Truck and Barter

Vice Squad and other recent headlines

Five Arrested for Alleged Prostitution
Three men and two women were arrested in Male’ Henveiru, with “articles that may be used during sex.”

Gender Bar Removal: Adhaalath Say Against Shari'ah
The religious conservative Adhaalath party has said it condemns the move to allow women to be elected as Maldives' President.

Can Gayoom stand for President again?

Even before and after the Chapter on the President of the Republic was amended, opposition MPs had requested Speaker Qasim Ibrahim to clear any confusion whether the work that was being carried out was amending the current Constitution or coming up with a new Constitution.

Qasim replied that from the letters sent by President Gayoom to the Majlis, and from the regulations regulating the Majlis, it was evident that the Constitution was being amended, not that a new Constitution was being established. When he said that, he received applause from opposition MPs and some members of the public who attended the sitting.

40 MPs against removal of gender bar to Presidential office

Civil Court evicts tenants who had overpowered landlady

The court passed a verdict to evict Ibrahim Shareef and Ibrahim Afeef (from Male) and Maryam Ali (from Thaa atoll Thimarafushi) and Yoosuf Hussain (from Laamu atoll Kunahandhoo).

Afeef works at Maldives Customs Service and is a lawyer who tends to civil cases. He is also an MP for Baa atoll at the People's Special Majlis, the interim constitutional assembly tasked with amending the Constitution....

The case filed by Aishath stated that Shareef and Afeef had taken over her home and refused access to the house to Aishath's representatives.

Jihad on a Tiny Scale

A Sri Lankan blogger writes;

Coming from a country with a raging internal conflict, personally, I am used to slightly more specialized weaponry. Like a suicide bombing. Or a Claymore mine. Or an AK-47. I find it difficult to comprehend a political assassination with a sharp pointed object first invented in the paleolithic era. It was not even a sword, a machete, or a rambo knife that was used; it was a kitchen knife, presumably stolen from a mother or a wife in the middle of cooking a tuna curry. How quaint, how homegrown…

via Foreign Policy blog ( I don''t know why the FP has classified it under Pacific- don't they know Maldives is in the Indian Ocean?)

Headline of the Day

Convicted prisoner re-arrested while trying to intimidate Magistrate
A man who had been sentenced to 24 years in jail on three separate drug convictions was re-arrested last night while he was trying to intimidate a magistrate of the Criminal Court

A European Singing in Dhivehi

A European attempting to sing in the local language of Maldives, Dhivehi.

Black Opium Energy Drink banned

Some news headlines from Maldives;

Importing, selling Black Opium Energy Drink banned in Maldives

The National Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) has yesterday banned the import and selling of the Black Opium Energy Drink in Maldives.

The NCB said in a statement that although there were no traces of any narcotic drugs in the drink, the NCB believed that the name of the brand and the phrases used in promotions and advertisement for the product encouraged people to abuse its namesake drug.

Maldivians becoming congenital liars

Taxi rides: Do we really need it?;

One of the taxis heading from west to east slowed down and I climbed into it. The driver was familiar and I struck a conversation with him regarding the difficulty of getting taxis in this two-square-kilometer island.

“There are over a 100,000 people here and 600-plus taxis ain’t just enough,” argued my taxi driver friend who I will call Mohamed.

“It would have been easier to get taxis if people called up taxis only for necessary rides,” he said.

He went on to say that as most Maldivians are “lazy”, they would rather take a taxi “to go to a place on the next street” and that if some people had their way, “they would rather have us taxis stop right in front of their rooms!”

Some 300 criminals are on the loose in the capital

Dead Men Do Vote

The day after the Election Commissioner blamed Maldivians who fail to report the deaths of family members for inaccuracies in the referendum election register, it has emerged his own deceased mother is on the list.

KD Ahmed Manik’s mother, the late Fuhlaa Hawwa Fulhu appears as 6991 on the register, next to the name of the Commissioner himself

-Referendum Bulletin

Meanwhile the political campaigning for the form of government is in full swing. Listen to a local song in support of parliamentary system.

Stupid reasons why parliamentary system is bad

The tiny nation of Maldives is going to have a referendum this month on whether to have a parliamentary or presidential system of government. Their president, Asia’s longest serving ruler, and who has been the world’s longest serving central bank governor and defense minister, wants a presidential system for the country. This is how one of his appointees in the parliament justified why the country cannot afford a parliamentary system;

“Out of the five hundred members in [the Indian] parliament, twenty nine members have physically abused their wives. Seven have been detained for bribery. One hundred are seventeen are accused of rape, murder or theft. Seventy one are now denied loans from banks, because they have not made repayments. Twenty one have ongoing court cases. Eighty four have been fined for various offences.”

“This is the nature of the people who will lead us in a parliamentary system of government.”

The Information Minister Mohamed Nasheed went to on to say, Indian MPs “are not able to deal with any issues,” because of “walkouts, peoples’ clothes being ripped off, [and] a woman’s sari being taken off.”

Why I Don't Like "Happiness Research"

Surveys in general suffer from the fact that self-reported data is always seriously problematic. And that's even when asked questions with demonstrably true or false answers, such as "What is your income?" But couple surveys with the fuzzy-edged notion of "satisfaction" or "happiness", and you get this (with the added bonus of a small sample size):

South Korean gangsters get more satisfaction from their line of work than the police, according to a survey published on Tuesday in local dailies.

The article even suggests satisfaction is correlated with income (gangsters make more than the police, natch), which isn't what other places are telling us.

For more on the topic, see Wilkinson.

Some Are More Equal Than Others

I'm shocked. SHOCKED! PETA -- that is, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals -- apparently has differing standards for which animals are worthy of those ethics. Lowest on the list? Animals raised as food stock.

In the wake of the Denver blizzards, hundreds of thousands of animals have been left stranded to die of starvation or freezing. PETA has refused (as of this writing) to do anything to help out. Not that PETA's set up as emergency relief, of course, but this appears particularly callow given the typical rhetoric that comes from these people.

Why are the suddenly stranded cattle less worthy of rescue than the chickens raised for your plate? My wild guess is that the blizzard achieves the same goal as the Holocaust on Your Plate campaign: they both hurt the sellers of meat. I know, I know, it's crazy to think a public organization has a political goal aside from it's stated altruistic vision -- and it seems to have truly caught some people off-guard -- but it seems possible in this case. As it did when there was a wish for foot-and-mouth disease.

Markets in Everything – God Helmet

If you’re interested in a short cut to spiritual experiences, neurobiologist Michael Persinger has devised a wired helmet that he says induces religious experiences in those who wear it.

Another helmet called Shakti – claimed to be better than the above one (price $220)

Related;
Shakti and the Koren Helmet - which is more effective?
God on the Brain - questions and answers
The God Experiments
This IsYour Brain on God
God moves in mysterious waves
Visions or Partial-Complex Seizures?
The Significance of Ellen White's Head Injury
Neuroscience - the New Philosophy
Neuroethics (podcast)

The Benefits of Obesity: Part II

Three and a half long years have passed since I insisted that there must be some benefit to obesity (namely the enjoyment of food), and finally the headlines seem to agree with me. But the article entitled Odd benefit to obesity glosses over the price the obese must pay to get their benefit:

Overweight heart patients were about 75 percent less likely to die than their underweight counterparts during a five-year study because they were given aggressive medical procedures, a new study found.

Obese patients, who are often younger and have fewer unrelated health concerns, often are better candidates for intensive and invasive therapy for coronary artery disease than underweight patients, who are most likely older and in worse health, according to a study presented yesterday at an American Heart Association meeting in Chicago.

A heart problem in one's 60s is one hell of a cost to bear to get the benefit of better response to treatment.

UPDATE: Here's a cute argument. Obesity + Liposuction = Stem Cells. With bonus quote from the Koran:

"…It may happen that you dislike a thing which is good for you,

and it may be that you love a thing which is bad for you.

Allah knows, while you know not." Qur'an [Surah Baqara 2:216]

Five Rules for telling a Joke

- Pick your moments. It's easiest to tell a joke when everyone's relaxed and enjoying themselves. Telling a joke to relieve tension is a high-risk strategy, but potentially hilarious. Besides, there'll be other funerals.

- Know where you're going - the punchline - before you start

- Don't be tempted to over-elaborate. Eddie Izzard makes it look easy, but remember that one man's surreal flight of fancy is another man's rambling, incoherent humiliation.

