Political
Reporting From: Paris, FR
While I have been living in Paris for the last month or so, the city is buzzing slightly (less than usual) about World Cup football.
I’m not a huge fan of the sport, but my husband is, and as an amateur athlete I appreciate the excitement and spectacle of international competition, particularly one that draws billions of eyeballs. Being in Germany for the 2006 World Cup was definitely an amazing experience, as was watching the UK’s draw over the weekend.
In case you haven’t seen the games, one of the things that has been so interesting about this particular World Cup is how most of the European teams which usually dominate the FIFA world rankings– Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, UK, Greece, etc.– have really been struggling on the field.
Ironically, these are also the same countries struggling with disastrous balance sheets and bloated entitlement programs.
At the same time, young upstart teams like Paraguay, South Korea, New Zealand, and Uruguay have proven themselves to be extremely effective against these legendary, once-dominant opponents of Old Europe.
I feel like this sports metaphor, which is being consistently played out on the field during the World Cup tournament, represents the changing of the guard that is taking place in global economics and geopolitics– the rise of the developing nation, and the decline of the developed.
If you’d indulge me a bit more leeway with the sports metaphor, one could argue that this tournament’s lackluster teams of old Europe are well-endowed with enormous assets– great players, goodwill, training programs.
Just like governments which rely on the same tax and spend playbook year after year, Europe’s great football teams are being rendered ineffective by sticking to the same old tired tactics of the past.
The more effective teams from developing nations, however, are experimenting with innovative approaches, such as extreme conditioning regimens, or Chile’s unique 3-3-1-3 formation, and even North Korea’s massed defense approach.
Overall, the results are clear, both on and off the field.
Here in Paris, where the national team has been suffering from anemic performance thus far, the population is simultaneous gripped with a severe economic crisis. With a new political party at the helm, England and France’s leadership is now tasked with the mission of doing *something* to stem the crisis.
Needless to say, this will unfortunately rely on the old, ineffective playbook of drastically higher taxes. The government has already announced increasing capital gains tax from 18% to 40%, and yet another VAT increase from 17.5% to 20% is also expected. Sound familiar?
By comparison, South Korea charges a 0.3% tax on capital gains for small investors, and 11% in other instances. In Paraguay, the rate is 10%, as is the income tax rate. (in Singapore, UAE, Labuan, and Hong Kong, there is no capital gains tax at all)
Tomorrow, the UK’s new Chancellor of Exchequer, George Osborne, will unveil the kingdom’s “emergency budget,” which should provide more details on the tax increases. The government has been vocal about its intention to curb spending, though most cuts are paltry line items like a $6 million swim program for kids.
How about taking a look at the millions upon millions of government workers who add no value to vital production in the economy? With their bright reflective vests, they’re ubiquitous in England, yet they have less authority, responsibility, and productive value than your average high school hall monitor.
It’s difficult (but possible) to fathom a greater waste of taxpayer money.
I would suggest that for countries like the UK, both their politicians and football coaches should take a few pages from the playbooks smaller, developing countries.
Until next time…
This is why China may kick everyone’s ass…..
This is Shanghai in 1990 vs 2010. Only a 20 year difference!
America is still great!
Despite our many problems, America is still an amazing place to live. I couldn’t say it any better than the article below…its amazing.
http://article.nationalreview.com/269271/10-great-things/dsouza
Despite the recession, our wars, and all the other hurdles we face, people still risk everything to come here and live our lifestyle. We do a lot of things right, and for that I’m really grateful.
Short term pain for long term gain…THAT is Powerful!
I’m usually really positive but this following article scares me. It’s amazing that they don’t see the long term decline. Of course watching the numbers in any business is one of the keys to success but when it determines every move you make, and there is no consideration of the long term effects and only the short term gain, it will always be detrimental. Number crunchers and small minded people are so focused on the numbers, and in the end it’s the numbers (the company, the people) that will suffer. I shake my head.
See the following article posted by Steve Jobs:
A not-so-brief chat with Randall Stephenson of AT&T
So we set up a call with Randall this morning to discuss some of the profoundly stupid things his guy Ralph de la Vega said recently about creating incentives that would encourage people to stop using AT&T’s data network so much. Point of the talk was, when you’re lucky enough to create a smash hit product — when the stars align, and the hardware is great and the ecosystem is great and the apps are great and the whole experience is great, and everything you do just makes everything else better, and you’re totally on a roll and can do no wrong — when that happens, you do not go out and try to fuck it all up by discouraging people who love your product. What you do, instead, is you fix your fucking shitty ass network you fucking shit-eating-grin-wearing hillbilly ass clown!
First off, before we even start the call, we’ve got problems, because shithead won’t get on the phone unless I’m on the line first. Like, Ja’Red comes in and says we’re ready to go, and I go, You mean Randall is on the line, and Ja’Red says, No, his assistant is on the line and once you get on then they’re going to get Randall — so I reach down, hit the button then hit it again so the call gets terminated. I tell Ja’Red to explain to these motherfuckers that Steve Jobs does not get on the line first, ever. Ja’Red does this, but Randall’s assistant insists Randall always gets on last, and especially so in this case since AT&T is about three times the size of Apple, so this time I pick up the phone and tell the assistant that he should inform Randall that when he’s ready to get his pointy head out of his ass and call me, I’ll be here waiting for his call.
