Tuesday, March 13, 2012

8. WORLD AFFAIRS - YEAR 2012 


8.1 The importance of Industrial Clusters
8.2 Contraception / Abortion 
8.3 Disbanding the military
8.4 How crony capitalism is warping criminal justice 
8.5 Revenge is sweet


8.6 The Rajat Gupta Syndrome (Insider trading)
8.7 Harvard degree: A key to the White House?
8.8 Churchill's way with words
8.9 The pension imbroglio
8.10 Present state of America!


8.11 We are part of the solution
8.12 The steel industry
8.13 As a parent
8.14 WikiLeaks and Free Speech
8.15 Nikola Tesla


8.16 Last U.S. Particle Collider on Chopping Block
8.17 Isaac Asimov on Income tax
8.18 Economy driven by Banks / Stocks
8.19 Seralini and Science: an Open Letter
8.20 High-pressure science gets super-sized


8.21 The internet and the third industrial revolution
8.22 The death penalty
8.23 The world's most influential people
8.24 LOST GENERATION


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8.1 The importance of Industrial Clusters  (28/1/2012)

Why does Apple manufacture abroad, and especially in China? As the article explained, it’s not just about low wages. China also derives big advantages from the fact that so much of the supply chain is already there. A former Apple executive explained: “You need a thousand rubber gaskets? That’s the factory next door. You need a million screws? That factory is a block away.”
This is familiar territory to students of economic geography: the advantages of industrial clusters — in which producers, specialized suppliers, and workers huddle together to their mutual benefit — have been a running theme since the 19th century.
And Chinese manufacturing isn’t the only conspicuous example of these advantages in the modern world. Germany remains a highly successful exporter even with workers who cost, on average, $44 an hour — much more than the average cost of American workers. And this success has a lot to do with the support its small and medium-sized companies — the famed Mittelstand — provide to each other via shared suppliers and the maintenance of a skilled work force.
The point is that successful companies — or, at any rate, companies that make a large contribution to a nation’s economy — don’t exist in isolation. Prosperity depends on the synergy between companies, on the cluster, not the individual entrepreneur.


8.2 Contraception / Abortion  (30/1/2012)


About half of all pregnancies in the United States are unplanned, and about 4 of 10 of those end in abortion, according to the Institute of Medicine report, which was released in July. It noted that providing birth control could lower both pregnancy and abortion rates. It also cited studies showing that women with unintended pregnancies are more likely to be depressed and to smoke, drink and delay or skip prenatal care, potentially harming fetuses and putting babies at increased risk of being born prematurely and having low birth weight.

.. Despite Catholic teachings, surveys have found that 98 percent of sexually active Catholic women, as in the general population, have used contraceptives.


KARACHI: It is no secret that abortions are a popular method of family planning for many married women, mostly those who live in Pakistan’s countryside where heath care services are patchy at best.
http://tribune.com.pk/story/329083/family-planning-women-are-using-the-wrong-drugs-for-abortions-as-quick-contraception/


8.3 Disbanding the military  (22/2/2012)

How Costa Rica Is Saving The EnvironmentWhat would you say if we told you there was a country that used 99.2% renewable energy, has kept is GDP growing for decades, disbanded its military, and transformed itself from one of the most deforested nations in the Western hemisphere to one with forest cover over half its area?

..............

India, China, Pakistan, please take note.

Selvaraj


8.4 How crony capitalism is warping criminal justice  (27/3/2012)

Language virtually identical to Florida’s law is featured in a template supplied to legislators in other states by the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec), a corporate-backed body that has kept a low profile even as it exerts vast influence (only recently, thanks to yeoman work by the Center for Media and Democracy, has a clear picture of Alec’s activities emerged).
If there is any silver lining to the killing of innocent black teenager Trayvon Martin, it is that it might finally place a spotlight on what Alec is doing to our society – and our democracy. What is this organisation? Despite claims it’s nonpartisan, it’s very much a movement-conservative body, funded by the usual suspects: the Kochs, Exxon Mobil, etc.
Unlike other such groups, however, it doesn’t just influence laws, it literally writes them, supplying fully drafted Bills to state legislators. In Virginia, for example, more than 50 Alec-written Bills have been introduced, many almost word for word. And these Bills often become law. Many Alec-drafted Bills pursue standard conservative goals: union-busting, undermining environmental protection, tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy.


