Category Archives: Uncategorized

Mexican President Nominated For Citi Director

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Robert Wenzel at Economic Policy Journal:

“Citi’s Board of Directors has nominated Ernesto Zedillo as a new non-management director candidate to stand for election at Citi’s annual shareholder meeting on April 20, 2010. He was the President of Mexico from 1994 to 2000 and is now Director of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization and Professor in the Field of International Economics and Politics at Yale University.

Zedillo (58) worked at Mexico’s Central Bank (Banco de Mexico), serving in various positions, including those of deputy Head of Economic Research and deputy Director. Zedillo is on the boards of Alcoa Inc. and Procter & Gamble Company.

Obviously, despite the fact that it almost blew itself up because of schemes far from traditional banking, Citi continues to take the New World Order approach to banking.

There is nothing wrong with Citi attempting to penetrate into Latin America for business but, putting a former Mexican president on the board smacks of penetration via back door crony government deals versus attempting to serve the serve the consumer in the Latin American countries.

Sure, you have to deal with the crooked governments in these countries, but that’s what you have connected law firms for. They get things done in a very low key efficient manner. Putting Zedillo on the board sends a different signal, that Citi will not only deal with Latino politicians, but that it is part of the crooked club.”

Mark Twain: the War Prayer

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Mark Twain’s satirical “War Prayer”:

“O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle – be Thou near them! With them – in spirit – we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with hurricanes of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it – for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.”

Manmohan Singh Needs to Emphasize Discipline, Not Blame Democracy

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C. Gopinath, writing in The Hindu, blows away the notion that democracy can be blamed for slow decision-making and bureaucratic delays in India:

“It is easier for Dr Manmohan Singh’s to admit that we have bottlenecks in areas of roads, power and ports. Everybody knows that. It is also easy to blame democracy, for that is something we are not going to give up. The unintended message, unfortunately, is that we have to put up with these inefficiencies.

Other observers have chimed in, talking about a democracy tax or a discount due to democracy. The real problem is that we lack the work ethic that should drive us to excellence. Instead, the dominant ethic seems to be that the individual should do whatever it takes to get ahead, and forget about the rest of society. Look at the way we treat garbage (keep the house clean and dump the trash outside), drive on the road violating rules just so we are ahead, and so on.

Statesmen should not be finding excuses for lapses but challenging the people to new heights. The former President, Mr Abdul Kalam, continues to do a great job inspiring people with his vision for a prosperous future.

If Dr Manmohan Singh is looking for a theme on which to build his legacy, he should pick discipline. Nobody seems to be paying attention to it.”

Tom Woods On Pro-War “Progressives”

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The always thoughtful Tom Woods unmasks so-called “progressives”:

“Just weeks ago, Think Progress, after a one-sentence summary of my career that (as usual) left out the past 16 years, actually quoted Max Boot against me, as if Boot’s opposition to my work was sufficient to bury me forever. So instead of an antiwar libertarian, these progressives prefer neocon Max Boot, who according to Juan Cole “never saw a war he didn’t love, never saw a conquest he didn’t find exhilarating, never saw an occupied land he didn’t think could be handled.”  They approvingly quoted Boot’s dumb-guy propaganda line that “Woods’ sympathy extends not only to slave-owning rebels but also to German militarists” (because, like 99 percent of people who have studied the matter, I think Woodrow Wilson’s conduct during the early years of World War I was based on a double standard between Britain and Germany).  This is the same sense in which Ron Paul “sympathizes” with al-Qaeda because he doesn’t buy U.S. war propaganda. (I did reply to Boot, by the way.)

And these are the progressives”

More at Lew Rockwell...

Business Managers Need To Change Their Framework

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The Economic Times notes the poverty of management frameworks rooted in the demands of mass manufacture (Fordism and Taylorism):

“Ramnath Narayanswamy, professor of economics and social science at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Bangalore, who teaches a course on spirituality at the workplace, explains: “Management as a discipline quite literally originated in North America against the historical backdrop of Fordism and Taylorism. While its reach is indeed universal, its origins are very North American and in some respects, the discipline is still a prisoner of its historical orientation.

The excessive emphasis on analytical intelligence as opposed to emotional and spiritual intelligence is a case in point. The overwhelming predominance of “reason” and “science” when in fact it’s our daily experience that all life is based on faith and sacrifice, is another. Or the importance accorded to tools and techniques in MBA education at the expense of neglecting character, values and attitude might be yet another.”

There is a realisation that management theory has to be home grown and not just transplanted from the West. Satish Pradhan, executive VP-group HR, Tata Sons, says, “Western thinking has been dedicated to frameworks and metaphors, and the poverty of these frameworks is revealing itself — it’s not intellectually robust.”

