Street Journal on December 6: "Europe is Giving Global Economy A Surprise Boost Amid U.S. Lull."

In the meantime, ties remain and mutual investment between the two economies has dwarfed all others.

2006-12-05 17:03:10.0 -- Comments [2] ; Permalink ; Trackback.
economics europe stagflation us

Saturday November 25, 2006

[ Culture ] State of US Education

Valerie Strauss of The Washington Post writes about U.S. educational institutions. The article summarizes findings in "Condition of Education" reports published by the U.S. Department of Education. There is a wealth of information in the original reports. For example, at the undergraduate level for every school year from 89-90 to 03-04, more business degrees were awarded than any other degrees.

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Sunday November 12, 2006

[ Society ] Koppel on Social Change

People in their 30s and 40s may still remember Ted Koppel from "the hostage crisis." He made a career out of reporting it. Now, for the Discovery Channel, he has filed a new video documentary on Iran, speaking to a number of individuals and opinion makers. While still rooted in the common biases of the Western and American discourse on Iran, it provides a platform for a potentially better understanding of the immense transformations that have followed the Islamic Revolution of 1979 by virtue of interviews conducted with a relatively broad range of Iranians. (Most of those interviewed, either appear to know little about those biases or, out of sheer politeness, let Koppel get away with them. A good training in journalism would make it clear to anyone that every question can come loaded with assumptions. However, one needs a good sense and training as a politician to respond or to unload and disclose the assumptions.)

2006-11-12 22:35:41.0 -- Comments [3] ; Permalink ; Trackback.
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Monday November 06, 2006

[ Society ] From Yorkville to San Francisco

There is a big difference between bloggers and blogging and professional journalism. For an example, see this video production by two British journalists (from The Guardian) on the mid-term U.S. elections which shows how professional journalists with a bit of resources and a bit of freedom of action can easily outdo any media-caster (of any variety of media) in very good style even if not in the full range of content.

2006-11-06 00:54:01.0 -- ; Permalink ; Trackback.
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Friday November 03, 2006

[ Economics ] Productivity Growth Slows

A recent Wall Street Joural article reports a decrease in productivity growth rate in the U.S. from an average of 2.8% in the last decade to 1.3%. While we commonly hear that productivity can grow by the rise in population and by the application of technology, we should also remind ourselves that organizational and process innovation as well as a healthy social infrastructure can also have a tremendous impact on economic growth. Productivity growth represents "a crucial factor in controlling inflation, boosting profits and improving living standards."

Productivity also matters to policy makers at the Federal Reserve. If it slows, the economy's growth potential -- the "speed limit" at which it can grow without stoking inflation -- also declines. Recently, Fed staffers have been nudging down their estimate of the economy's future growth potential, a move that reflects lower estimates of productivity growth. In the current environment, that means the Fed might have to keep interest rates higher for longer to keep inflation under control.

2006-11-03 22:51:38.0 -- ; Permalink ; Trackback.
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