8.5 Revenge is sweet  (8/5/2012)

DON’T MESS WITH A DEDICATED MUSICIAN, ESPECIALLY A GUITAR  PICKER .
A musician named Dave Carroll recently had difficulty with United Airlines. Dave spent over 9 months trying to get United to pay for damages caused by baggage handlers to his custom Taylor Guitar. During his final exchange with the United Customer Relations Manager, he stated that he was left with no choice other than to create a music video for YouTube exposing their lack of cooperation. The Manager responded: "Good luck with that one, pal."

So he posted a retaliatory video on YouTube. The video has since received over 6 million hits. United Airlines contacted the musician and attempted settlement in exchange for pulling the video. Naturally his response was: "Good luck with that one, pal."
                              
Taylor Guitars sent the musician 2 new custom guitars in appreciation for the product recognition from the video that has led to a sharp increase in orders.
Here's the video:







8.6 The Rajat Gupta Syndome (Insider trading)  (18/6/2012)


Satish,

If you ask me for my frank opinion, the very purpose of the stock exchange (as it is presently organised) is to:

1. Waste everyone's time.
2. Make it possible for some people at the top to make a fast buck doing insider trading.

Let's see:

* Company X takes a decision at a board meeting (attended by 15 people?) which could  make mega bucks for anyone who could trade on the information.
* These 15 people are expected to act as saints and not misuse this information.
* For how long? A week? A month?
* What is the probability that one way or the other people are not going to misuse the information?

What is required is a reform of the way in which stock exchanges are run; here is a possible scenario:

1. Keep the stock exchanges open on only one day a week, so that people can have a life.
2. Make it mandatory that before any crucial board meeting trading in the shares of the company are stopped.
3. Trading can resume a week after the decisions taken in the board meeting are made public.
4. If there is unusual movement in a share, the computer can stop trade beyond a certain value for a week.

etc. 

The criteria of insider trading stands on a very weak wicket.

Regards,
Selvaraj
8.7 Harvard degree: A key to the White House? (14/7/2012)

President Barack Obama has a Harvard law degree. Former President George W Bush has a Harvard MBA. Will the next president have both?
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-07-11/news/32633189_1_dual-degree-programme-graduate-students-law-school


Is the MBA Case Method Passé?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ronaldyeaple/2012/07/09/is-the-mba-case-method-passe/


8.8 Churchill's way with words (17/7/2012)


In the dark days and darker nights when England stood alone — and most men save Englishmen despaired of England's life — he mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.
- President John F. Kennedy on Churchill's speeches


8.9 The pension imbroglio (22/7/2012)

It is a typical story, even if it is an extreme examples. Current pension assets at Dawson total £110m while liabilities are £150m, leaving a £40m deficit. The market value of the company was almost £3m before the announcement and £1.4m after. The pension scheme dwarfs the company.

Most British manufacturing companies are caught in this trap. For many of them, life is not about feeding hungry shareholders at the expense of employees, but feeding a hungry pension scheme at the expense of both shareholders and investment in the company's future.
Big companies are also affected. A recent study found that the pension commitments represented 37% of the FTSE 100's total value. In other words, the promise to pay pensions to FTSE 100 staff was equal to almost two-fifths of their market capitalisation.

8.10 Present state of America! (26/7/2012)

America's Not the Greatest Country Any Longer... But It Can Be.