- Project a demeanour of relaxed confidence - it gives your listener permission to laugh. You can try deadpan, but social joke-telling usually requires the teller to laugh too.

- Enjoy it. If your entire self-esteem is resting on whether people laugh at your joke, then you're doing it for the wrong reasons. On the other hand, you are showing signs of the borderline personality disorder that characterises all the best comedians, so perhaps you should consider telling jokes for a living.

Via Mind Hacks- How to be funny

Related;
Is this the perfect comedy face?

The Naked Jape: Uncovering the Hidden World of Jokes by Jimmy Carr, Lucy Greeves

Cost-Benefit of Sex

The benefits of sex according to this article;

“In one of the most credible studies correlating overall health with sexual frequency, Queens University in Belfast tracked the mortality of about 1,000 middle-aged men over the course of a decade. The study was designed to compare persons of comparable circumstances, age and health. Its findings, published in 1997 in the British Medical Journal, were that men who reported the highest frequency of orgasm enjoyed a death rate half that of the laggards. Other studies (some rigorous, some less so) purport to show that having sex even a few times a week has an associative or causal relationship with the following:

- Improved sense of smell:….
- Reduced risk of heart disease: …
- Weight loss, overall fitness: Sex, if nothing else, is exercise. A vigorous bout burns some 200 calories--about the same as running 15 minutes on a treadmill or playing a spirited game of squash. The pulse rate, in a person aroused, rises from about 70 beats per minute to 150, the same as that of an athlete putting forth maximum effort. British researchers have determined that the equivalent of six Big Macs can be worked off by having sex three times a week for a year. Muscular contractions during intercourse work the pelvis, thighs, buttocks, arms, neck and thorax. Sex also boosts production of testosterone, which leads to stronger bones and muscles. Men's Health magazine has gone so far as to call the bed the single greatest piece of exercise equipment ever invented.

-Reduced depression: …
- Pain-relief: …
- Less-frequent colds and flu: …
- Better bladder control: …
- Better teeth: Seminal plasma contains zinc, calcium and other minerals shown to retard tooth decay. Since this is a family Web site, we will omit discussion of the mineral delivery system. Suffice it to say that it could be a far richer, more complex and more satisfying experience than squeezing a tube of Crest--even Tartar Control Crest. Researchers have noted, parenthetically, that sexual etiquette usually demands the brushing of one's teeth before and/or after intimacy, which, by itself, would help promote better oral hygiene.
- A happier prostate?

Costs? I leave up to the reader. Shouldn’t government be subsidizing it then?

Known Known

Slate recycles the poetry of Rumsfeld;

The Unknown
As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.
—Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing

The Situation
Things will not be necessarily continuous.
The fact that they are something other than perfectly continuous
Ought not to be characterized as a pause.
There will be some things that people will see.
There will be some things that people won't see.
And life goes on.
—Oct. 12, 2001, Department of Defense news briefing

Related
Google and Known Unknowns

Economists and Integrity

Two economists who recently lost part of their titles;

Andrei Shleifer ’82 isn’t the only Harvard economics professor to have been stripped of his endowed title after allegedly getting his hands dirty.

Martin L. Weitzman, the Harvard faculty member accused of stealing horse manure from a Rockport, Mass., farm in April 2005, has also recently lost his title as the Ernest E. Monrad Professor of Economics.

David Warsh has an interesting column on the issue. He concludes;

“There is, indeed, a common thread running through both incidents: a rather startling arrogance; in each case a Harvard professor acted as though he were entitled to take whatever he wanted, regardless of the law. Granted, there is not much moral equivalence between a $900 quarrel in a small town, on the one hand, and, on the other, an unrepentant betrayal of an adoptive country, an alma mater, hundreds of employees and a raft of friends (which also cost Harvard well over $30 million and much reputational capital). Applying the same penalty to the perpetrator of a misdemeanor as to a man who smuggled Soviet-style values into the highest levels of government and education in the United States might seem to send no more weighty a message to the Harvard faculty than, Don't get our name in the newspapers by breaking the law. But perhaps it is too early to say.

Small gestures, cunningly contrived, can have big effects. The price of not doing the right thing is going up as well.”

What is Harvard teaching its students? Mankiw, please explain?

Related;
On the Subject of Hypocrisy: The Shleifer Affair

Truth and Truthfulness (podcast)
Philosophers and theologians explore ideas about truth and truthfulness.

Why it’s better to be a Women

Thirty reasons why it’s better to be a women. On top is that they got off the Titanic first. Would it be the case today, I wonder? Read the following piece by Fareed Zakaria;

“Of the many differences between the movie "Titanic" and history, one in particular is telling. In the movie, as the ship is sinking the first-class passengers (all third-class human beings) scramble to climb into the small number of life-boats. Only the determination of the hardy seamen -- who use guns to keep the grasping men at bay -- gets the women and children into the boats.

In fact, according to survivors' accounts, the "women and children first" convention was observed with almost no dissension, particularly among the upper classes. The statistics make this plain. In first class, every child was saved, as were all but five (of 144) women, three of whom chose to die with their husbands. By contrast, 70 percent of the men perished. In second class, 80 percent of the women were saved but 90 percent of the men drowned.

The men on the first-class list of the Titanic virtually made up the Forbes 400 of the time. John Jacob Astor, reputedly the richest man of his day, is said to have fought his way to a boat, put his wife in it and then stepped back and waved her goodbye. Benjamin Guggenheim similarly refused to take a seat, saying: "Tell my wife . . . I played the game out straight and to the end. No woman shall be left aboard this ship because Ben Guggenheim was a coward." In other words, some of the most powerful men in the world adhered to an unwritten code of honor -- even though it meant certain death for them. The movie makers altered the story for good reason: no one would believe it today.”

Musharaff Quotes

Most recent;

"The intelligence director told me that (Armitage) said, 'Be prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the Stone Age,"' Musharraf said. "I think it was a very rude remark."

Last year he made the controversial comments on rape victims;

"You must understand the environment in Pakistan. This has become a money-making concern," he said. "A lot of people say if you want to go abroad and get a visa for Canada or citizenship and be a millionaire, get yourself raped."

Related;
Muslim Women — The Untold Story
Afghanistan: On the Brink
Bombing Pakistan back to the Stone Age
Pakistan criticises Afghan action
Afghan Leader Presses Musharraf
Pakistan rape victim's blog makes waves
Musharraf to pen autobiography
Feminist dimension of the Pakistan Movement;
"No nation can rise to the height of glory unless your women are side by side with you; we are victims of evil customs. It is a crime against humanity that our women are shut up within the four walls of the houses as prisoners. There is no sanction anywhere for the deplorable condition in which our women have to live."- Muhammad Ali Jinnah

Maldives to set up Bollywood Studio

“The government plans to open the country’s first professional film studio, officials have announced.

The studio will be located in one of the new resorts currently being constructed in the country. The government hopes the studio will attract the Bollywood film industry to shoot more of their motion pictures in the Maldives.

“We will devote a resort island to the studios so that film units can use it as a single stop for their work. That will spread the good word about Maldives,” said Hussain Shihab, Minister of State for Arts..”

From Minivan News.

Recent economic news;
Opposition Criticises New Tourism Tax
Board of directors sell STO tea plantation

Book recommendations from Hugo Chavez

“During his two-hour rant on Bush's satanic identity, the communist leader took time to plug Noam Chomsky's "Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Domination" recommending that all Americans read it, and it looks like they might. Despite his supposed hatred of capitalism, Chavez's impassioned endorsement has jolted sales of the linguist's 2003 book from relative obscurity to Amazon's top 5 in less than 36 hours.”

Via OFF/beat

Related;
Watch the YouTube of the comment
Bush's Use of 'Evil' Comes Home to Roost

Simon Bolivar: The Liberator
“Hugo Chavez describes himself as a 'Bolivarian Revolutionary' and has renamed his country, 'The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela'. But who was Simon Bolivar, and would he approve of the uses contemporary politicians in Latin America are putting him to?”- (discussion starts at the end of the podcast)

Hungarians not happy with their leader

Hungarian Prime Minister admits he lied during the election campaign in a private conversation- at least he’s honest;

“You cannot mention any significant government measures that we can be proud of, apart from the fact that in the end we managed to get governance out of the shit. Nothing. If we have to give an account to the country of what we have done in four years, what are we going to say? …

Divine providence, the abundance of cash in the world economy, and hundreds of tricks, which you do not have to be aware of publicly, have helped us to survive this. This cannot go on. Cannot. And of course we can ponder for a long time, and a shitload of analyses can be carried out as to how each social group will be affected, this is what I can say to you. ….