So fine. We wait a bit, and he calls. He doesn’t say anything about the standoff, but I can tell he’s pissed, which is fine by me. He launches into a mumbling spiel about how Ralph de la Vega didn’t really say what all the papers are saying he said, and he was misquoted, and it was taken out of context, but I’m like, Bitch, please, guys at our level don’t get taken out of context, we write the shit out in advance and we know exactly what we’re saying when we say it and every goddamn word has been vetted and gone over by a team of flacks. So please don’t sit there like a zoo monkey throwing your own feces at me through the bars of your cage, bokay?
Then I go, Look, Randall, you’re how old — about 50? He says he’s 49. I go, Okay, so you were born in 1960, so maybe you don’t remember Meet the Beatles. Or do you? Do you remember that album? Did they have record players out there in Arkansas?
He goes, I’m from Oklahoma, and I’m like, Yeah, same thing, so anyway did you know that album? Were you aware of it? Came out in the beginning of 1964. The one with the four guys in black and white, half their faces white, half in shadow? Just four faces against a black backdrop? He says he’s familiar with the album but he thought we were getting on the phone to talk about incentivizing heavy users in order to optimize the network resources blah blah and I’m like, Dude, if you ever use the word incentivize around me again I swear I will get in my Gulfstream and fly to wherever you are and I will smash you in the face with a rock.
He sighs and says, Okay. I’m like, I’m sorry, what did you say? He says, Okay. I go, I’m sorry, but I can’t hear you. What did you say? He goes, YES! and I go, That’s better. But back to the Beatles. Now, the thing about that album was, on the day it hit the U.S. the whole world changed. Like, before that day, the world was one way, music was one way, culture was one way — and then after that day the world was never the same ever again, and as soon as you heard that album you knew that, and even if you were only nine years old, which I was, you just knew. You knew. Sales were crazy. I mean nuts. The thing was a huge smash hit. By April, twelve weeks after that album came out, the Beatles had the top five spots on the Billboard chart.
Now there was a lot of demand for that record — so much that the plant that printed the records could not keep up. Now here’s the lesson. Do you think the guys who were running Capitol Records said, Gee whiz, the kids are buying up this record at such a crazy pace that our printing plant can’t keep up — we’d better find a way to slow things down. Maybe we can create an incentive that would discourage people from buying the record. Do you think they said that? No, they did not. What they did was, they went out and found another printing plant. And another one and another one, until they could make as many records as people wanted.
Randall is like, Okay, I get your point. I’m like, You know what, I don’t think you do, because if you did, we wouldn’t be sitting here having this conversation, would we? I mean if you did understand how to do things, your guys wouldn’t be standing up at Wall Street conferences and complaining about how much traffic you’re getting. Instead, you would be running around like a fucking maniac trying to build out your fucking network and make it the best network in the world — and the only reason you would ever need to talk to me would be to thank me for creating a phone that’s so amazing that it draws people to your shit network in the first place.
Randall, baby. we’ve got a hit on our hands. We’ve got the smartphone equivalent of Meet the Beatles. It’s not like that album was the first rock album ever. It’s not like nobody ever made a band with some guitars and drums before. But it was radical. It was new. They took old forms and made them new. Same with us. We didn’t invent the smartphone or the PDA or the music player or the Web browser. We just made them better. We made them new. We changed the fucking world, Randall.
And when I say that “we” have a hit on our hands, I’m really giving you way too much credit, because let’s be honest, the success of iPhone has nothing to do with you. In fact, iPhone is a smash hit in spite of your network, not because of it. That’s how good we are here at Apple — we’re so good that even you and your team of Bell System frigtards can’t stop us. You know what it’s like being your business partner? It’s like trying to swim the English Channel with a boat anchor tied to my legs. And yes, in case you’re not following me, in that analogy, you, my friend, are the fucking boat anchor.
So let’s talk traffic. We’ve got people who love this goddamn phone so much that they’re living on it. Yes, that’s crushing your network. Yes, 3% of your users are taking up 40% of your bandwidth. You see this as a bad thing. It’s not. It’s a good thing. It’s a blessing. It’s an indication that people love what we’re doing, which means you now have a reason to go out and double or triple or quadruple your damn network capacity. Jesus! I can’t believe I’m explaining this to you. You’re in the business of selling bandwidth. That pipe is what you sell. Right now what the market is telling you is that you can sell even more! Lots more! Good Lord. The world is changing, and you’re right in the sweet spot.