Probably the most honest three and a half minutes of television that we've seen for a while...
This was the opening scene of the new HBO series "The Newsroom "

8.11 We are part of the solution (26/7/2012)

Over the last five days, almost 1,000 sex workers from India and 42 other nations including Kenya, Mexico, Uganda, China and Indonesia been discussing access to drugs, promoting safe sex, and loopholes in HIV/AIDS policies, as well as interacting with participants at the Washington conference by video link.
But the festival's main aim is to use the U.S. travel ban to highlight the wider issue of the discrimination sex workers face and are demanding the decriminalisation of the trade.
"I chose this work. It's like any other job, but still I have no rights because society judges me and prevents me from having recognition," says 36-year-old Sapna Gayan, one of 12,000 sex workers in Sonagachi.
"Police have arrested me, clients have hit me when I ask them to wear a condom. Sex workers have no freedom to protest the abuses they face, to move and work freely. We cannot even go to big meetings where decisions about us are being made."
http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/07/26/india-sexworkers-idINL4E8IQ11520120726

................................

In India we have special problems:

1. Girls who have insufficient education.
2. Lack of job opportunities for young women.

It is not clear how aware the authorities are of these issues. One possible proactive step would be to widen the educational opportunities for sex workers.

Selvaraj

8.12 The steel industry (30/7/2012)

ArcelorMittal’s share price has fallen steeply since 2008, reducing the value of the Mittal family’s controlling stake of 40 per cent to $9 billion from an estimated $55 billion in 2008. Inexpensive Chinese steel, heavily subsidised by its government, has also been a big drag on global prices.
Even as steel production in Western Europe and the United States has declined over the last five years, China’s output has grown about 60 per cent, and China now makes 46 per cent of the world’s steel. Mittal said almost all Chinese companies lost money in the first half of the year. “That is good news in the sense that they will have to work on restructuring the steel industry,” eventually putting profit ahead of volume, he said. But largely because of China’s ravenous appetite for iron ore, the industry’s main raw material, its price has quadrupled since 2006, to about $134 a metric ton.

“The steel makers like ArcelorMittal are caught in the middle,” said Jeff Largey, an analyst at Macquarie in London. “On the one hand, the end markets are weak and they don’t have any pricing power. On the other hand, they can’t do anything about high raw materials prices driven by demand from China.” Mittal started out in the 1970s, building and operating a minimill in Indonesia. 

He built his fortune in the next three decades by buying and fixing a network of gigantic but poorly performing plants in places like Kazakhstan, Romania and Mexico. But now Mittal finds himself in a tough fight just to control costs and reduce the company’s $22 billion in debt. In Europe, he has idled nine of his 25 blast furnaces, the huge machines that turn iron ore into liquid metal...

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/267848/a-global-steel-giant-scales.html


8.13 As a parent (5/8/2012)


As a parent, all this rattles me. We judge our success by how well our children do. We love them and want them to succeed, even if most of us recognize that our ability to influence and protect them has expired. Peering into the unfathomable future, we don't like what we think we see. We're dispatching them into a less secure and less prosperous world. These parental anxieties, I think, are the presidential campaign's great, unacknowledged issue. Many voters will decide based on a calculus of which candidate would minimize the economic perils for their grown children.
But the calculus will be selective. To aid the young, we could tighten Social Security and Medicare, raising eligibility ages and reducing payouts for wealthier retirees. Unlikely. Younger voters seem clueless about advancing their economic interests. In 2008, 18- to 29-year-olds supported Barack Obama by 34 percentage points. They love his pseudo-youthfulness. Or his positions on other issues (immigration, gay rights) trump economics. As president, Obama has done nothing to improve generational fairness.
If the young won't help themselves, their parents and grandparents might. They might champion revising retirement programs. Dream on. Parents and grandparents may be worried about their offspring's prospects, but they're not so worried as to sacrifice their own. There are real conflicts between the young and old; so far, the young are losing.


