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October 31, 2007
A Black Swan World Plays to America's Strength
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, sees America's strength in a globalized world being its ability to come up with the totally unexpected, unplanned innovation: black swans. It's our salvation, Taleb argues, not only economically, but in a world whose future we cannot accurately predict:
Things, it turns out, are all too often discovered by accident--but we don't see that when we look at history in our rear-view mirrors. The technologies that run the world today (like the Internet, the computer and the laser) are not used in the way intended by those who invented them. Even academics are starting to realize that a considerable component of medical discovery comes from the fringes, where people find what they are not exactly looking for.
It is not just that hypertension drugs led to Viagra or that angiogenesis drugs led to the treatment of macular degeneration, but that even discoveries we claim come from research are themselves highly accidental. They are the result of undirected tinkering narrated after the fact, when it is dressed up as controlled research. The high rate of failure in scientific research should be sufficient to convince us of the lack of effectiveness in its design.
America's primary export, it appears, is trial and error, and the innovative knowledge attained in such a way. Trial and error has error in it; and most top-down traditional rational and academic environments do not like the fallibility of "error" and the embarrassment of not quite knowing where they're going. The U.S. fosters entrepreneurs and creators, not exam-takers, bureaucrats or, worse, deluded economists. So the perceived weakness of the American pupil in conventional studies is where his or her very strength may lie. . . .
Globalization allowed the U.S. to specialize in the creative aspect of things, the risk-taking production of concepts and ideas--that is, the scalable part of production, in which more income can be generated from the same fixed assets through innovation. By exporting jobs, the U.S. has outsourced the less scalable and more linear components of production, assigning them to the citizens of more mathematical and culturally rigid states, who are happy to be paid by the hour to work on other people's ideas.
Let us go one step further. It is high time to recognize that we humans are far better at doing than understanding, and better at tinkering than inventing. But we don't know it. We truly live under the illusion of order, believing that planning and forecasting are possible. We are scared of the random, yet we live from its fruits. We are so scared of the random that we create disciplines that try to make sense of the past--but we ultimately fail to understand it, just as we fail to see the future. . . .
Read his excellent Forbes commentary in full here.
Posted by John at 4:53 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackQuote of the Day for Wednesday, October , 31, 2007
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October 30, 2007
Quote of the Day for Tuesday, October 30, 2007
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October 29, 2007
An Immigrant Gardener Gives Back
From the San Francisco Chronicle [thanks to TP Wire Service for the pointer]:
Catalino Tapia came to the United States at age 20 with $6 in his pocket. He worked hard, as a baker and a machine operator, and eventually started his own gardening business. He and his wife bought a home in Redwood City and raised their two sons, putting the eldest through college.
Though he never studied beyond sixth grade, Tapia was so inspired to see his son, Noel, graduate from Boalt Hall School of Law at UC Berkeley that he decided to help other young Peninsula people make it to college. Now 63, the Mexican immigrant is giving back to the country he says has given him so much.
With legal help from his son, Tapia established a nonprofit corporation, the Bay Area Gardeners Foundation, and recruited a dozen other immigrant gardeners to join the board. This year, the foundation gave out nine scholarships of $1,500, almost double what it distributed in 2006, its first year.
With his callused hands and burly shoulders, the Michoacán native does not fit the typical image of a philanthropist. When Tapia approached the Silicon Valley Community Foundation for a grant to help strengthen the fledgling organization's capacity, he was told the agency had never seen a foundation started by gardeners before. "Well," he replied, "We'll be the first."
When most people think of a philanthropist, they are likely to think of a society matron or millionaire business mogul, said Manuel Santamaría, a program manager at the community foundation.
"In fact, taking tamales to the church potluck or reading in the classroom - all those little acts are philanthropic," said Santamaría. "Philanthropy means love of humankind. We've got to spin a much better view of what immigrants are contributing. ... And Catalino is taking it to a different level." . . .
Read the complete, inspiring story here.
Posted by John at 4:36 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackQuote of the Day for Monday, October 29, 2007
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October 28, 2007
Italy's Mafia Accounts for 7% of Its GDP
Moreover, the four main mafia groups in the country together earn about $126 billion a year, which would rank at or near the top of Italy's public companies.
The largest business of the mob is thought to be loan-sharking, and an estimated one-third of all retail shops are paying above market interest rates. Extortion is thought to be the next largest line of business. An estimated one in five retailers are thought to be handing over a portion of their earnings to the mafia.