Even if we work ourselves into the ground. We are doing a great and decent job among ourselves. We must do it. I am not talking about the New Hungary, developments, Hungarians beyond the border, relationship with churches, or another thousand things because these are not the most important things compared to the big picture…

I will only repeat this once at most: it is fantastic to be in politics. Fantastic. It is fantastic to run a country. Personally, I have been able to go through the past 18 months because one thing has inspired and fuelled me: to give back its faith to the left, that it can do it and it can win. That the left does not have to lower its head in this bloody country. That it does not have to shit its pants from Viktor Orban [chairman of opposition Fidesz - Hungarian Civic Alliance] or the right, and it should learn to measure itself against the world, rather than them...
I know that this is easy for me to say. I know. Do not keep bringing it up against me. But this is the only reason it is worth doing it. I almost perished because I had to pretend for 18 months that we were governing...

Instead, we lied morning, noon and night. I do not want to carry on with this. Either we do it and have the personnel for it, or others will do it. I will never give an interview at the end of which we part with each other in argument. Never. I will never hurt the Hungarian left. Never.”

Related;
Google News coverage
Timeline: Hungary
Does transition make you happy?
Colbert Episode on Hungarian Bridge-hilarious

Violence is not sexy

BBC reports;

“Wives and girlfriends of gang members in one of Colombia's most violent cities have called a sex ban in a bid to get their men to give up the gun.

Dozens of women are said to be taking part in what is being called the "strike of crossed legs", a move backed by the mayor of Pereira…”

Related; Center for International Policy’s Colombia blog

Discussing Doing Business

World Bank is running an online discussion of its recent report Doing Business 2007, via PSD Blog. The discussion questions are interesting particularly the second one. I’ve tried to link to various local news coverage of the report – among the media there seems to be some fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of the report it seems. World Bank should be doing more for media to understand its publications.

-Of the 10 topics in the Doing Business report, where do you think reforms can most significantly improve the investment climate? -A country's ranking in the Doing Business report has become a well-known indicator. Are countries beginning to "game" the ranking by reforming only those areas of business regulation covered by the report’s methodology? -What are good reform strategies for administrations which have left the "reform window" of the first 15 months? -Have you read earlier Doing Business reports and how would you evaluate this one in comparison to the others? -The next report may address topics like the quality of business infrastructure and the cost of corruption. With this addition to the indicators, what research questions would you like to see in future Doing Business reports?

Some news coverage of the report;

Doing business is still very tough
"How free is India's economy after 15 years of liberalisation? Not very, say two reports released last week. Economic Freedom of the World 2006, published by the Fraser Institute and Cato Institute in North America, ranks India 53rd out of 130 countries in its Freedom of the World Index.

Not too bad. But Doing Business 2007, a World Bank report on how difficult it is to conduct business, ranks India 134th out of 175 countries, deep in the bottom half. The indicators used in the two reports are different."

Chasing the dragon
There is no point belabouring comparisons with China that attracts nine times more foreign direct investment (FDI) than India gets every year.

Time for step two
"Investment Minister Mahmoud Mohieddin was not a happy man. Speaking at the opening of this year's 11th annual Euromoney conference in Cairo, the minister directed his anger at the International Finance Corporation's (IFC) 2006 Doing Business report, which ranked Egypt at 165th worldwide in terms of countries that had improved business regulations and cut red tape. Mohieddin said the experts who put together the report did not appear to "have a full understanding of our economy". The 16 firms that the IFC -- the World Bank's private sector arm -- chose to examine for its report, he said, were not a very representative sample."

Business Scene-GEORGIAN AMBASSADOR Lasha Zhvania is happily circulating a World Bank and International Finance Corporation report that lists Georgia as the top reformer in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). According to the report, Georgia also led the global top 10 reformer rankings on the ease of doing business in 2005-2006.

World Bank says: work 24/7 with no rights;"A new World Bank report calls for the wholesale elimination of workers' rights. The 2007 edition of the ‘Doing Business’ report has declared the Marshall Islands to be the world’s “Best Performer” for its almost total absence of labour regulation, displacing last year’s champion, Palau. According to the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), both Marshall Islands and Palau have in common that they are tiny Pacific island nations that have no labour code and are not members of the International Labour Organisation. The World Bank’s online Doing Business database explains that it has given top ranking for labour market regulations to these countries because, among other exemplary features, both allow workers to be forced to work up to 24 hours per day and up to seven days per week and require no vacations or advance notice for dismissal."

India, top reformer in South Asia, says World Bank report

China is ranked top ten in reforming business practices

GHANA AMONG TOP TEN BUSINESS REFORMERS

World Bank praises Romanian reforms

SA scores for doing business

99th in business report

Cameroon: Harsh Taxes Impede Business - World Bank

Consultant reiterates obstacles persist for doing business in Dominican Republic

World Bank rectifies report on Dominican business standing

Bettering business environment with ‘iron hands’

Tanzania and Rwanda Lead in Regional Economic Reforms

Hungary slips 6 places on World Bank's “Doing Business" ranking

World Bank's 2007 Doing Business Report ranks Saudi Arabia #1 in the MENA region

Africa is performing better than Latin America

World Bank: CR no. 52
"The CR dropped two spots year on year. Of the 10 indicators of the overall business environment tracked in the study, the Czech Republic had improved only in two categories: starting a business (74), the time period for which shortened to nine months, and the dealing with licenses (110) category, which relates to already-existing business operations. The country fared best in the getting credit category (21) and worst in closing a business (113), that is bankruptcy procedures — which can still take up to nine years, compared to the average 3.5 years in European and Central Asian regions. Creditors receive 18 hellers for each Kč 1 of debt, again less than half the regional average."

Morocco is top reformer in the Middle East and North Africa

World Bank hails Kenya’s success in tax reforms
"THE World Bank (WB) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) have praised the Kenyan government for introducing the electronic data interface system in the Customs department. Consequently, Kenya is ranked among Africa’s top nations striving to create an enabling atmosphere to do business"

World Bank reports rank Tanzania among top reformers

Nigeria: World Bank Ranks Nigeria's Economic Climate Low
"We know Nigeria is making efforts to ease the process of doing business" but advised that "there is still room for improvement". She said reforms need to address the whole process, including business registration. She noted there still exists, some complex regulations as against other countries."
The World Bank said early this week that the impact of reforms instituted by the current administration led by President Olusegun Obasa-njo was rather slow.

Dominican Customs is Latin America's 2nd best;Argentina is better than Brazil and Mexico when it comes to customs procedures. And Haiti is generally among the worst in the region.

Cameroon: Harsh Taxes Impede Business - World Bank

Why reform has become a dirty word;“Reform” has been hijacked, even by the World Bank, which should know better, to mean reducing the “burden” on corporations. Te Bank’s index, which has become quite influential and is widely used by governments around the world to set their policies, specifically excludes things like infrastructure, institutions and security, i.e. these pesky things usually provided by good governments and paid by taxes and “forgotten” by businesses when they complain about governmental interference (but not when they choose where to invest, as attests France’s almost permanent presence in the top five favorite destinations for FDI alongside China and the USA). That such issues can be mindlessly excluded from public discourse on this topic via a 3 line disclaimer in their report is profoundly dishonest.
If the logic was to facilitate wealth creation by companies with a later focus on redistribution of that wealth, that might make a little bit of sense, but the goal seems only to be wealth capture by corporations per se, whether out of actual creation of wealth or, increasingly, from the shifting of costs from their P&L to the public purse. Where that wealth goes is obviously no longer a worry of the World Bank, something I find frankly disquieting. Even more, as taxes are seen as a negative thing, any redistributive policy is explicitly considered an obstacle to “reform”. Thus we end up in situations where economies appear to be growing strongly and yet median income (as opposed to average income) is stagnant or even declining, a sure sign of growing inequality rather than growing prosperity."

