Toxic women?

"Women have always been the primary victims of war. Women lose their husbands, their fathers, their sons in combat."–Hilary Clinton.

If this quote does not appear strange to you, read it again and think.

Found here:

The stock market is going down - in March as predicted

As predicted, the stock market cycle has changed: Springs have replaced the traditional Fall crashes (typically in September each year). It almost feels like a conspiracy.

Or maybe the dealers just read my little blog.

In any case, I believe that the stock market will dive until May, and then it will pick up steam and move quickly upwards.

RIM's Blackberry in decline

RIM is obviously being seriously mismanaged. Blackberry is a nice device - but it has fallen back behind iPhone and Android, and RIM somehow cannot get their act together.

Maybe I should rethink my conviction that top management has only minor impact on the company's success. RIMs CEO Lazardis recently showed off a new product: the Playbook. Just look at this guy: how convincing does he come across? A guy who keeps his hand in his pocket while talking to me appears insecure and arrogant (same thing in most cases).

The most recent faux pax: RIM's Podcast App has been around for MONTHS and it is still only available to users in USA and Canada. It is not a translation issue. Not even our friends in UK and Australia can download this thing.

If such a simple thing is missing, what other features are withheld from us? How can a company with global player aspirations treat the global audience like that?

I just got my Bold 9780, but I am starting to think that it was a mistake...

Good globalization, bad globalization

There are so many individuals and organizations (like Attac) who are criticizing changes we have been experiencing since the so-called globalization took off in the early nineties.

Globalization has many facets, and one of them is its social scope. If it is only available to elites, than it is a “bad globalization”. If it is available to everybody, then it is a “good globalization”. Before I explain it to you I suggest that we find another term for this: how about “worldwide liberalization”? It sounds better and even gives a nice acronym: WL.

Let me explain what I mean by "good globalization" (WL) and “bad globalization":

Bad Globalization	Worldwide Liberalization (WL)
The globally free flow of capital is only available to elites, governments, big corporations and organized crime (i.e. drug cartels).	Any individual can invest globally any amount of money at the same relative cost as elites, governments, big corporations etc.
Tax breaks and subsidies are provided by corrupt officials to their pet market players, who in turn use it to their advantage (and only their advantage).	Tax breaks and subsidies are removed completely for everybody, leveling the playfield.
Big organizations use cheap workforce in foreign countries to undercut prices and to eliminate expensive workforce at home. At the same time, it is difficult for regular citizens to move to a country of their choice.	While large organizations can hire globally, the workforce can also move globally at the same relative cost. There are no traps or limitations (like the forced taxation of expats’ assets, widely spread in Europe and other countries).
Markets are national, while supply chains are global.	Anyone can sell anything anywhere without additional cost. Locally restricted offerings (e.g. national media companies limit access to their products to certain IP home addresses) should be forbidden.
Individual global communication skills are only granted to elites, e.g. English for children. Others are taught English at schools, but only good enough to understand their work orders.	All children around the world learn English (taught by native speakers) as their second language starting at the age of three.
Communication platforms are localized. Crossborder communication is limited (e.g. mobile phone companies bill their customers for calling the national subsidies of the SAME company). Internet is localized, so that certain content is only accessible to selected national audiences.	Communication platforms are fully globalized. E.g. the internet is world-wide unrestricted. There are no roaming fees (especially not within the same globally operating providers).
Fiscal and political policies are increasingly “managed” globally. I.e. certain structures and ideologies are declared “bad” , others are “good”, and countries that do not comply risk discrimination, embargoes or even military invasions.	Global diversity of political and economic systems is generally allowed and supported, provided the individual liberty of moving from one country to another is guaranteed. Time will tell which system is better.

The Worldwide Liberalization sounds really good to me. I wish I wasn't alone.

Net partitioning: divide et impera

Want to see an Amazon streaming video and live abroad? Sorry dude, you are out of luck. You get to see this:

You might want to watch some Hulu videos? You get to see this:

There are few things about internet I hate more than this "network partitioning". It sucks! I am willing to pay–why on Earth am I not allowed to do that?

Yes I know about the copyright issues. But why is it supposed to be MY problem?

I don't want to wait for some crippled localized version of those (and many other) services. It is not fair and only shows how the internet becomes more and more divided into small "manageable" chunks and then make people pay for crossing the boundaries between them. How pathetic.

I WANT MY GLOBALIZATION BACK!

Language is a weapon

If you are a mother or a father then you will know the feeling of wanting to give your children all you can give to help them become happy and successful later on.

And if you live outside of English speaking countries, you will probably want them to learn English–the modern lingua franca. I think it is beyond doubt that fluent English is a key to a successful career these days, regardless of where one lives. At the age of three to four, kids are able to learn foreign languages at ease that is difficult at best in their adult lives.