[Source: FP Passport and The Guardian]
Posted by John at 9:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBackGovernor Bredesen on China's "Audacity" and Skirting the Edge of Opportunities
Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen, fresh from leading a state trade mission to China, reflects on his trip in a Nashville Tennessean commentary:
First, an insight about America: The Chinese are willing to do big things; we need to rediscover that audacity here at home. I've felt for a long time that we confine ourselves far too much to frittering around the edges of opportunities — in infrastructure, in transportation, in health care. This trip has crystallized this feeling. Hong Kong has 7 million people, a little larger than Tennessee; I flew out of a new Hong Kong airport this morning that cost $8 billion to construct. Can you even imagine an $8 billion public infrastructure project in Tennessee? With even bigger ones on the drawing boards?
Posted by John at 12:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBackSecond, China is enormous; 1.3 billion people is a quarter of the world. The refrain repeated over and over by our Tennesseans: "You just have to see it to believe it." There are cities in China you've never heard of that are bigger than any city in the U.S. And with that size, there is an astonishing amount of money in China. Shanghai defies description. A lot of what is going on right now has to be a dot-com-like bubble — but it's the underlying wealth to buy these assets that is the real story, and that wealth is definitely there and growing exponentially. China is having its coming-out party.
Third, the political system in China is unique and defies labels. It's not the gray communism that I knew in the 1970s in Eastern Europe; it's not Western-style capitalism either. My best one sentence description would be, "A one-party capitalist country with no Bill of Rights."
We can compete economically just fine with that system, but only with very clear-eyed study of how it really works and not through some ideological prism.
And fourth, we need to work hard to open more doors to China. I want more trade missions, and I especially want more Chinese students here and more American students to go to China. For the past century, America has been the higher education destination of choice in the world. After 9/11 and the massive visa restrictions that were put in place, Chinese students looked elsewhere. Places like Australia and parts of Europe are now where many of them go. We lost an invaluable franchise, and we need to regain it.
I already know that this trip will be a business success for Tennessee; how many eyes got opened is even more important. I believe that once we come to understand the gravity of the challenge to us, America will compete just fine. Open and free societies can adapt and change better than any competitor.
But I also came to believe this past week that we need to actually use that freedom to do some thinking and to do some planning; resting on our considerable laurels is a prescription for our kids to raise theirs in the China Century.
A Supercomputer You Can Get Your Hand Around
It's only 10 to 15 years in the future, according to nanotechnology researchers. [Source: PC World]
Posted by John at 4:52 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackQuote of the Day for Sunday, October 28, 2007
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October 27, 2007
Raw Globalization Preserves Sushi
Reason's Katherine Mangu-Ward, reviewing The Sushi Economy: Globalization and the Making of a Modern Delicacy, explains how globalization has enhanced and preserved, not destroyed, sushi's roots and traditions:
. . . In some cases, the global sushi economy has preserved uniquely Japanese traditions better than an unchanged, pristine provincial cuisine ever could: Men whose great-grandfathers made samurai swords now make the perfect long knives used to carve precious tuna at Tokyo’s Tsukiji market, where subtle, intricate auctions are run on less computing power than the average Japanese teenager’s cell phone. Without a global shipping system and global demand, the markets would disappear.
Chowhounders who fret about lost authenticity or lament the commercialization of cuisine should think again. There is no such thing as authentic sushi, and there never has been. There was no moment when sushi was purely traditional. And tuna and avocado rolls taste a heck of lot better than a cask of semi-rotten whitefish packed with rice.
Read her complete commentary here.
Posted by John at 8:34 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackAnother Quote of the Day for You . . .
. . . on why individual liberty is so important, from the Skeptical Optimist.
Posted by John at 8:31 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackEU "Blue" on Skilled Immigrants
The European Union has announced plans for a "blue card", similar to a U.S. "green card", which would be offered to skilled immigrants. Such a card would make it easier for immigrants with designated scientific, engineering, and technical skills to get into E.U. countries, bring their families along, swap jobs, and ultimately gain permanent residency.
While some observers believe the E.U. will have trouble getting its member countries to go along, the U.S. should take notice. We Americans like to make fun of statist Europe, but immigration is one area in which our bureaucracy may be second to none in its complexity. Consequently, small improvements in Europe's competitive position to attract the world's skilled workers may actually go a long way.