Malawi drops 14 steps on business ease index

Reforms in Charter to make RP business-friendly, says AdCom
The Philippines' dismal ranking in the latest World Bank (WB) economy rankings of countries worldwide should serve as a wake-up call that the local business environment is not too encouraging to foreign investors.

Pace of business reforms slows-"UGANDA has lagged behind Kenya on the pace of reforms to ease doing business, but a report notes that her effort to ease registration requirements made it easy for companies to operate in the formal sector. Uganda was ranked 107 compared to Kenya’s 83rd position, while Tanzania trailed at 142, a study on tracking reforms done by the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) shows. However, Uganda was cited as one of the countries that undertook reforms that eased the burden of doing business in the country"

World Bank study laments red tape in the Philippines

African Countries Emerge as Regulation Reformers, Report Says; World Bank views a push by donor countries as a contributing factor
"China, Number 93 a year ago, moved up 15 places. Like Georgia, Mexico, Tanzania and Ghana, China is among the World Bank’s “top 10 reformers.” Its government has sped up the business-starting process, increased investor protections, reduced red tape in trade, and established a credit-information registry for consumer loans that provides credit histories of 340 million citizens, according to the report.
A separate report on foreign direct investment, released by Columbia University and The Economist publishing group, predicts that until 2010 China will be the top emerging market for business investment inflows, but Africa will not receive much investment any time soon.
Karl Sauvant, director of the Columbia Program on International Investment, which released the investment report, said China will attract $87 billion from U.S. businesses alone in 2006, while sub-Saharan Africa, with 10 percent of the world’s population, gets less than 1 percent of total foreign direct investment flows."

Fiji ranks 31 in World Bank report
"FIJI has dropped back two rankings to 31 on the 2007 World Bank's Doing Business report after being ranked 29 this year.
The drop in ranking comes amid concerns from the bank about some aspects of doing business in Fiji even though it has improved a lot from its previous ranking in previous years."

Bangladesh 3rd best business place in S Asia
"Bangladesh is the third easiest country in which to do business in South Asia, although as a whole is lagging behind other parts of the world when it comes to reforms that could enhance business activity, says a World Bank-IFC (International Finance Corporation) report. The top ranked countries in the region are the Maldives (53) and Pakistan (74), followed by Bangladesh (88), Sri Lanka (89) and Nepal (100). India comes in at 134, Bhutan at 138 and Afghanistan at 162."

Mozambique says to cut red tape in 2007
Mozambique will shake up its ineffective judiciary in a series of radical measures aimed at cutting red-tape and increasing business confidence in its resurgent economy

World Bank: Indonesia Losing Appeal As Invest Destination

Less Foreign Direct Investment forecasted for 2007;In a global context of weaker foreign direct investment, FDI, in emerging markets because of “structural weaknesses”, Latinamerica is also set to suffer, according to a report from the University of Columbia in New York and The Economist group. ..
However another report but from the International Finance Corporation, IFC, the private sector arm of the World Bank shows that doing business became easier worldwide in 2005/06. Two hundred and thirteen regulatory reforms—in 112 economies— reduced the time, cost, and hassle for businesses to comply with legal and administrative requirements.

Meeting with private sector to clarify delivery system..He said Malaysia’s 25th ranking in the recent World Bank’s report on Doing Business 2007 needed to be improved.

Taiwan climbs a spot to become 24th-freest economy; Taiwan is the world's 24th freest economy among 130 nations, one spot up from last year, according to a report released on Thursday by the Fraser Institute, an independent public policy organization in Canada
According to a recent report released by the World Bank and the International Finance Corp, Taiwan ranked No. 47 in ease of doing business, down from 43rd last year.

In what do we trust?The language of business is peppered with the word trust. Trust deed, deed of trust, unit trust, trust account, investment trust, trust fund are just a few of the plethora of trust terms in the commercial world.
That's no coincidence. Without trust, much business activity could not be carried out. There has to be an underlying belief that the other party to a transaction will fulfill his/her obligations. Two reports that came out recently give a seemingly contradictory view of the state of trust in contemporary China.

WB Increases Azerbaijan’s Rating on Favorable Business Environment

Israel 26th business-friendly country

Malaysia Is More Business Friendly Than That Rated By World Bank, Says MB

Caribbean Way Behind as Business Destination

Slovakia offers best business conditions of V4 states

Britain overtaken by Hong Kong in table of best places to do business

Zambian investment environment worsening

ARMENIA LEADER IN CIS AS A COUNTRY WITH TROUBLE-FREE CONDITIONS FOR RUNNING A BUSINESS

Sri Lanka lags reforming nations in South Asia

''The Easiest Place To Do Business In South Asia''-“The Maldives remains ‘the easiest place to do business’ in South Asia, but it is only the best of a bad bunch, according to an influential World Bank report….
The report found that the South Asia region ranks behind all others on the pace of reforms, with only a quarter of countries, making at least one reform that improved the Doing Business indicators.

However, the World Bank’s methodology is fiercely skewed towards liberalization and privatization regardless of context. It does not track variables such as market size, macroeconomic policy, quality of infrastructure, currency volatility, investor perceptions, or crime rates.

The Maldives was therefore criticized in this year’s report for introducing some measure of labour protection. The World Bank condemned the new mandatory two-month notice period before workers can be dismissed, saying it was ‘a move that may especially discourage small business and the hiring of poor, low-skilled, and young workers’.

The Maldives’ high regional ranking reflects its exceptionally laissez-faire attitude to tax and employment protection. It ranked first out of all 175 countries on ‘paying taxes’ – businesses pay back an average of just 9.3% of profit to the state, in comparison to a regional average of 45.1% and a developed world average of 47.8%...”

Australia eighth in easy business survey
Australia has moved up one spot into eighth place in the World Bank's latest ranking of the easiest markets to do business, overtaking Norway.

NZ knocked from top business spot
"New Zealand has been knocked off its perch, at the top of world rankings for ease of doing business….Australia's significant reforms of the last year have helped it improve to 8th place"

How Nations Prosper: Economic Freedom and Doing Business in 2007- an event coming up at Cato later in the month.

Earliers posts- The Road Less Traveled of Business Regulatory Reform, Excessive Anti-Corruption Drive Hurting the Economy?

Economics of Duty Free Shops

Just re-watched Seinfeld’s The Airport episode;

Kramer: If anything, we'll probably get there early. I'll have a chance to
go to the Duty Free shop.
George: The Duty Free Shop? Duty Free is the biggest sucker deal in retail.
Do you know how much duty is?
Kramer: Duty.
George: Yeah, "duty". Do you know how much duty is?
Kramer: No, I dunno how much duty is.
George: Duty is *nothing*. It's like sales tax...
Kramer: I still like to stop at the duty free shop.
George: I like to stop at the duty free shop.

Related;
Seinfeld Classic Kramer & George – clip from The Airport
The Economics of Duty-Free Shopping
Duty Free at Baghdad International Airport
A Dilemma for Duty Free Shops

Some British Humor for the weekend

Part of a British comedy show featuring Mark Steel- Part One, Part Two.

Have a nice weekend.

Thought of the Day- Political Dresses

Source- The Good magazine
Related;
Open Secrets- your guide to money in politics
Decision '06

Smoker’s International Airways

It’s about time you had an airline for smokers;

“With a growing number of countries choosing to ban smoking in public places, it is an idea that might seem inopportune. But Mr. Schoppmann, a German entrepreneur, is hoping to take advantage of smokers’ resentment at efforts to further curb where they can smoke by giving them their own airline, Smoker’s International Airways.

As the name suggests, the airline, known as Smintair, will probably not be for the faint of lung. The carrier, expected to begin luxury service with business and first-class seats early next year, plans daily flights between Mr. Schoppmann’s hometown of Düsseldorf and Tokyo — a 12-hour journey that, for some smokers, is simply not worth the nicotine-withdrawal headache.

“Many people simply don’t travel long distances anymore because they can’t smoke,” said Mr. Schoppmann, 55, who smokes 30 cigarettes a day in addition to the occasional cigar. “That has to be why they invented videoconferencing.”…

According to the International Air Transport Association, more than a million passengers traveled between Japan and Germany in 2004, a figure that is expected to increase by an average of 3.6 percent a year through 2009. While the majority of Japanese visitors to Germany are tourists, fully half of Germans traveling to Japan are there on business.

