Category: Economy & Business

120 Years that changed the World

Harold Warp’s parents immigrated to America from Norway and setup a homestead on the Nebraska Prairies in 1873. Harold, born in 1903, the youngest of twelve children, grew up as a barefooted farm-boy herding cattle.
As he grew up, he began inventing new and useful things himself. He noticed that chickens grew faster and laid more eggs in summer and that sunlight prevented rickets in chickens. The plastics revolution was gathering steam at that time and he spent three years developing a practical, weatherproof, translucent material that unlike glass let in the sun’s ultraviolet rays; he called it Flex-O-Glass. He took the advice given to Dustin Hoffman in “The Graduate” to heart. So he moved to Chicago in 1924 with two of his brothers and a capital of $800 and started manufacturing Flex-O-Glass. Flex-O-Glass could be made so inexpensively that in addition to poultry house windows, millions of people began using it for winter protection in their homes in screen doors and window screens. By his forties he had made his fortune. He wrote:

“For thousands of years man lived quite simply. Then like a sleeping giant our world was awakened. In a mere hundred and twenty years of eternal time man progressed from open hearth, grease lamps, and ox carts to television, super sonic speed, and atomic power.

The full list is here.

Don’t mis-underestimate Dubya – Indian Express

Don’t mis-underestimate Dubya
Interesting Op-Ed perspective in the “Indian Express” from a member of the growing entreprenuerial class situated in the largest democracy of the world.

The Bush family has an uncanny knack of knowing where the future will happen, says Jaithirth Rao

And from the NY Times comes this about the 2 million Indian American citizens:

These issues are of intense interest to Americans of Indian origin, who are the country’s fastest-growing ethnic group, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, whose data shows they are far better educated and wealthier than the average U.S. citizen. …

According to figures compiled from census data by the U.S.-India Political Action Committee, Indian-Americans own 15 percent of Silicon Valley start-up firms, constitute 10 percent to 12 percent of U.S. medical doctors and control about 40 percent of the American hotel sector.
One in 10 Americans of Indian origin are millionaires, while the $60,093 median income of Indian-American families in 2000 was far above the U.S. average of $38,885. They post similarly striking educational statistics.

A Port in the Storm Over Dubai

A Port in the Storm Over Dubai – New York Times
Since January 2005, every container entering the truck gates of two of the world’s busiest container terminals, in Hong Kong, has passed through scanning and radiation detection devices. Images of the containers’ contents are then stored on computers so that they can be scrutinized by American or other customs authorities almost in real time. Customs inspectors can then issue orders not to load a container that worries them.

So why not take advantage of the sudden interest in Port Security and mandate that such scrutiny be applied to everything coming to America?

How Cargo Travels Through the Shipping System

How Cargo Travels Through the Shipping System

I may be obsessing about this Port security issue, but then I am intimately involved with it on a daily-basis. I hope some of these postings will give some insight into the issues involved.

At some point, almost all the world’s Goods pass through a Port. This graphic follows a hypothetical example shipment. If you think that the economic shock from the 9-11 airport shutdown was bad, let’s hope we never have to experience the effects of a similiar halt in Port traffic.


The Real Focus for Port Security

Stephen E. Flynn, a specialist in maritime security at the Council on Foreign Relations, noted that although the company is state-owned, several members of its top management are Americans — including its general counsel, a senior vice president and its outgoing chief operating officer, Edward H. Bilkey, who is a former U.S. Navy officer. And since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the United States has increasingly depended on such foreign port operators to cooperate in inspecting cargo before it heads for U.S. shores.

“It’s a global network at the end of the day that we’re trying to secure here,” Flynn said. “And that doesn’t happen by the United States owning every bit of it. What we should be focusing on instead is the question, are the security standards adequate?”

Critics voiced strong doubts about whether the existing procedures are commensurate with the threat. “There are not enough Customs and Border Protection inspectors at the nation’s ports to handle the incoming traffic that we have now, and our guys at the ports are being told that they can’t do any overtime,” said Charles Showalter, president of the American Federation of Government Employees union, which represents officers who inspect ships. “That combination often results in uninspected ships being left unattended in port overnight.”

Concerns over insufficient inspectors worry many security experts far more than the issue of who owns the companies managing the terminals.

Flynn cited a litany of unsettling practices, such as the lack of any screening for the thousands of truck drivers, many of whom are immigrants, hauling containers from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, Calif., to railway lines.

“What I hope for out of this whole debate is that, as Americans suddenly realize most of our marine terminals are managed by foreign-owned companies, they ask, given that that’s a reality, how do we secure it?” Flynn said. “I also hope this current situation doesn’t lead to a feeding frenzy [against foreign operators], because if we want things to be secure over here, we’re going to have to work with foreign counterparts.”

 

Why Doctors So Often Get It Wrong

Why Doctors So Often Get It Wrong – New York Times
Under the current medical system, doctors, nurses, lab technicians and hospital executives are not actually paid to come up with the right diagnosis. They are paid to perform tests and to do surgery and to dispense drugs.
There is no bonus for curing someone and no penalty for failing, except when the mistakes rise to the level of malpractice

A Ship Already Sailed

A Ship Already Sailed – New York Times

In the outcry over who should run America’s seaport terminals, one clear trend appears to have been overlooked: American companies began withdrawing decades ago from the unglamorous business of stevedoring, ceding the now-booming industry to enterprises in Asia and the Middle East.

Little Mideast Oil Wealth Is Going Toward Takeovers of U.S. Assets

Little Mideast Oil Wealth Is Going Toward Takeovers of U.S. Assets – New York Times

Oil-exporting nations in the Middle East and North Africa are expected to earn about $530 billion from sales of crude oil this year, compared with $300 billion in 2003, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Middle Eastern countries account for less than 1 percent of $1.5 trillion of foreign direct investment in United States businesses and real estate, according to a recent report by the Congressional Research Service. That lags far behind the largest foreign investors: Britain, Japan, Germany, the Netherlands and France.