Posted by John at 8:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackQuote of the Day for Saturday, October 27, 2007
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October 26, 2007
Quote of the Day for Friday, October 26, 2007
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October 25, 2007
Air Conditioned Nation
In 1970, the first year such data was compiled by the federal government, just 36% of all U.S. households had air conditioning. Only 11% of the country's households had central air conditioning. In 2005, 82% of all households below the poverty line had air conditioning, while 52% of such households had central air. [Source: Cafe Hayek, from the American Housing Survey]
Posted by John at 11:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBackQuote of the Day for Thursday, October 25, 2007
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October 24, 2007
More Megafires to Come in the Western U.S.
One of the reasons for such a prediction, naturally, is climate change, but the "we know what's best" philosophy of the U.S. Forest Service has something to do with it as well:
Posted by John at 5:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack. . . Longer term, climate change across the West is leading to hotter days on average and longer fire seasons. Experts say this is likely to yield more megafires like the conflagrations that this week forced evacuations of at least 300,000 resident in California's southland and led President Bush to declare a disaster emergency in seven counties on Tuesday.
Megafires, also called "siege fires," are the increasingly frequent blazes that burn 500,000 acres or more – 10 times the size of the average forest fire of 20 years ago. One of the current wildfires is the sixth biggest in California ever, in terms of acreage burned, according to state figures and news reports.
The trend to more superhot fires, experts say, has been driven by a century-long policy of the US Forest Service to stop wildfires as quickly as possible. The unintentional consequence was to halt the natural eradication of underbrush, now the primary fuel for megafires. . . .
Redefining An Aging Population and Its Economic Impact
Stanford's John Shoven argues for a different measurements of a aging population in lieu of the simple years-since-birth. Mortality risk and remaining life expectancy, Shoven argues, place a much different perspective on what has been characterized as a major demographic cliff and a looming financial disaster:
The current practice of measuring age as years-since-birth, both in common practice and in the law, rather than alternative measures reflecting a person's stage in the lifecycle distorts important behavior such as retirement, saving, and the discussion of dependency ratios. Two alternative measures of age are explored: mortality risk and remaining life expectancy. With these alternative measures, the huge wave of elderly forecast for the first half of this century doesn't look like a huge wave at all. By conventional 65+ standards, the fraction of the population that is elderly will grow by about 66 percent. However, the fraction of the population that is above a mortality rate that corresponds to 65+ today will grow by only 20 percent. Needless to say, the aging of the society is a lot less dramatic with the alternative mortality-based age measures. In a separate application of age measurement, I examine the consequences of stabilizing labor force participation by age with alternative age definitions. If labor force participation were to remain as it is today with respect to remaining life expectancy (i.e. if the length of retirement stayed where it is today) rather than labor force participation remaining fixed by conventionally-defined age, then there would be 9.6 percent more total labor supply by 2050 in the U.S. This additional labor supply could help finance entitlement programs amongst other things. GDP would be between seven and ten percent higher by 2050 if retirement lengths stabilize. . . .
Shoven's complete research paper can be found here (pdf). Thanks to Marginal Revolution for the pointer.
Posted by John at 5:57 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackQuote of the Day for Wednesday, October 24, 2007
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October 23, 2007
Here's the Part of the Water Shortage Problem Almost Never Mentioned
. . . water remains a consumer's cheapest utility, with bills averaging $25 per month across the country, and sewage $20, compared with $60 to $100 per month for cell-phone service, notes Francesca McCann, water industry analyst for Houston-based Stanford Group Co. That has created a false sense of the resource as being low in value, she says, and will make it hard to come up with the half-trillion dollars the Environmental Protection Agency estimates will be needed in drinking water and sewage upgrades nationwide over the next 20 years.
Georgia is no different than Arizona and other states with water challenges: low, non-market prices for water are never mentioned by politicians or the media as a cause of our predicament.
In fact, it may be the biggest part of the problem. Cheap water is regarded as a right, not a privilege, and that's the root cause of any shortage.
The price of any good or service determines its demand; that's basic economics which my nine year old daughter understands. When water bills are one of the most inexpensive aspects of running a household or a business, it's easy to understand why conservation efforts, imposed by government by force, are largely a failure.