8.14 WikiLeaks and Free Speech (22/8/2012)


By MICHAEL MOORE and OLIVER STONE
Published: August 20, 2012
... We urge the people of Britain and Sweden to demand that their governments answer some basic questions: Why do the Swedish authorities refuse to question Mr. Assange in London? And why can neither government promise that Mr. Assange will not be extradited to the United States? The citizens of Britain and Sweden have a rare opportunity to make a stand for free speech on behalf of the entire globe.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/21/opinion/wikileaks-and-the-global-future-of-free-speech.html
The bizarre, unhealthy, blinding media contempt for Julian Assange
http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-bizarre-unhealthy-bl-by-Glenn-Greenwald-120822-111.html


8.15 Nikola Tesla (27/8/2012)

PeterW
8/26/2012 11:53 PM GMT+0530
Tesla was the greatest scientist that ever lived. Some of his inventions were stolen by Edison and Tesla's vision for free electricity, which included electric cars was thwarted by the greed of others who benefited financially.

Think how different our lives would be now without our dependence on the obsolete electrical grid, the astronomical cost associated with it and the vulnerability it puts us under. Imagine efficient electrical cars as the mainstream transportation starting from 1940s. Our planet would be a lot different, we would not be choking on smog today. Wars over oil would not be necessary, our quality of life and prospects for the future would be a source of pride for the humanity. Internet brings us all much closer together, there is still time to unite for much better future, for all of us to become the responsible stewards for our generation and for the generations to follow.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/push-from-web-comic-energizes-effort-to-restore-20th-century-inventor-nikola-teslas-ny-lab/2012/08/26/5f122a24-ef95-11e1-b74c-84ed55e0300b_story.html

8.16 Last U.S. Particle Collider on Chopping Block(30/8/2012)


http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=rhic-jlab-frib-budget-cuts&WT.mc_id=SA_WR_20120829


8.17 Isaac Asimov on Income tax (28/9/2012)

Isaac Asimov on Income tax - from his autobiography, published in 1994 (there are two earlier autobiographies by the same Author):


I might say that no government agency has ever found anything nontrivial wrong with any of my tax statements, as is not surprising, since I make  them out honestly.

... Once many years ago, I was interviewed on television and asked, "Suppose you earned a billion dollars. What would you do with it?"

I know the type of answer they expected. Selfish people would buy huge palaces and live like emperors. Idealists would endow universities and support environmental causes. I, however had a different idea.

I said, "I would walk into the IRS offices and say, 'I have just earned a billion dollars. Here it is, every penny. It's for Uncle Sam. Now please don't ever let me hear from you again for the rest of my life."

The government would undoubtedly make a profit on the deal, for a lifetime of taxes from me comes to  far less than a billion dollars; far, far less. However, the dream of not having to keep  records, of not having to do any calculations, of not having to deal with accountants and lawyers, would be worth far, far more than money.


8.18 Economy driven by Banks / Stocks (10/10/2012)

These theories drove the US to pursue ‘market-based’ — read stock-market driven — financial model as more efficient, in place of a ‘bank-based’ financial model even though neutral studies showed that a bank-based model was not less successful. The market-based idea postulated that stock market, not banks, could efficiently allocate finance. What then would banks do? Even big banks would cease to be lenders and become brokers and intermediaries earning fees. See how the theory worked in the United States. Policies were devised to cut interest rates to move people away from banks and into stocks. In 1990, the US interest rates were 9 per cent and a quarter of US families had held only stocks; in 2001 the US interest rate was cut to one per cent, forcing more than half US households move to stocks....
http://newindianexpress.com/opinion/article1292489.ece


