Phillipines Redux

by | Jan 5, 2009 | 0 comments

In May of 2007 I published my first blog on the Philippines which dealt, more or less, with the history of the country.  I had always intended to write another piece on the people and popular culture, but like so many other good intentions, I never got around to it.  Too many other horses to ride so to speak. I’ve been in the Philippines for the last several days, and finally have had an opportunity to experience and see the Philippines and Filipinos from a different perspective.  As some of you may know, I’ve been serving on the board of a company which is listed on both the Philippine Stock Exchange and NASDAQ and has the majority of his operations in...

Made in America…..Not

by | Dec 1, 2008 | 0 comments

Let’s start with the basics.  America is and has been running a negative trade balance for lo these many years.  And everyone knows that pundits like Lou (The Hitman) Dobbs has been tearing corporate America a new a**hole for their unconscionable outsourcing of American jobs to far away places. Are there dots here to be connected between these two events?  Of course there are, but we love to buy cheap stuff too much to connect them.  Whaddya mean, you say?  Well, lemme connect them for you. In the latest period for which I could get reliable date, our exports (that’s the stuff we sell outside the US of A) were 9.8% of our GDP, while our imports were 13.9% of...

We Ain’t What We Was

by | Nov 7, 2008 | 0 comments

I know one is not supposed to talk about race in polite company, but in this case the occasion demands it.  My darling wife (DW) and I, like millions of others, have been mesmerized by the run up of political events overwhelming the airways and media in general, and race has inevitably became a part of the conversation. To be perfectly honest, I did not decide to support Obama until the day before the primary.  I had been distracted by Hillary and others (good people all) presenting their own case for experience, etc., etc., etc.  I was watching one of the cable channels (certainly not FOX) interview a young arabic college student in one of the middle eastern...

What, Me Worry?

by | Oct 13, 2008 | 0 comments

This is the first of two blogs I intend to write on the current financial crises, but, of course, I’ve intended write a lot of other stuff too.  Sometimes the fire just goes out before I get ink on paper so to speak.  We’ll see. One would have to have been hermetically sealed not to have been scared witless by  a) 30% decline in the stock market, and b) talking heads shouting from every news channel that this was the worst crises since the great depression, and c) questions from the DW (darling wife) about whether we still had enough money left to see us into our dotage.  My own reaction in times of crisis is to do the ostrich number….that is to say, I...

A Million, A Billion, A Trillion

by | Sep 30, 2008 | 0 comments

In the last few days I’ve heard the number trillion used more than I can ever recall.  In the instances where I can recall hearing trillion used it was always in a statement like, “there must be a trillion grains of sand on the beach”, or “I’ve tried to balance my check book a trillion times, and it’s always off”.  I don’t recollect people using the designation trillion when talking about something specific as in, “those crazy idiots in congress are going to cost us a trillion dollars with this bailout”. But now that I think about it, the number trillion has been used increasingly for some time to describe stuff.  For example: 1. The gross domestic product...