Posted by John at 6:21 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackThe Google Effect
From 2004 to 2006, roughly $19 billion in wealth was monetized from Google employees exercising options and selling shares. That sum is greater than the GDP of Panama, Iceland, or Bahrain. [Source: Mercury News]
Posted by John at 6:03 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackQuote of the Day for Tuesday, October 23, 2007
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October 22, 2007
Bright and Sunny Forecast for Solar Power
Believe it or not, solar power could be the world's leading source of electricity by the end of this century; that's not the opinion of dreamy-eyed idealists, but those willing to put real money at stake. Reuters reports:
. . . Subsidies are needed because solar is still more expensive than conventional power sources like coal, but costs are dropping by around 5 percent a year and "grid parity," without subsidies, is already a reality in parts of California.
Very sunny countries could reach that breakeven in five years or so, and even cloudy Britain by 2020.
"At that point you can expect pretty much unbounded growth," General Electric Co's Chief Engineer Jim Lyons told the Jefferies conference in London on Thursday, referring to price parity in sunny parts of the United States by around 2015.
"The solar industry will eventually be bigger than wind."
The United States' second largest company, GE is a big manufacturer of wind turbines and wants to catch up in solar, said Lyons. . . .
. . . The industry could halve costs and achieve parity in significant markets including the United States, Japan and parts of southern Europe by 2012, said Erik Thorsen, chief executive of the world's biggest solar power company Renewable Energy Corp.
"If grid prices go up at the present rate if could happen before," he told Reuters.
REC expects to halve costs on new production by 2010. German solar power company Q-Cells AG, the world's second biggest maker of solar cells, expects similar cuts by making more components itself, thinner than before, and by using cheaper techniques for processing the silicon raw material.
The solar sector has grown at 40 percent per year despite a shortage of silicon, but that bottleneck should ease over the next two to three years, said executives. . .
Thanks to Future Pundit for the pointer.
Posted by John at 5:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBackQuote of the Day for Monday, October 22, 2007
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October 21, 2007
Who are We Protecting?
Security screeners at two of the nation's busiest airports failed to find fake bombs hidden on undercover agents posing as passengers in more than 60% of tests last year, according to a classified report obtained by USA TODAY.
Screeners at Los Angeles International Airport missed about 75% of simulated explosives and bomb parts that Transportation Security Administration testers hid under their clothes or in carry-on bags at checkpoints, the TSA report shows.
At Chicago O'Hare International Airport, screeners missed about 60% of hidden bomb materials that were packed in everyday carry-ons — including toiletry kits, briefcases and CD players. San Francisco International Airport screeners, who work for a private company instead of the TSA, missed about 20% of the bombs, the report shows. The TSA ran about 70 tests at Los Angeles, 75 at Chicago and 145 at San Francisco. . .
Rest easy, folks, we're now taking that same level of "protection" to the Mexican border:
Posted by John at 11:33 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackUnited States border agents have stepped up scrutiny of Americans returning home from Mexico, slowing commerce and creating delays at border crossings not seen since the months after the Sept. 11 attacks.
The increased enforcement is in part a dress rehearsal for new rules, scheduled to take effect in January, that will require Americans to show a passport or other proof of citizenship to enter the United States. The requirements were approved by Congress as part of antiterrorism legislation in 2004. . . .
The new policy is a big shift after decades when Americans arrived at land border crossings, declared they were citizens and were waved on through. Since the authorities began ramping up enforcement in August, wait times at border stations in Texas have often stretched to two hours or more, discouraging visitors and shoppers and upsetting local business.
The delays could remain a fact of life across the southern border for the next few years, border officials said, at least until new security technology and expanded entry stations are installed and until Americans get used to being checked and questioned like foreigners. [emphasis mine] Last year 234 million travelers entered the United States through land border crossings from Mexico. . . .
