The new World Bank boss has initiated his tenure with a hearty rendition of the fat cats’ mantra: “growth is good”. Or is that “greed is good”? The trouble is that growth is the cause of all the problems. It starts with the politicians rule: “more people voting for me is good”, and the commercial …
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Category:3 The World of Money
Government bureaucracy is keeping us down.
IMD just sent out promotion for the World Competitiveness Yearbook. The table here was highlighted. My beloved Hong Kong, where you can get things done, is at the top, but Ireland, mired in government sloth, is comparable to centrally controlled Mainland China. Anyone who has taken initiative will know that much red tape is wasteful …
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Open Business – doing it right.
Just came across the Wikipedia page on Open Business. Its a great first step to changing the way you think about business. Check it out. Open Business Ricardo Semler’s Maverick is an inspiring biographical account of opening the running of a large, traditionally run private business.
Recession timing.
Doesn’t look good according to the chart below. This pain could go on for a few more years yet. Of course charts don’t predict the future, but they do give an indication of a system dynamic. the problem for the world is that the system is not adapting. There has been no change in the …
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Aren’t The King’s New Clothes Wonderful!?!
Danny Kaye’s is the version I loved as a boy, though Bernard Cribbins does it well too. If you can’t listen, the lyrics are all you need. If you don’t cry at the the irony, smile at the knowledge that there is an answer staring us in the face, even if we choose not to …
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Who governs FIFA? Alcohol and sports are not compatible.
It is outrageous that FIFA, sponsored by Budweiser, is demanding the Brazilian government change their law banning alcohol at matches. Soccer is soccer. Fans might like to have a pint while watching teh game in their local, but thousands of intoxicated men in confined spaces – that’s just stupid. Anyone who has seen crowd violence …
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GEO 2012 – Uncertainties and Vulnerabilities. No, really??!
Global Economic Outlook 2012: Developing countries should prepare for further downside risks, as Euro Area debt problems and weakening growth in several big emerging economies are dimming global growth prospects, says the World Bank in the newly-released Global Economic Prospects (GEP) 2012… http://www.worldbank.org/globaloutlook
LibreOffice, OpenOffice and Oracle
Once upon a time OpenOffice, or Ooo (OpenOffice.Org) as it became known was the leader in open source office productivity software. I loved it. It was loved. Then one day a cunning suitor, Oracle, offered to give gold to the very attractive, but not rich, Ooo. Ooo agreed to become part of Oracle. But Oracle …
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Facebook has joined Microsoft and Google: ogres of the internet
A couple of months ago the Austrian law student Max Schrems asked Facebook to send him all their data stored about him. All Europeans have a right to do this because Facebook is based in the EU in Dublin, Ireland. It took a while and then Facebook sent Max a CD with 1222 PDF files. What …
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Who did Irish taxpayer’s bail out?
An unsurprising analysis of teh commitment teh Irish government took on in bailing out unguaranteed bondholders. Read Who are the bond holders we are bailing out? by David Malone author of Debt Generation. The list is good to have, though it is the story that makes you cringe with disgust at the greed and carelessness …
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