What’s more, about one-quarter of Germans smoke, while in Japan, 49 percent of men and 14 percent of women do, according to government surveys…”

Related;
Thank You for Smoking
Stephen Colbert - Civil Lights
One of the SMINTAIR Philosophies;

“Allowing our guests to smoke is one of the freedoms we are happily prepared to grant. Non-smokers will find the cabin air more refreshing than on any other flight with any other airline, as SMINTAIR adds fresh outside air to the conditioning system! This is more expensive, as it burns more fuel, but it is seen as an additional service to our guests.”

Markets in Everything-Selling Dreams

"Anyone who can't sell a bag of air with a dream inside it doesn't deserve to call himself an American, much less an art dealer." -David Hickey

Best Search Words I Read Today

Going through the site meter of T&B, I came across the following search words from a Pakistani visitor;

‘how would u warn irresponsible employees to work positively with reference to Holy Quran’

Some related and not so related links-most of them podcasts;

Tyler Cowen asks 'If I were a Muslim, would I be a Shiite or a Sunni?'

Reza Aslan at the Daily Show

The looming conflict between Shi'ites and Sunnis; If the war in Lebanon appears to have dramatically increased the prestige of shi'ite Hezbollah in the hopeless Middle East, Robert McCulloch, an Australian Columban priest who has been living and working in Pakistan for twenty eight years, says we should not allow ourselves to be distracted - throughout the whole of the Middle East the big looming furture conflict could well be the conflict between Shi'ites and Sunnis

Best of the Spiritual Classics

On Garbage; This week we're rummaging through the philosophy of garbage. John Scanlan's book, On Garbage shows how western progress always has cleared away and discarded what went before; not only material waste but also knowledge. He believes that by examining our garbage we can gain useful insight into the condition of contemporary life

Books That Shook the World - The Qur'an, perspective by Bruce Lawrence

An Exploration of the Baha'i Faith

Lady Wisdom, the Desert and the Shell; Encounter explores the story of the good wife in the Book of Proverbs who represents Lady Wisdom in this Biblical text

Heaven Doesn't Speak;Confucius said that we should learn to be human, and that by doing so we'll create harmony in the cosmos. What he didn't say was that God was necessarily part of this equation, but that hasn't stopped his brand of practical ethics being given a transcendental spin

Nazi New Religions; Part 1, Part 2; Germany in the 1920s was rife with new religious movements which contributed significantly to Nazi ideology. The cult of the hero for example, popularised in German literature, borrowed from Nordic and Eastern mythology, and formed the basis of a 'master race' ideology. And Anti-Semitism and anti-Christianity were persistent features of the new religions. Karla Poewe examines the rise of the new religions in Nazi Germany

Christian Relics and the Historical Jesus

Jerome Kagan - The Father of Temperament

The Nature of Belief : Australian Science Festival Debate

Political Scientists?

'Marxists are retards'

“Recently unearthed documents reveal that Franco's psychiatrist carried out bizarre experiments on members of the International Brigade in 1930s Spain. His aim: to prove that leftwingers are mad…

It was here, in 1938, that International Brigade members were subjected to a bizarre set of physical and psychological tests in one of the first systematic attempts to put psychiatry to the service of ideology. Sixty-four years later, the results of Vallejo's project to unravel the "biopsyche of Marxist fanaticism" have finally come to light.

Former prisoners at San Pedro de Cardena remember being subjected to up to 200 tests. They were quizzed on their sex lives, and had their heads and noses measured.

"They made us strip and did all these measurements. We supposed they thought it would be useful if the fascists ever invaded Britain," says Bob Doyle, one of the few remaining survivors of a group of 75 British and Irish prisoners tested at the camp. Another, Carl Geiser, the senior ranking American in the jail and a former political commissar to the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, recalls: "I was photographed with just a small cloth over my penis."

KGB Used Clairvoyants as Agents;

“Correspondents of the Komsomolskaya Pravda daily said that not long before he passed away, Professor Alexander Spirkin, well-known scholar and co-author of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, admitted in an interview that the Soviet KGB employed clairvoyants to spy on their enemies

Alexander Spirkin used to head a secret lab under the Soviet government and worked closely with clairvoyants hired to carry out special missions for the Kremlin.”

Unrelated link; Pluto loses status as a planet

Definition of Negro

I was shocked to see the following entry for Negro from the Encyclopedia Britannica, 1798 (emphasis mine);

“NEGRO, Homo pelli nigra, a name given to a variety of the human species, who are entirely black, and are found in the Torrid zone, especially in that part of Africa which lies within the tropics. In the complexion of negroes we meet with various shades; but they likewise differ far from other men in all the features of their face. Round cheeks, high cheek-bones, a forehead somewhat elevated, a short, broad, flat nose, thick lips, small ears, ugliness, and irregularity of shape, characterize their external appearance. The negro women have the loins greatly depressed, and very large buttocks, which give the back the shape of a saddle. Vices the most notorious seem to be the portion of this unhappy race: idleness, treachery, revenge, cruelty, impudence, stealing, lying, profanity, debauchery, nastiness and intemperance, are said to have extinguished the principles of natural law, and to have silenced the reproofs of conscience. They are strangers to every sentiment of compassion, and are an awful example of the corruption of man when left to himself.”

- The History of Human Rights-From Ancient Times to the Globalization Era by Micheline R. Ishay, p.113, try Google Book Search.

Related;
Jon Stewart’s “senior black correspondent” Larry Wilmore- The Daily Show
First Chapter of Ishay’s book

Colbert Celebrates World Breast Feeding Week

Some funny videos from Colbert, the Daily Show, etc.;

Tip of the Hat, Wag of the Finger
Hizbullah’s Next Mission
Civil Lights
Macaque
Colbert Interviews Paul Hackett
Give cease a chance
The Stranger

Marilyn Manson on The O'Reily Factor

Talking to Americans- a hilarious Canadian TV Show; Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5 (via Boing Boing)

Books and Colbert

Some authors discuss their books with Colbert;

Reza Aslan, No God But God
Ron Suskind, One Percent Doctrine
Ramesh Ponnuru, author of Party of Death
On Lynne Cheyney's children’s book

The Vanity of Breast-Feeding

“At the same time, a fashion for breast-feeding took hold among high-society women, a group who had never before concerned themselves with babies who now insisted on suckling their infants in order to fit in with progressive notions regarding motherhood. Women who hardly knew where the nursery was in their own house began compulsively exposing their breasts, often between courses of luncheons and dinners. Once again, the cartoonists stepped in to call for moderation.”

-Alain de Botton, Status Anxiety, pp. 164-166

In some cultures, the artists’ role is still very controversial. Fashions and fads need to be seen within the broad context of time and phase of the society.

* The picture above, A fashionable mother breastfeeding her baby, Coloured etching by James Gillray, English, 1796; James Gillray is best known for biting political satires, but in this piece he pokes fun at a fashionable society woman, fully dressed for an evening out. This 'fashionable mamma' is wearing a dress with slits across the breast so that she can feed her baby before she dashes off to the carriage waiting outside. This mamma is fashionable because, instead of following the earlier 18th-century practice of farming babies out to professional 'wet-nurses', she is following Jean-Jacques Rousseau's fashionable theories of a "return to nature" and is breast-feeding the baby herself.

Related;
The Cartoonist’s Responsibility

David Warsh, in a review of Vanity of the Philosopher; The "Vanity of the Philosopher": From Equality to Hierarchy in Post-Classical Economics by Sandra Peart and David M. Levy

“Their title comes from a passage in The Wealth of Nations in which Adam Smith asserts that the difference between the most dissimilar characters -- between, for example, a philosopher and a common street porter -- arises less from nature than from "habit, custom and education." For their first six or eight years, any two youths are likely to remain pretty much alike, Smith writes. But as they begin to go to work, they grow more and more different in their skills, "till at last the vanity of the philosopher is willing to acknowledge scarce any resemblance."…

In keeping with the spirit of the age of democratic revolutions, the classical economists presumed a high degree of equality among human beings. From Adam Smith to John Stuart Mill, the classicals rejected race and genetic endowment as factors that might determine the differences among nations, took for granted a certain human homogeneity with respect to the taste for commerce, and focused on the role of institutions instead. The classical system of "analytical homogeneity," according to Peart and Levy, was one in which everyone counted equally and was presumed equally capable of making decisions about their own welfare.