PetroChina the World's Second Largest Company
At $433 billion, PetroChina has surpassed General Electric in market capitalization to become the world's second largest company. After its forthcoming offering and listing on the Shanghai exchange, the company is poised to challenge Exxon ($526 billion) for the world's top spot. [Source: Financial Times]
Posted by John at 8:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackWhy Global Trade Booms Even as Trade Talks Falter
Moisés Naím, editor in chief of Foreign Policy, explains why global trade is booming even as free trade negotiations are largely stalled and protectionist sentiment is ascending; you can find his complete commentary here:
. . . The short answer is technology and politics. In the past quarter century, technological innovations—from the Internet to cargo containers—lowered the costs of trading. And, in the same period, an international political environment more tolerant of openness created opportunities to lower barriers to imports and exports. China, India, the former Soviet Union, and many other countries launched major reforms that deepened their integration into the world’s economy. In developing countries alone, import tariffs dropped from an average of around 30 percent in the 1980s to less than 10 percent today. Indeed, one of the surprises of the past 20 or so years is how much governments have lowered obstacles to trade—unilaterally. Between 1983 and 2003, 66 percent of tariff reductions in the world took place because governments decided it was in their own interests to lower their import duties, 25 percent as a result of agreements reached in multilateral trade negotiations, and 10 percent through regional trade agreements with neighboring countries.
So, who needs free trade agreements if international trade is doing just fine without them?
Posted by John at 4:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackWe all do. Although trade may be booming, giving up on lowering the substantial trade barriers that still exist—in agriculture, in services, or in manufactured goods traded among poor countries—would be a historic mistake. Even the more pessimistic projections show that the adoption of reforms like those included in the Doha Round would yield substantial economic gains, anywhere from $50 billion to several hundred billion. Moreover, according to the World Bank, by 2015 as many as 32 million people could be lifted out of poverty if the Doha Round were successful.
But it isn’t just the money. As the volume of trade continues to grow, the need for clearer and more effective rules becomes more critical. In this century, the quality of what is traded will be as important as the need to lower tariffs was in the last. The recent cases of deadly dog food and toxic toothpaste coming out of China prove as much. No country acting alone stands as good a chance of monitoring and curtailing such lethal goods as does the WTO working in concert with governments across the globe.
Moreover, a rules-based system accepted by a majority of nations can protect smaller countries and companies from the abusive practices of bigger nations or large conglomerates. The rule of law is always better than the law of the jungle, even in resolving trade conflicts.
But perhaps what is most important to keep in mind is that, despite all the misgivings about international trade, the fact remains that countries in which the share of economic activity related to exports is rising grow 1.5 times faster than those with more stagnant exports. And though we know that economic growth alone may not be sufficient to alleviate poverty, we have also learned that without growth, all other efforts will fall short. That argument alone should be enough to make us root for the trade negotiators, and not just the trade.
Quote of the Day for Sunday, October 21, 2007
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October 20, 2007
Tennessee Promotes Tourism . . . in Spanish
For the first time, Tennessee's department of tourism has begun advertising in Spanish-language newspapers. A Spanish version of its website will be unveiled by the end of October. [Source: USA Today] Incidentally, a German version of the site is already available.
Here in Georgia, the state's tourism website is English-only, and presumably proud of it.
Posted by John at 7:26 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackChina's Exports and Emissions
Roughly one-quarter of China's carbon dioxide emissions are produced from the manufacture of goods exported to the West. (Source: BBC)
Posted by John at 6:56 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackChina's Rise Drops World Poverty Population Below One Billion
The Sydney Morning Herald reports:
Posted by John at 6:06 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackThe number of people living in poverty has fallen below 1 billion for the first time since measurements began, and the one-third decline since 1981 is almost entirely due to a rising China.
China explains why the world is on track to meet the World Bank's millennium development goal of halving the number of people on less than $US1 a day by 2015, Martin Ravallion, the director of the World Bank's Development Research Group, told a poverty conference in Beijing this week. "We've never seen anything like it," he said.
A Stockholm University professor, Peter Svedberg, said the number of stunted and underweight Chinese children had halved in the 10 years to 2002. . . .
However, as China appears to be rescuing the world from poverty, it has also become the most unequal country in Asia, rivalled only by Nepal. "It's the most dramatic increase in inequality that I've seen in any data anywhere," Dr Ravallion said. . . .
Quote of the Day for Saturday, October 20, 2007
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October 19, 2007
Greed, Fear, and a Little Criminal Activity Caused the 1987 Crash
Twenty years ago today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped by 22% in single day, and Donald Luskin explains why it really happened:
Posted by John at 7:36 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack. . . Before the crash, it was widely discussed among professional investors that the combination of portfolio insurance and program trading could cause a cascading market decline, as each step downward caused portfolio insurance strategies to do more program selling, which in turn would cause a steeper decline, and more selling, and so on.