I believe that the above statements are trivial truisms. I also do believe that most people, especially leaders and elites, also know it. If this is the case, then every kid should visit an English kindergarten starting at the age of three. Politicians (elected by parents) should provide native speaking personnel to those kindergartens. Similar should apply to primary schools, as well as to other schooling forms applicable later.

But they don’t. Over here in Germany, only private kindergartens (that cost at least 1000 EUR/month) offer native English speaking child care. WHY?

If such an obvious need is neglected, then there must be a political obstacle on the way that should be clearly recognized and pronounced. I guess one reason is that language is traditionally being used as a weapon. Humans have developed different languages to know friends from foes, because looks often do not tell the whole story. We instinctively believe that “our” language is the most important distinguishing mark. For example, especially in Europe, if a person speaks with a “wrong” accent, she or he is instantly perceived as a bit dim. This is not due to the lack of a civilized manners–it is a natural, instinctive reaction.

However, the real reason is probably more unsettling: citizens who speak English fluently enjoy the access to a gigantic labor market. Particularly young people would leave their home countries in masses if their politicians failed to offer them an attractive perspective at home. High taxes, social welfare bureaucracies, military draft, tightly regulated labor markets, ever-more outsourced industries, restricted liberties, environmental hegemony–the favorite toys of our beloved politicians would all of a sudden become risky moves. No politician on our planet would want that.

And so, at the expense of the next generation, we prefer to maintain our status quo instead of giving our children a brighter future. Inside, I’m screaming.

The end of internet as we know it

I remember back then in 1992 how lousy BTX service from Deutsche Telekom was: expensive, content-restricted, it was slow, it had an ugly UI and generally sucked. One had to pay for almost every useful page, including banking, news and software downloads. I recall the day–somewhere in 1992–that I managed to access the internet using my old Commodore Amiga 500 and a TCP/IP add-on package. I immediately felt the wind of change–it was like a jail-break.
BTX was dead soon, Minitel in France died shortly thereafter, and other proprietary services like Compuserve followed the path of damnation.

The new, free world of an international, unrestricted and world-spanning communication had begun. I have enjoyed this freedom ever since. If you were imprisoned before, you will know that freedom is one of the most valuable things in life.

Lack of restrictions promotes new business. Restricted environment protects old business. That is the reason behind the efforts of “old economy” players, especially telecommunication and media companies, to undo the unloved liberation of bits and bytes. It seems they finally have found a way of achieving it. The recent bills targeting the unregulated, free net is likely to destroy the principle of the net neutrality and throw us back into the early nineties.

What will be the consequences? Let me guess a few, based on my experience from the “olden days”:

• There will be practically no internationally available web sites. Due to “copyright restrictions” etc., only a very limited offering will be given access to for foreign users. Pay more if you want to access more.
• Phone companies will develop new “plans” that will make using the internet a painful, limited experience for people who don’t want to pay for pricey additional options like:
  - Access to Youtube and other streaming videos (additional option US$ 9,99/month), otherwise only 256 kb/s will be granted (and be subject to change at any time)
  - E-books and MP3-Download from providers like Amazon (additional option US$ 1,99/month)
  - Skype and other IP telephony services (additional option US$ 4,99/month plus 4 cents/call minute)
  - Internet radio (additional option US$ 2,99/month for 15 stations, US$ 9,99 for unlimited number of stations within your country, US$ 19,99 for world-wide internet radio
  -Software downloads (for downloads above 256 KB/s: US$ 9,99 for 1 mbit/s, US$ 19,99 for 8 mbit/s)
  - Email: receiving 49 e-mails free, 1 cent for every additional email. You will be paying for receiving spam as well (the telecoms will never bill you for sending an email, because otherwise they would eliminate spam and lose huge amounts of money). You will be then offered US$ 4,99 option for a spam filter.
  - Reading blogs: US$ 0,99 for up to 30 blogs, 49 cents each additional blog access
  - Online newspapers: US$ 0,99 for the telecommunication company plus provider’s fees (fees will work neatly because once users have to pay for little pieces and types of content, the billing capabilities of internet providers will be comprehensively extended and able to bill users on single-page-basis)
  - Instant messengers: 1 cent/message (both incoming and outgoing)
  - Ping under 50 ms for online games: US$ 5,99/month
  - Own Facebook page: US$ 0,99/month. Every Google search: 1 cent. And so on.
  - Many more….
• In order to ensure “fair and orderly controlled communication”, the central nodes will be connected to the central intelligence agency computers who, of course, will also make “the communication safe and secure”. You know what that means don’t you.
  

You think I’m paranoid? Well then tell me what in the world could stop it from happening?