Month: September 2009
Reinstated Dolphin’s Running Back, Ricky William’s, New Jersey
$$ New World Order
“The dollar looks awfully like sterling after the First World War,” said David Bloom, the bank’s currency chief. Look at the UK – debt is racing up to 100pc of GDP,” he said
What is occurring is an epochal loss in the relative wealth and economic power of the old G10 bloc of rich countries compared to rising regions of the world. The euro, yen, sterling, Swiss franc and other mature currencies will be relegated along with the dollar in this great process of rebalancing, but the Greenback will bear the brunt.
via HSBC bids farewell to dollar supremacy – Telegraph. Continue reading “$$ New World Order”
Try this All-Natural, Free Screen Cleaner
This free screen cleaner is all-natural and environmentally friendly. Thanks to Frank Andia.
Our New Economy’s Direction
The U.S. remains the world’s largest manufacturing nation, larger than China or anyone else. Many of these manufactured goods are sold outside of the U.S.. U.S. farm products, technology products, consumer products, commodities, and services are also sold abroad.
Bureaucracy and hierarchy were wonderful administrative structures for a manufacturing based economy and for command and control based activities like large scale manufacturing, large military, mass education, and the big government of the 1940’s, 50’s, 60’s, and even the 70’s. However, since the 1980’s, the efficacy of the command and control oriented hierarchical bureaucracy has been poor. Since that time, large manufacturing companies have been downsizing and failing with great frequency.
On the other hand, many of the more flexible, quick moving, and technologically advanced organizations have prospered. One reason for this may be that Technology based companies have flat organizational structures rather than hierarchical bureaucracies. In addition they often have merit-based promotion and compensation schemes, rather than seniority based promotion schemes. Guild Investment Letter
A Boomer’s Whining
1. I wish Google Maps had an “Avoid Ghetto” routing option.
2. More often than not, when someone is telling me a story all I can think about is that I can’t wait for them to finish so that I can tell my own story that’s not only better, but also more directly involves me.
3. Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you’re wrong.
Chef Of The Mac
Coudreaut, or Chef Dan as he’s called within McDonald’s, has navigated pretty well within his straits. Since hired on in 2004, he has led the creation of the Snack Wrap, the latest iterations of McDonald’s chicken-topped salad entree, the Fruit and Walnut Salad, McCafé espresso-based coffees, and, most recently, the 1/3-lb. Angus burger. (He has blown it, too. McDonald’s dropped the too-adventurous Hot ‘n’ Spicy McChicken sandwich in 2007 after just six months on the market and disappointing sales.)
The stream of new products is paying off. While restaurant sales have been sinking industrywide since the recession hit in 2007, McDonald’s quarterly same-store sales have continued to climb. The string, which began in 2003, continues into the third quarter, with a 1.7% increase in the U.S. in August and 2.6% in July. CEO James A. Skinner credited the gains to premium coffees and the Angus burger.
via The Challenges for McDonald’s Top Chef – BusinessWeek. Continue reading “Chef Of The Mac”
What The World Wants
America has spent the last seven decades expending blood and treasure to birth and then enlarge an international liberal trade order, now known as globalization.
The result?
The most pacific and prosperous age known to humankind, which nonetheless tripled its numbers on this planet in the meantime. Now, as we face only a 50 percent increase in world population over the next four decades (hat tip, India and China) before we top off in our growth as a species, humanity nonetheless face an era that will challenge our capacity for innovation — both technological and social — like none before.
Why? Because America was too damn successful in its revolution-from-below, empowering and enriching individuals on a global scale never before seen. Pundits like to decry the “have/have not” gap in this world, but it’s the emergence of a global middle class that is the dominant, system-shaping trend of our age. Nothing else even comes close
via WPR Article | The New Rules: The Growing Global Middle Class and Its Demands.
Maybe We Aren’t Running Out of Oil
In the end, perhaps the most misleading claim of the peak-oil advocates is that the earth was endowed with only 2 trillion barrels of “recoverable” oil. Actually, the consensus among geologists is that there are some 10 trillion barrels out there. A century ago, only 10 percent of it was considered recoverable, but improvements in technology should allow us to recover some 35 percent — another 2.5 trillion barrels — in an economically viable way. And this doesn’t even include such potential sources as tar sands, which in time we may be able to efficiently tap.
Oil remains abundant, and the price will likely come down closer to the historical level of $30 a barrel as new supplies come forward in the deep waters off West Africa and Latin America, in East Africa, and perhaps in the Bakken oil shale fields of Montana and North Dakota.
via Op-Ed Contributor – ‘Peak Oil’ Is a Waste of Energy – NYTimes.com. Continue reading “Maybe We Aren’t Running Out of Oil”
Freon Fix Fries The Climate
This is not the funny kind of irony: Scientists say the chemicals that helped solve the last global environmental crisis — the hole in the ozone layer — are making the current one worse.
The chemicals, called hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), were introduced widely in the 1990s to replace ozone-depleting gases used in air conditioners, refrigerators and insulating foam. They worked: The earth’s protective shield seems to be recovering.
But researchers say what’s good for ozone is bad for climate change. In the atmosphere, these replacement chemicals act like “super” greenhouse gases, with a heat-trapping power that can be 4,470 times that of carbon dioxide.
Now, scientists say, the world must find replacements for the replacements — or these super-emissions could cancel out other efforts to stop global warming.
via CFC Replacements Intensify Climate Concerns Continue reading “Freon Fix Fries The Climate”