One especially aggressive head trader on the proprietary trading desk of one particularly aggressive investment bank had followed that discussion, and it gave him an evil idea. What would happen, he wondered, if he started massively short-selling stock index futures, driving the stock market down single-handedly as long as he dared to sell enough contracts -- thus setting off the cascade. Once the cascade was set in motion, he could keep selling, knowing that the portfolio insurers would drive the market lower and lower. Eventually he'd cover his shorts at a huge profit.
It worked. And this man was in a great position to know that it would. His firm acted as broker for all the largest portfolio insurers, including Wells Fargo. So he knew exactly how much the market would have to decline to set off the portfolio insurers' sell programs. In other words, he had inside information. All he had to do to make a fortune was use that information, betray his own clients' trust in his firm, and threaten the world financial system by causing the biggest stock market crash in history. . . .
China's Corruption Problem
Minxin Pei of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace recently released a report (PDF) on China's corruption problem, and finds the problem has ballooned over the last two decades to a point that it is a major threat to the country's long-term prosperity:
Posted by John at 6:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack--Corruption such as bribery, kickbacks, and theft cost at least 3% of China's GDP, or about $86 billion. That's just the direct cost, and it's more than the government's entire education budget.
--Each year, researchers at the Communist Party's Central Party School, the prestigious training ground for top government officials, survey their enrollment. From 1999 to 2004, officials responding to the survey listed corruption as either the first or second most serious social problem in China.
--A survey of mostly non-state owned firms by the State Council’s Development Research Center asked respondents to rate their local officials in terms of integrity. Almost 40% responded "bad" or "very bad".
--The odds of a corrupt government official going to jail is less than 3%.
Wal-Mart on the Wane?
Contrary to what FTC bureaucrats and the anti-business crowd would have us believe, size isn't everything. If anything, in today's competitive world, it may be a liability. Wal-Mart increasingly appears to be an example, along with Microsoft and IBM, to name just two other behemoths whose "dominance" engendered angst, "non-profit" political action committees, and antitrust suits in earlier days. The Wall Street Journal reports on the seeming end of the Wal-Mart era:
. . . Wal-Mart's influence over the retail universe is slipping. In fact, the industry's titan is scrambling to keep up with swifter rivals that are redefining the business all around it. It can still disrupt prices, as it did last year by cutting some generic prescriptions in the United States to $4. But success is no longer guaranteed.
Rival retailers lured Americans away from Wal-Mart's low-price promise by offering greater convenience, more selection, higher quality or better service. Amid the country's growing affluence, Wal-Mart has struggled to overhaul its down-market, politically incorrect image while other discounters pitched themselves as more upscale and more palatable alternatives.
The Internet has changed shoppers' preferences and eroded the commanding influence Wal-Mart had over its suppliers. As a result, American shoppers are increasingly looking for qualities that Wal-Mart has trouble providing. . . .
Read the rest of this extensive article here.
Posted by John at 6:17 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackQuote of the Day for Friday, October 19, 2007
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October 18, 2007
Quote of the Day for Thursday, October 18, 2007
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October 17, 2007
Cheap Gas
From a Financial Times review of Zoom: The Global Race to Fuel the Car of the Future:
Posted by John at 7:13 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack. . . gasoline remains the cheapest liquid on sale at most American filling stations, costing less per gallon than milk, coffee or mouthwash.
Quote of the Day for Wednesday, October 17, 2007
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October 16, 2007
Quote of the Day for Tuesday, October 16, 2007
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October 15, 2007
Building the Atlanta Brand
My partner Sam Zamarripa penned a tremendous editorial on the "Atlanta brand", why it matters, and how to build it to the benefit of the entire state:
Cities are the most important and recognizable brands in the world. More than consumer brands, states, provinces and even countries, cities dominate the global mindshare of brands. You may want to go to France, but Paris is the destination. No one travels to New York State, it's NYC. And so on.
We live in a city-region, "Atlanta," that is a "giga-brand." The Atlanta brand has been etched into the cellular membranes of billions of people. Atlanta is not just the name of a city; it is a biological plaque holder in the brains of the most important people in the world – economic, political and religious – and it is associated with powerful images, ideals and symbols. It is an economic brand of optimism and hope, with a social foundation for inclusion, tolerance and human rights. Atlanta is one of a few cities that dominate in this category.
For this reason, the Atlanta brand is the most important nonpeople asset in our state. It is pure gold, Olympic and otherwise. Competitor cities like Dallas, Richmond, Va., and even Miami would die to have the reach and depth of the Atlanta brand. They understand brand creation is painfully slow, expensive and illusive.