No sooner had the nineteenth century begun, however, than systems of "analytical hierarchy," emphasizing human heterogeneity, re-entered the debate in new and "scientific" forms. These inevitably argued that some groups were privileged over others, usually along lines of race or capability. Such doctrines dated back to Plato, the authors say; it was he who famously asked, Why it was we breed cattle but not people? The tacit presupposition of this question -- that there must be philosophical experts who in their wisdom differ fundamentally from human "cattle: -- would take many forms during the coming decades, the authors write. In the mid-nineteenth century, it flared up first as a debate over slavery”

“Gas taxes make you happy”

'Can Americans be prodded to invest more in friendships?' Asks Sebastian Mallaby in a recent column- Why So Lonesome?;

“The question about loneliness is: Why do people do this to themselves? Why do Americans, who reported an average of nearly three close friends in 1985, now report an average of just over two? And why does one in four have nobody with whom to discuss personal issues? This is the age of Oprah and MySpace, of public emoting on television and the Web. Apparently people watch "Friends" but don't actually have many….

But there's one antidote to loneliness that is at least intriguing. In an experiment in Austin, Princeton's Daniel Kahneman found that commuting -- generally alone, and generally by car -- is rated the least enjoyable daily activity, but commuting by car pool is reasonably pleasant. Measures that promote car pooling could make Americans less isolated and healthier.”

Some findings from the recent study from American Sociological Association;

- the number of people who say they have no one with whom to discuss important matters has more than doubled

- The trend toward social isolation mirrors other class divides: Non-whites and people with less education tend to have smaller networks than white Americans and the highly educated.

- Racial diversity among people’s networks has increased. The percentage of people who count at least one person of another race in their close network has gone up from about 9 percent to more than 15 percent.

-The percentage of people who talk only to family members about important matters increased from about 57 percent to about 80 percent, while the number of people who depend totally on their spouse has increased from about 5 percent to about 9 percent.

Related; The Strength of Internet Ties

Demotivator of the Day- Happiness is a delusion

Psychoanalyst Adam Phillips is interviewed by The Guardian- some quotes below;

"A culture that is obsessed with happiness must really be in despair, mustn't it? Otherwise why would anybody be bothered about it at all?"

"It's become a preoccupation because there's so much unhappiness. The idea that if you just reiterate the word enough and we'll all cheer up is preposterous."

"I don't want happiness to be part of the currency," he sighs, "but by that I don't mean that I want people to be miserable, but I do think that if you have a sense of reality you are going to be really troubled. Anybody in this culture who watches the news and can be happy - there's something wrong with them.

"The cultural demand now is be happy, or enjoy yourself, or succeed. You have to sacrifice your unhappiness and your critique of the values you're supposed to be taking on. You're supposed to go: 'Happiness! Yes, that's all I want!' But what about justice or reality or ruthlessness - or whatever my preferred thing is?" ..

"It's very simple. The reason that there are so many depressed people is that life is so depressing for many people. It's not a mystery. There is a presumption that there is a weakness in the people who are depressed or a weakness on the part of scientific research and one of these two groups has got to pull its socks up. Scientists have got to get better and find us a drug and the depressed have got to stop malingering. The ethos is: 'Actually life is wonderful, great - get out there!' That's totally unrealistic and it's bound to fail."

Related;
The New Statesman Profile - Adam Phillips
Excerpt from ‘Going Sane-Maps of Happiness’ by Adam Phillips

Inauthentic Paper Detector

Can’t guarantee the authenticity of the following Inauthentic Paper Detector from Indiana University School of Informatics. According to the site;

“This web site is intended for detecting whether a technical document is human written and authentic or not. Predictions may work for documents intended for entertainment (novels, news articles etc.). The main purpose of this software is to detect whether a technical document conforms to the statistical standards of an expository text. You can easily take a human written technical document and add some nonsense text somewhere in the middle, or paste a document generated by an automatic paper generator. We are trying to detect new, machine written texts that are simply generated not to have any meaning, yet appear to have meaning on the surface.”

I tested George Orwell’s essay Politics and the English Language; the result “This text had been classified as INAUTHENTIC with a 17.7% chance of being authentic text”.

(via Improbable Research)

Worth Reading… It’s All Numbers

Links to a couple of articles and blog posts that discusses mathematics and statistics in the news;

Putting a Number on Happiness- The Numbers Guy.
More on the Happy Planet Index.

"The 200,000 people of Vanuatu -- a South Pacific nation composed of 83 islands, with an agricultural economy and corporate headquarters of file-sharing service Kazaa -- are the happiest on earth, according to a wave of recent articles….

The problem is, no one has asked Vanuatuans how happy they are. The ranking was based on extrapolating happiness levels from other countries."

I'm told that in Bhutan for the census they include a question on happiness. From a small sample of people I've met Bhutanese seem more happy than the one Vanuatuan I've met.

Cheney's One Percent Doctrine- John Allen Paulos

"Suskind describes the Cheney doctrine as follows: "Even if there's just a 1 percent chance of the unimaginable coming due, act as if it is a certainty. It's not about 'our analysis,' as Cheney said. It's about 'our response.' … Justified or not, fact-based or not, 'our response' is what matters. As to 'evidence,' the bar was set so low that the word itself almost didn't apply."

How a statistical formula won the war (via The Amateur Economist)

Lying with Statistics: Today's Example

Today's Funny Video

Go Daddy Hearings with slight wardrobe malfunction.

No Phishing Attacks from IMF!

IMF released the following press release recently;

"The IMF has learned of various forms of identity fraud and financial fraud involving the unauthorized use of the IMF's name and emblem. This includes `phishing' attacks, in which the names of IMF officials have been misused to deceive recipients into disclosing personal financial information, and `spoofing' attempts, in which a false copy of the IMF website had been created with false contact information, to mislead potential users…”

Quote of the Day- Who’s an Expert?

“Now that I was writing on public policy issues, I was surprised to discover how fast and how easy it is to become known as an ‘expert’ on a number of subjects. The only subject on which I considered myself an expert was the history of economic theory, but others apparently considered me an expert on all sorts of other things.

Someone associated with writing of The Harvard Encylopedia of American Ethnic Groups phoned me at the Center of Advance Study because, as he put it, “You are considered the leading authority on West Indians in the United States.” Taken aback, I replied:

“Everything I know about West Indians in the United States could be said in ten typewritten pages, double spaced.”
“ But who else could write five typewritten pages?” he asked.
Apparently there must be an expert for every subject, even if no one knows very much about it.”

A Personal Odyssey by Thomas Sowell ( p, 263, emphasis mine)

Related; Unofficial Thomas Sowell Fan Page

Podcast of the Day- Sporting Globalization & why Soccer is not boring

Related;

Why Tyler Cowen find soccer boring

Tell that soccer is boring to this woman from Maldives; a 55 old lady smashes TV set, throws around noodles following Brazil’s World Cup loss- soccer is truly universal.

Merkel makes hay while Germans watch the play

If football was a drug it would be outlawed

The World Cup Final of Culture

If still you find soccer boring try this; How to appreciate a soccer game on TV

English woman develops foreign accent after stroke

Human brain is truly amazing;

“Linda Walker awoke in hospital to find her distinctive Newcastle accent had been transformed into a mixture of Jamaican, Canadian and Slovakian….

Researchers at Oxford University have found that patients with Foreign Accent Syndrome have suffered damage to tiny areas of the brain that affect speech.

The result is often a drawing out or clipping of the vowels that mimic the accent of a particular country, such as Spain or France, even though the sufferer has limited exposure to that accent.

The syndrome was first identified during World War II, when a Norwegian woman suffered shrapnel damage to her brain. She developed a strong German accent, which led to her being ostracised by her community.”

Related; Those of you in London might want to go the following debate; From bad to worse: the worst ideas on the mind (via Mind Hacks)- The human mind is complex, mysterious and vital to who we are, so it's probably no surprise that over the years some treatments for mental conditions have turned out to be complicated, ridiculous and damaging to patients. In this fun and interactive event four experts will each name and shame an idea from psychiatric history and try to get the audience to name it ‘worst idea on the mind’.

If You Had One Day to Live

My high school teacher used to tell of the joke that if you had one day to live you would want to spend the day in the statistics class- it would seem so much longer.