While I’m ranting, let me ask you something, Randall. At the risk of sounding like Glenn Beck Jr. — what the fuck has gone wrong with our country? Used to be, we were innovators. We were leaders. We were builders. We were engineers. We were the best and brightest. We were the kind of guys who, if they were running the biggest mobile network in the U.S., would say it’s not enough to be the biggest, we also want to be the best, and once they got to be the best, they’d say, How can we get even better? What can we do to be the best in the whole fucking world? What can we do that would blow people’s fucking minds? They wouldn’t have sat around wondering about ways to fuck over people who loved their product. But then something happened. Guys like you took over the phone company and all you cared about was milking profit and paying off assholes in Congress to fuck over anyone who came along with a better idea, because even though it might be great for consumers it would mean you and your lazy pals would have to get off your asses and start working again in order to keep up.
And not just you. Look at Big Three automakers. Same deal. Lazy, fat, slow, stupid, from the top to the bottom — everyone focused on just getting what they can in the short run and who cares what kind of piece of shit product we’re putting out. Then somehow along the way the evil motherfuckers on Wall Street got involved and became everyone’s enabler, devoting all their energy and brainpower to breaking things up and parceling them out and selling them off in pieces and then putting them back together again, and it was all about taking all this great shit that our predecessors had built and “unlocking value” which really meant finding ways to leech out whatever bit of money they could get in the short run and let the future be damned. It was all just one big swindle, and the only kind of engineering that matters anymore is financial engineering.
And now here we are. Right here in your own backyard, an American company creates a brilliant phone, and that company hands it to you, and gives you an exclusive deal to carry it — and all you guys can do is complain about how much people want to use it. You, Randall Stephenson, and your lazy stupid company — you are the problem. You are what’s wrong with this country.
I stopped, then. There was nothing on the line. Silence. I said, Randall? He goes, Yeah, I’m here. I said, Does any of that make sense? He says, Yeah, but we’re still not going to do it. See, when you run the numbers what you find is that we’re actually better off running a shitty network than making the investment to build a good one. It’s just numbers, Steve. You can’t charge enough to get a return on the investment.
Now there was silence again. This time I was the one not talking. There was this weird lump in my throat, this tightness in my chest. I had this vision of the future — a ruined empire, run by number crunchers, squalid and stupid and puffed up with phony patriotism, settling for a long slow decline.
“Okay,” I said. “Nice talking to you.” Then I hung up.
Wow! It is the same thing I see over and over again.
When I was V.P. of Operations at Quizno’s I oversaw hundreds of Franchisees. The successful ones had all the same traits and ran their business the same way, short term pain for long term gain and it works every time! The unsuccessful ones ran their business the same way. They didn’t follow the system. They cut corners and cut back on employees and tried to do everything themselves in order to save and be profitable in the beginning. They couldn’t do it all themselves however, so they started to piss customers off, with their slow service, and in the end they suffered. They lost everything and closed down.
I’m getting scared for America. I see it over and over again with these large corporations now. It doesn’t matter if it’s a small sandwich shop, a phone company, a bank, or a housekeeping service; they’re all businesses and they all run the same way. You provide a good product (or service) take care of the customer, have a consistently good marketing plan executed, and watch the numbers, you will always succeed. Take away one of those components and it will not work. It may for a while, but it will not last. Thin of ways you can make a difference in your community to get us back on track?
Political Views… Libertarianism
Although I am pictured below with a well known Republican, I am actually a Minarchist Libertarian. Most people don’t know what that is and I find it my duty to spread the word and educate as many people as possible about it. The media unfortunately only recognizes two views, Republican and Democratic. There are many other parties out there, that should be recognized, and Libertarian is one of them.
Minarchism
In civics, minarchism, sometimes called minimal statism, small government, or limited-government libertarianism, is the belief that the only proper role of the government is to protect individuals from aggression.[1] Minarchists believe that a state is necessary, but should be minimal enough to protect the liberty and property of each individual. They generally believe in a night watchman state, limited to courts, police, defense, prisons and taxes.
The term was coined in 1970 or 1971 by Samuel Edward Konkin III, an agorist. He was dismayed of using limited-government libertarianism and sought to invent the shorter term minarchism.[2][3] Many minarchists consider themselves also as libertarians. The term is perhaps most often used to differentiate libertarians and classical liberals who believe a state is necessary to maximize individual liberty, from the market anarchists who believe that the state itself should be opposed because it infringes on individual liberty.
Ideology
Minarchists are generally opposed to economic regulations of certain [specify] sectors of the economy. However, most minarchists support some level of government funding, including perhaps taxation in some limited cases, as long as individual liberty and the non-aggression principle are not compromised. [4]
Some minarchists use utilitarian arguments, as they compromise the non-aggression principle by taxation. They might use theoretical economic arguments, like Ludwig von Mises’s contribution to Austrian economics, or statistical economic research, like the Indices of Economic Freedom.
Minarchists often disagree on exactly how to accomplish this. They are more likely in favoring reforms such as voting instead of the counter-economic strategies advocated by market anarchists.[5]
Some minarchists favor the administration and funding of government services in a small jurisdiction (such as a city or county) over a larger jurisdiction such as the federal government. This is favored because decisions are presumed to be more efficient when the decision-makers are more local. This also leaves individuals who wish to avoid living or working under a municipality to move to another municipality. Thus, this is reducing the likelihood of government oppression and corruption due to competing municipalities.
From Wikipedia