In contrast, says Pradhan, thinking in this part of the world isn’t linear, so one cannot simply take ideas and replicate them. By the same token, this makes it difficult for Eastern concepts to be understood or grasped fully by Westerners. “It’s much like how the Americans wondered, ‘The Japanese are hiding something’ when they visited factory shopfloors of Japanese companies to learn the secrets of their success in managing costs and quality in the early ‘80s.”

Lost In the Andes..

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Well, no. I’m not really lost. But I’m in the Andes alright. And my computer cable is lost, although lost isn’t the right word. Swiped is. As in, swiped by some blighter who grabbed it out from me while I was, of all things, trying to check my stuff into the left luggage. May it blow up his laptop and may his descendants be Internet addicts who run up his DSL bill and send him to the poor house…

So that is why I’ve been remiss in my blogging. And will continue to be a while, until this is all sorted out.

Which may not be for a bit, because right now the main puzzle I am trying to work out is how to bus it from the Andes into Colombia in the safest and cheapest way possible. I want to avoid visas, but it seems I cannot. Apparently, from Salta, which is where I am now, you have to take a bus that either gets you to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile, or across the Bolivian border. One route I am looking at is Salta to Arica and from Arica to Lima.

Does this work out fiendishly cheaper than a bargain flight from Buenos Aires? Probably not. But then the Argentines have gone and introduced a visa charge of some kind, effective from January. Something like a hundred dollars or so. It’s a reciprocity fee (that means it’s tit for our government’s tat – and who can blame them) but it means I’m trying to avoid airports, which is where they levy such things.

So far the past several days, it’s been buses and terminals…33 hours of them, and  day long layovers. And on top of that I’ve been a little ill…and developed some kind of rash or allergy that makes my scalp crawl literally. I’ll never use the phrase casually again. And no,  it was not cooties or dandruff, it was my new Argentine shampoo that did it…I have a sensitive skin and new anything on it is always a bit of a risk.

Which is all much more than you should know. 

But on the up side the scenery here is spectacular.

I fed the ducks on the pond on San Martin Avenue right outside the bus terminal, had myself three empanadas with goat cheese – which felt like manna from heaven after two and half days without food..

 The hills are verdant and rise high. And in the summers, the temperatures reach up to 50 degrees celsius, I’m told.

Which is what the temperatures are in my home town in India. There the hills are much lower and have been denuded over centuries. And of course, the town is overpopulated, noisy and polluted. But in a strange way, in its bare bones, it has some similarities…

The food in India is, of course, way, way better.

After 7 months of the rather stodgy South American diet, I am positively ravenous for rasam, curry, pappadams, pilafs…

I shouldn’t have started…..

Former Spy Bosses, Goldman Exec Behind Full-Body Scanner

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I blogged earlier about the full-body scanner.

It turns out that one of the scanner’s strongest advocate, Michael Chertoff, former Homeland Security Czar, stands to gain by the sale of the scanner, via his security consulting outfit, Chertoff Group.

Its 8 members include 3 former senior executives from Homeland Security, 2 from the CIA, 3 from the NSA, 1 from FEMA, and 1 from Goldman Sachs. Continue reading →

Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission Chair Berates Lloyd Blankfein

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“It sounds like selling a car with faulty brakes and then buying an insurance policy” on the driver,”

—   Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission Chairman Phil Angelides (D) to Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein.

Well, well, well,

Doesn’t sound too different from what we said in September 2008, does it? Continue reading →

Gerald Celente Predicts Wars and Rumors of Wars in 2010

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Gerald Celente of Trends Research Institute is out with his 2010 predictions. And most of them are not for the faint of heart:

  • The Crash of 2010, as the effects of the stimulus wear off
  • Another 9-11, as more blow back for US foreign policy hits the homeland
  • Israel attacks Iran, perhaps sparking WW III
  • Crackdown on illegal immigrants
  • Bigger is no longer better – a new move to elegance and quality
  • Thin America, as people eat less and become fitter

America. the constitutional republic, as we noted at the time, came to its official end on September 2008.

More at Lew Rockwell.

Too Big To Fail And Too Big-Headed To Admit Failing

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In the Times of India,  Abheek Barman reviews Andrew Sorkin’s “Too Big to Fail,” a blow-by-blow account of the bail-out and makes a couple of insightful observations:

“It’s a tribute to his writing that despite his ball-by-ball narrative Sorkin manages to hold your attention for nearly 550 pages. His character sketches are lean and unjudgemental. Yet, though he doesn’t pass judgement, by the end most of the characters – with the possible exception of Buffet and some of the regulators – come across as distinctly unsavoury.” Continue reading →