8.19 Seralini and Science: an Open Letter (14/10/2012)


5) Science and Politics.  Governments have become habituated to using science as a political football. For example, in a study conducted by the Royal Society of Canada at the request of the Canadian government, numerous weaknesses of GM regulation in Canada were identified (RSC, 2001). The failure of the Canadian government to meaningfully respond to the many recommended changes was detailed by Andree (2006). Similarly, the expert recommendations of the international IAASTDreport, produced by 400 researchers over 6 years, that GMOs are unsuited to the task of advancing global agriculture have been resolutely ignored by policymakers. Thus, while proclaiming evidence-based decision-making, governments frequently use science solely when it suits them.
6) Conclusion:  When those with a vested interest attempt to sow unreasonable doubt around inconvenient results, or when governments exploit political opportunities by picking and choosing from scientific evidence, they jeopardize public confidence in scientific methods and institutions, and also put their own citizenry at risk. Safety testing, science-based regulation, and the scientific process itself, depend crucially on widespread trust in a body of scientists devoted to the public interest and professional integrity. If instead, the starting point of a scientific product assessment is an approval process rigged in favour of the applicant, backed up by systematic suppression of independent scientists working in the public interest, then there can never be an honest, rational or scientific debate.
http://independentsciencenews.org/health/seralini-and-science-nk603-rat-study-roundup/
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The above letter has been authored and signed by a large number of scientists.

Selvaraj


8.20 High-pressure science gets super-sized (24/10/2012)


ARGONNE, Ill. --- The study of materials at extreme conditions took a giant leap forward with the discovery of a way to generate super high pressures without using shock waves whose accompanying heat turns solids to liquid.
This discovery will allow scientists for the first time to reach static pressure levels exceeding 4 million atmospheres, a high-pressure environment where new unique compounds could be formed, materials change their chemical and physical properties, and metals become insulators. An international team of scientists using a new high-pressure anvil design and technique in conjunction with high-energy X-rays was able to create 640 gigapascals, or GPas, of pressure. This is 50 percent more pressure than previously demonstrated and 150 percent more pressure than accessible by typical high-pressure experiments.
Pressures at this level have vast ramifications for earth science, cosmology, chemistry, shock physics and material science. Static pressure of 640 GPa is 6 million times the pressure of the air at the Earth's surface and more than 1 1Ž2 times the pressure at the center of the Earth. Research at these pressures could lead to new revelations about how the Earth evolved and how iron, the most abundant material inside the Earth's core, functions at extremes...


8.21 The internet and the third industrial revolution (13/11/2012)

The internet and the third industrial revolution


8.22 The death penalty (21/11/2012)

India was among the 39 countries that voted against a UN General Assembly draft resolution which called for abolishing the death penalty, saying every nation had the "sovereign right" to determine its own legal system.
The non-binding resolution called for a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty.
It was adopted yesterday at the General Assembly's Third Committee, which deals with social and humanitarian issues, after 110 nations voted in favour of the resolution while 36 abstained.
The draft resolution expresses its "deep concern about the continued application of the death penalty and calls on states to establish a moratorium on executions, with a view to abolishing the practice".
It calls on nations to progressively restrict the death penalty's use and not impose capital punishment for offences committed by persons under age 18 or pregnant women.
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Violence begets violence. What would Mahatma Gandhi have thought of this decision of the Government of India? Even from a practical point of view, if one considers the time and money wasted in deciding who to execute and who not to execute (and subsequent regret in having executed the wrong person) it would be better to abolish the death penalty. 
Selvaraj
P.S. One famous quotation by Terence reads: "Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto", or "I am a human being, I consider nothing that is human alien to me." 

8.23  The world's most influential people (6/12/2012)

According to Forbes:
http://www.forbes.com/powerful-people/list/

According to facts:
The billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch are known for funneling vast donations into Republican campaigns in the United States. But what impact are the Koch brothers having on global warming? As the United States is accused of blocking progress at the U.N. climate talks in Doha, a new report says the Koch brothers may be the biggest force behind the climate stalemate. The Kochs run oil refineries and control thousands of miles of pipeline, giving them a massive personal stake in the fossil fuel industry. Researchers say they have also funneled tens of millions into climate denial science, lobbying and other efforts to derail policy that could lessen the impact of global warming. We’re joined by Victor Menotti, executive director of the International Forum on Globalization. [includes rush transcript]

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Evidently the Forbes' list is meant to mislead.

The actual influence peddling is done as follows.

Powerful business interests ------> Think tanks with holy names ---------> Control of the media -------> Control of the educational system

Selvaraj


8.24 LOST GENERATION (15/12/2012)

THE LOST GENERATION (Video)


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