I wish he had shown this video – Statz 4 Life. (via SSS blog)

Related;

Statistics 101, Como se dice "I hate statistics"?, The Law of One Price

The scholars behind the stout; That fundamental ideas in applied mathematics would be developed in a brewery sounds sufficiently improbable, but the story is true and intriguing. The statistical technique most often used to study events of low probability was discovered by a Polish mathematician and an employee of the Guinness brewery.

History of Monte Carlo

Al Qaeda’s Strategic Vision

Here’s a translation of what is said to be a key document of Al Qaeda; The Management of Savagery (via The Blotter). Some things that caught my eye in the book;

“The most important skill of the art of administration that we must use is learning how to establish committees and specializations and dividing labor so that all the activities do not fall on the shoulders of a single person or small group of people, in addition to training all of the individuals and passing on practical knowledge until (the point is reached) that if one manager disappears another will arise (to take his place). And it is necessary that each individual be trained in all or a large part of the branches so that it is possible to pass on skills, according to need, from one place to another. Of course, this is without the individuals knowing the secrets of the branches in which they do not work; rather, I mean training and passing on practical knowledge, such as skills and techniques, and no more.

The mastery of the art of administration saves a lot of time and blesses the effort exerted (to acquire it), especially since we are in a race against time and we need to undertake any effort in such a way that we get the best results….

We must make use of books on the subject of administration, especially the management studies and theories which have been recently published, since they are consonant with the nature of modern societies. There is more than one site on the Internet in which one can obtain management books.”

Related;

What makes al-Qaeda a global learning network?

Al-Qaida in Action and Learning: A Systems Approach

News Coverage Granger Causes Terrorism

Fashion Terrorists

Earlier blog posts; The Psychology of Terrorism, Bin Laden Studied Economics, The Appeal of Bin Laden and Al-Qaida

The photo is that of a niece of Bin Laden.

Corruption of Corruption Watch Dogs

BBC reports that the head of TI Kenya has been sacked over fraud (via Tom Palmer). Earlier I posted about Mr.Githongo.

Nowadays everyone’s favorite topic seems to be corruption and the huge costs it imposes on the society. Why has corruption become such an important topic for the international development community? Has it anything to do with the end of the cold war and the need for international development agencies to find another rational for helping developing countries under the mantra of improving governance?

Related;

Tyler Cowen on the driving license corruption in India - see also this video about what it actually means to be driving in India.

More the same paper at PSD blog- Corruption kills.

A Flavor of Bollywood for the Weekend- Geela Geela

A sample of Bollywood songs from YouTube; have a nice weekend.

Geela Geela

Woh Lamhe

Zara Zara

Dil Samandar (with English subtitles)

Aashiq Banaya Aapne ( not work safe)

A tamil song from Indian musical genius A R Rahman – see also this clip where his music is used in this Hollywood movie with great effect.

Related; Bollywood Comedy

If India Played the World Cup

Hindu ascetics play soccer on the banks of the River Ganges in Allahabad, India. India did qualify for world cup in 1950. (Via Sepia Mutiny)

More World Cup Madness

The Ghanaian Football Association has apologised after defender John Pantsil waved an Israeli flag to celebrate the World Cup win over the Czech Republic.

Ghana tells mines to cut power during Cup

University suspends exams for World Cup

Soccer Fever in Seoul

‘I can see Spain facing Argentina in the Final’

‘Crackdown on Sugar Hoarders to be Launched’

Breaking news from Pakistan;

“Monopoly Control Authority (MCA) said Saturday stock 1.2 million ton sugar was available with sugar mills by May 31, 2006, which they didn’t release in the market. However, action on this count would be taken against the hoarders.

A total stock of 2.97 million ton sugar was reported by May 31, 2006 of which 1.738 million ton sugar was sold out and the sugar mills 1.169 million ton sugar amassed in their godowns instead of releasing it in the market, according to Authority.

MCA told a crackdown would be launched on those involved in the sugar hoarding, which skyrocketed the sugar prices in the market.”

Related;

World Bank to double aid to Pakistan -- Will the money help?

Inflation in Pakistan: Money or Wheat?
Summary: This paper examines the relative importance of monetary factors and structuralist supply-side factors for inflation in Pakistan. A stylized inflation model is specified that includes standard monetary variables (money supply, credit to the private sector), the exchange rate, as well as the wheat support price as a supply-side factor that has received considerable attention in Pakistan. The model is estimated for the period January 1998 to June 2005 on a monthly basis. The results indicate that monetary factors have played a dominant role in recent inflation, affecting inflation with a lag of about one year. Changes in the wheat support price influence inflation in the short run, but not in the long run. Furthermore, the wheat support price matters only over the medium term if accommodated by monetary policy.

Lahore School of Economics blog

Does the French have a word for entrepreneur?

One study on entrepreneurship which compared rates of entrepreneurship between and among more than 1,200 pairs of identical and fraternal twins in the U.K and conclude that nearly half—48 percent—of an individual's propensity to become self-employed is genetic. (via PSD blog).

But that isn’t much of help for policy maker. I recommend reading the following primer by Israel Kirzner and Frederic Sautet- The Nature and Role of Entrepreneurship in markets: Implications for Policy;

“This Policy Primer explains the role entrepreneurship plays in markets and provides general recommendations for policy makers. The fundamental, policy-relevant ideas in this primer are twofold:

- Entrepreneurship is not a resource; it is the generation of socially-productive ideas which makes the use of resources possible. It is this generation of ideas and not the existence of resources that matters most to prosperity.

- The entrepreneurial discovery process drives resource allocation. In essence,
resources are allocated as a result of entrepreneurial activity. Policies can affect this process in different ways. The peril of regulation comes, not only because it disrupts the patterns of consumption and savings, but also, and primarily, because it stifles entrepreneurial discovery.”

Related: The Entrepreneurial Economist and the Red Queen Game

What is Superman's Comparative Advantage?

There is an ever-growing crop of excellent ideas about what Superman should do to best "improve the macroeconomy". (Note that the phrasing of this verbal maximization function doesn't specify Superman's abilities and constraints; and what does "improve" really mean?) Anyway it remains to be seen just how Superman will optimize his efforts and coordinate with us mortals in his endeavors. And there are several practical considerations people aren't yet talking about -- all of which come out of realizing that advising and managing Superman has to be far more difficult than running the largest corporations or the most powerful governments:

First of all, Superman cannot waft through every request for his services, so he needs to set up a bureaucracy -- an inner circle of apparatchiks and an enormous staff-- to process and deal with all the demands for his time and energy. (Won't people write to Superman like they write to Eminem and the US President? They'll want him to care, and to do something about their individual plights. How will they react to a form letter and signed photo?) These people will have enormous power and responsibility, and it's unclear to me who should fill these roles.

Second, Superman most likely doesn't have a comparative advantage in analyzing and comparing the relative costs and benefits of performing any given task, so he will need a team of specialized analysts to provide bottom-line benefit and risk scenarios. Whom will Superman benefit by helping build a space elevator today? How much is that benefit? Is that a better option than finding and exploding all IEDs in Iraq before they are used to kill someone? On August 28-29, 2005 should he have been in New Orleans shoring up the levees?

Third, it's unclear whether Superman -- even though he is altruistic and incorruptible -- will really make good decisions about what he must do to improve the macroeconomy, and how he should balance this with other goals. How will he do making his own decisions compared to the median response of a random sample of the world's adult population? Superman has a absolute advantage in many realms of space, defense, and transportation, but not decision-making. If we can demonstrate (say via simulation or trial and error) that Superman is a poor decision-maker, to whom can we entrust the power of "decider" for Superman?

When Goalkeepers Strike

Even if you don’t like soccer you might find the following couple of videos educational and humorous;

Colombia goalkeeper scoring against Poland

Fabien Barthez, the ever peripatetic French goalkeeper who was rarely to be found in goal but mostly charged out to tackle opposing strikers.

Maradona’s nightmare ad; he was apparently paid $350,000, by brewer Guaraná for this TV ad, who again happens to be one of the main Brazilian national team sponsors.

Some Soccernomics;

Learning About Globalization By Watching A Soccer Game; Soccer is not only the world's most popular sport, but also probably its most globalized profession. It is inconceivable that Brazilian, Cameroonian or Japanese doctors, computer scientists, blue-collar workers, or bank tellers could move from one country to another as easily as Brazilian, Cameroonian or Japanese soccer players do.