The great opportunity for Georgia is to leverage the Atlanta brand to accelerate economic growth, especially global expansion. Many of our leading corporations – UPS, Coca-Cola, Delta and Home Depot – are creating their growth and profits from international expansion. They are top global brands. When the value of these brands is associated with the value of the Atlanta brand, everyone wins. . . .
Read the rest of Sam's essay here; it's worth your time.
Posted by John at 6:02 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackA Little Catch-Up on News in the Hispanic Market
I haven't been able to post the last few days--other than the Quote of the Day, of course--so I've got several items to catch-up with:
---Because farm workers are in critically short supply, officials at the U.S. Departments of Homeland Security, State, and Labor are quietly rewriting restrictions on foreign laborers. The L.A. Times reports:
. . . On all sides of the farm industry, the administration's behind-the-scenes initiative to revamp H-2A farmworker visas is fraught with anxiety. Advocates for immigrants fear the changes will come at the expense of worker protections because the administration has received and is reportedly acting on extensive input from farm lobbyists. And farmers in areas such as the San Joaquin Valley, which is experiencing a 20% labor shortfall, worry the administration's changes will not happen soon enough for the 2008 growing season.
"It's like a ticking time bomb that's going to go off," said Luawanna Hallstrom, chief operating officer of Harry Singh & Sons, a third-generation family farm in Oceanside that grows tomatoes. "I'm looking at my fellow farmers and saying, 'Oh my God, what's going on?' " . . .
---Douglas J. Besharov, writing in the New York Times, comments on the significant economic progress being made by U.S. Hispanics as a whole:
Posted by John at 5:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackBetween 1994, the high point for Hispanic poverty, and 2006, the last year with comprehensive data, median Hispanic household income rose 20 percent, from about $31,500 a year in 2006 dollars to about $37,800 a year. The median income of Hispanic individuals rose 32 percent, to about $20,500 from about $15,500.
These incomes do not make Hispanics wealthy, of course, but they did allow about 70 percent of them to send remittances home last year. According to the best estimate, the total sent was $45 billion — $4 billion more than the entire amount distributed to Americans by the Earned Income Tax Credit.
One explanation for this economic progress is increased education. From 1994 to 2005, the percentage of 18- to 24-year-old Hispanics who graduated from high school or obtained a general equivalency diploma rose to about 66 percent from about 56 percent. About 25 percent are now enrolled in college, up from about 19 percent in 1994. Hispanics are moving rapidly into many management, professional and other white-collar occupations. . . .
---The San Diego Union-Tribune reports on the rapidly growing number of businesses from Tijuana and Baja California generally expanding northward into San Diego.
Quote of the Day for Monday, October 15, 2007
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October 14, 2007
Quote of the Day for Sunday, October 14, 2007
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October 13, 2007
Quote of the Day for Saturday, October 13, 2007
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October 12, 2007
Quote of the Day for Friday, October 12, 2007
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October 11, 2007
Quote of the Day for Thursday, October 11, 2007
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October 10, 2007
Quote of the Day for Wednesday, October 10, 2007
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October 9, 2007
Teaching the iPod Generation with a Blackboard
That's what we're doing in our schools, says Jim Goodnight, co-founder and chief executive officer of SAS, and it's a huge mistake:
. . . Lacking a clear and present danger, the American education system is not mobilizing to support science, technology, engineering and math. Today’s generation of kids is the most technology savvy group that this country has ever produced. They are born with an iPod in one hand and a cell phone in another. They’re text messaging, e-mailing, instant messaging. They’re on MySpace, YouTube & Google. They’ve got Nintendo Wiis, Game Boys, Play Stations.
Posted by John at 6:25 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackTheir world is one of total interactivity. They’re in constant communication with each other, but when they go to school, they are told to leave those “toys” at home. They’re not to be used in school. Instead, the system continues teaching as if these kids belong to the last century, by standing in front of a blackboard.
Education has not changed, and that’s a problem. It was a good system when I came through, but today’s kids have changed, and that’s the part that educators are not realizing. It’s the kids that have changed, and our education system needs to change along with them.
Again, they are the most technologically savvy group of kids we’ve ever had; we’ve got to take advantage of that.
Quote of the Day for Tuesday, October 9, 2007
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