Game theory and Soccer; According to data from 2,885 matches in Italy, England and Spain, a bad team playing at home is more likely to score than a good one playing away.

The Case of Penalty Kicks in Soccer; In Europe, Levitt is feted as one of the authors of the "penalty-kick paper". Probably only a trio of economists would have watched videos of 459 penalties taken in the French and Italian football leagues. The authors were testing a complex point of game theory. What they found was that the best place to put a penalty was the middle of the goal, largely because goalkeepers always dive. Yet few penalty-takers actually choose the middle. "I think one reason people don't is that it's just incredibly humiliating to a kicker if he kicks in the middle and doesn't score," guesses Levitt.

The Great World Cup ticket scandal and Red card for Fifa in World Cup tickets fiasco?

Football 'to deliver £1bn kick to spending'; WORLD CUP-related purchases are expected to boost total consumer spending by an extra 50 per cent to £3 billion during the month of the tournament.

On Choosing England’s Manager; The search for the next England manager highlights three problems faced by many organizations looking for a new boss: incommensurabilities, cognitive biases and groupthink. These problems mean it’s very hard to identify the “best” candidate.

Soccernomics 2006; The world economy will benefit most from an Italian victory at the football World Cup in June/July, according to ABN AMRO's economists in their 'Soccernomics 2006' study, which they have prepared – both for education and enjoyment – for the third time. With the World Cup in Germany only three months away, the ABN AMRO Economics Department has made a prediction, as it did in the run-up to previous major football competitions, as to which country would benefit the global economy the most if its team were to win the World Cup. This time it is Italy

A workshop on Economics and Psychology of Football

Economics Professor Seeks U.S. Soccer Model; He recently tried to talk an engineering student out of leaving Columbia to join a youth soccer program that Gulati himself helped to create. "It's very different than it is in England or Brazil, or in Italy where a gifted 17-year-old isn't thinking about the University of Rome, he's thinking about playing for A.C. Milan," Gulati said. "If a kid is choosing between a place like Columbia, that's a different decision from somebody who doesn't have 1400 SATs and might be thinking about another alternative. Opportunity cost, as we would say in Principles of Economics."

Some podcasts on soccer from Radio National;

Going totally Dutch; The Australian Socceroos are off to the World Cup with a secret weapon in their Dutch coach Guus Hiddink, who was a part of one of football's great innovations, the Dutch idea of 'total football'

Australia versus Greece; The most recent installment of the Socceroos' journey to Germany for the 2006 World Cup

Globalisation and Sport; Globalisation now describes just about everything, from the way we do business to the way we watch football. So what are the implications for sport in a world where global is rapidly replacing local?

The Birth-Month Soccer Anomaly; If you were to examine the birth certificates of every soccer player in next month's World Cup tournament, you would most likely find a noteworthy quirk: elite soccer players are more likely to have been born in the earlier months of the year than in the later months. If you then examined the European national youth teams that feed the World Cup and professional ranks, you would find this quirk to be even more pronounced. On recent English teams, for instance, half of the elite teenage soccer players were born in January, February or March, with the other half spread out over the remaining 9 months. In Germany, 52 elite youth players were born in the first three months of the year, with just 4 players born in the last three

Maradona Explains Monetary Policy; At the annual Mais lecture at City University's business school last night, Merv took the audience back to the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, when England were single-handedly demolished by two goals from Diego Maradona (see the picture above), one a blatant handball to all but the ref and linesman and one a work of genius. The Hand of God goal was comparable to the old 'mystery and mystique' approach to central banking, he said, as the action was unexpected, time inconsistent and against the rules. His second, involving a mazy run past five England players before burying the ball in the back of the net, represented the power of expectations in the modern theory of interest rates, apparently. See Mervyn King’s speech

Some blogs covering soccer related economics; PSD Blog, The Sports Economist, Soccerblog.

Take This Internship

-Take This Internship and Shove It

Mankiw gives the following advice to his students;

“I recommend that every student planning a career as a professional economist try to spend a summer, or even a year, working at a place like the CEA, CBO, or the Fed.”

Memoirs of a Geisha

The Mad TV version

The Official Website

Wikipedia version

A photo journal and an interview with Kiharu Nakamura, a geisha.

Noble Employee Myth

Kevin’s post about Dr. E. L. Kersten reminded me that in an earlier podcast carnival I linked to an interview with Dr. Kersten- the podcast is now expired. In the interview he talks about his book, ‘The Art of Demotivation’;

“The noble employee myth is the very simple idea that if people are unhappy at work that there must be some sort of problem with the organisation and therefore the employees contribute nothing to the problem. But I do believe that oftentimes employees are unhappy simply because they expect too much from the organisations they work for, and if you expect too much and you don't get it, then naturally you're going to be unhappy…

…I make the analogy to Rousseau, and his idea was that by participating in civil institutions, it tended to corrupt people, whereas in their natural state they were happy. And the noble employee myth...the idea that the average worker is just desirous to be honest and hardworking and do as much for the company as possible, but when they go to work for an organisation they encounter bureaucracy and bad management and so forth and so consequently they tend to do things which are dysfunctional and counterproductive, but the source of all that is always rooted in the company according to the noble employee myth….”

He also talks about how this myth originated;

“Well, I think a lot of it started in the early 1900s with the rise of behaviourism in social psychology, and if you're familiar with behaviourism, the idea is to look for what sort of environmental influences impact human behaviour and happiness and so forth. So because of the scientific method and because of the rise of behaviourism in psychology, this gave rise to the discipline of organisational behaviour. Given the just fundamental assumptions about life and how life works, organisational behaviourists are always looking for external variables that impact human beings, and so there's this constant paradigmatic emphasis on the environment. So I think that's where a lot of this began, is just the rise of the discipline, the growth of behaviouristic psychology and a desire to look for something external to the employee that supposedly causes employee behaviour.”

Links with the motivational speaker movement (one in a hundred books now sold in the UK is motivational, there are 20,000 motivational speakers in America alone and the industry is a $5 billion industry in the US);

“Actually I think that's partly...that contributes to it, but I think the root of that is in the humanistic psychology, and many people are familiar, for example, with Abraham Maslow and his hierarchy of need, but around the turn of the century there was a real growth in humanistic psychology, and there was this idea that we all needed to be unfettered by the constraints of the environment so that our creative self, our true self could emerge. And there is a certain strain of organisational behaviourists that became enamoured with these ideas as well, and I think what happened in the popular culture is these two ideas became wedded together, so consequently now what many employees have been taught to look for is an organisation, an external environment, which will help them grow and become all that they can be. Clearly the motivational speakers and the human potential movement and all of that is an outgrowth of this humanistic psychology that really got started in the mid part of the 1900s.”

Are expectations outstripping the reality?

“I agree with the analogy there of looking for the perfect mate because many people, if they're looking for 'the one' who will meet all of their needs, they end up being very, very disappointed whenever they do find someone because whoever they find is going to be imperfect and they're going to recognise that they themselves are imperfect and the relationship is not going to be perfect, even though it might be satisfying and it might be a good relationship. People who expect perfection, they tend to make the other person miserable in a romantic relationship. I think the same thing happens in organisations; they've got this organisational ideal and they enter the organisation, they expect it to meet their needs for meaning and significance and satisfaction and money and all kinds of things, and if it doesn't meet all those needs they (for some reason) get bitter and they begin to blame the organisation for many of the life problems that the organisation has not necessarily signed up for. Having said that, some organisations do make those promises because they've been taught that's what they need to do, but I think that tends to produce more misery than anything else”

Related;

Try their screensaver, watch the short film More, Spin videos, look inside the book, BitterSweets, The Pessimist’s Mug and posters about Demotivators.

President Al Gore Addresses the Nation

President Al Gore addresses the Nation from Saturday Night Live (via Oliver Willis)

Despair, Inc.

On ZDnet's '"at-the-whiteboard" section, three straight-faced spoof videos of Dr. E. L. Kersten of Despair, Inc.:

1. An honest org chart (salary-adjusted to show how irrelevant VP's are compared to a CEO)

2. Signs of a demotivated workforce (Despair seeks to demotivate its employees).

3. Developing a compensation plan ("broadbanding" into wage earners, managers without exec. potential, managers w/ exec. potential, executives)