Originally uploaded by JoeDuck
Shanghai’s Yu Yuan Gardens were one of my favorite China attractions. The surrounding area is filled with shops, restaurants, and is very crowded but the Gardens were quiet and very beautiful. Unlike European gardens most of this area was buildings and walkways with some trees and vegetation that were very carefully landscaped.
RealClimate offers some great science and discussion but also reveals a lot of the unvarnished bias you get when true believers discard reason for hyperbole and nonsense. (thx to JCH for this caveat about caution when confusing a blog with the comments).
This little nugget emerged from a regular commenter:
I called the corporations psychopaths, not those running them, and for a very good reason: they are legally bound to consider only maximising shareholder value. Damage to the environment? No. Deaths among employees, customers or third parties? No. So long as such deaths or damage do not break the criminal law, and will increase profit, that’s what they are legally bound to do. That’s why I said capitalism created these psychopaths…
I’m seeing this bizarre view appear more and more and I’m not sure where it comes from, but probably the film I have yet to see about corporations and how evil they are. I think it’s called “The Corporation”.
One can easily make the case that corporations *emphasize* profit. They should do that within legal means – that is the *whole point*. American style socialist (ie heavily taxed) capitalism is the reason we live large while those in less corporate driven societies struggle just to keep fed and keep healthy, often failing in both measures.
Almost *every single corporation* will typically factor in a variety of environmental and social factors in the interest of the greater good, the good of employees, and the prevailing cultural and ethical standards. This is in part due to the laws and prevailing cultural standards as is almost every type of collective behavior, but it is also because contrary to the assertion above, corporations that act psychopathically
In the USA these factors generally make big businesses a great place to work. Yahoo, for example, has extensive ‘green’ initiatives. Google not only pays a small fortune in stock and salaries but pays for all the meals and does the laundry…free. You’ll say these are the exceptions but good stewardship is the corporate rule which is why the west enjoys such high living standards. That prosperity sure didn’t come from the bureacracy – it came in spite of it. This is why your rules are better applied to enterprises run by those who generally despise US style multinational corporations.
My challenge to corporate critics is to randomly pick 10 companies from S&P 500. Assign either “mostly psychopathic activity” or “mostly morally acceptable activity” to each and also do that on the “mostly exploits those in developing world” or “mostly helps those in developing world”. In most cases 9 of those 10 will pass both tests if you answer these rationally and reasonably without cherry picking from the companies or company histories as CL has done above.
Here’s a list of the S&P 500 – clearly a good list of companies that powerfully represent a globalized capitalist vision and experience: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_S%26P_500_companies
Now let’s grab ten of these. Presumably the first letter should not bias the sample so I’ll grab the first and last five on the Wikipedia S&P 500 list:
3M
Abbott Labs
Abercrombie & Fitch Co.
ACE Limited
Adobe Systems
| XTO | XTO Energy Inc. | reports | Energy |
| YHOO | Yahoo Inc. | reports | Information Technology |
| YUM | Yum! Brands Inc | reports | Consumer Discretionary |
| ZMH | Zimmer Holdings | reports | Health Care |
| ZION | Zions Bancorp | reports | Financials |
OK so now the questions to apply to each are whether they are “psychopathic” or not, and whether they are “exploiting more than helping”. My test allows only ONE to fail either test.
—– to be continued after I get some real work done ——–
—– Ouch, Karma injection alert? Just after posting I was trying to get Bank of America to credit my card for the Beijing Scam I was conned with in China. After charge dispute sent me away claiming that becaue I signed the paper it was out of their hands, fraud said (incredibly) that even if they had changed the number it would not be a fraud case – fraud is basically only reserved for stolen numbers. I’m not sure this makes Bank of America a psychopathic corporation but it’s also true that they are helping perpetrate scams all around the globe by failing in follow up. Given that I *cancelled my card number* after this they should assume I’m not just ranting without cause. But backwards Karma injection: Super low interest for one year will save far more than my $85 ripoff from the Tea House.
——– back to work! ————
Hey, double karma reinjection – B of A eventually refunded my Tea Scam payment. Would a psychopath have done that?
Search Engine Optimization is at the same time a simple concept (help the search engines find and rank your pages) and a very complex one (proper use of redirection when changing domain names, Google downranking, duplicate content and hundreds more topics that are covered online in many places and also at conferences like the SES Conference Series, Webmasterworld PubCon, or the SMX Conferences.
Arguably the best source for basic SEO information is Matt Cutts’ blog, and he always has great summaries of the conferences at which he gives talks. Here’s a great post from Matt today after Danny Sullivan’s SMX Seattle Conference. Google has added some information to their famous (and infamous) webmaster Guidelines, which should be read by every webmaster as they are the best *basic* information about how to structure a site to be ranked properly. You’ll also want to read Matt’s SEO posts which offer a lot more specifics and technical advice.
Although several years ago you would *also* have been well advised to read up on some of the tricks of the trade such as various schemes for keyword optimization, I would argue that for most webmasters tricks are more likely to be counterproductive than productive. This is a really rich topic because there remain many techniques that fall into a sort of gray area of optimization where ranks are affected, but crossing the Google draws between acceptable techniques and unacceptable can lead to severe penalties. Since Google does not draw a clear objective line we have the ongoing gray area of optimization.
Many SEO techniques relate to *linking* strategies and *keyword optimization*. It is an area where I believe Google has in many ways fueled the rise of the very content they hate by making the rules too vague and (more importantly) allowed adsense advertising on pages that don’t meet reasonable web quality standards. Early in the game I was often frustrated when I would improve on a bad page only to have it drop in ranks due to algorithmic quirks. I soon decided to leave crappy but high ranked pages alone, fearing they’d be downranked if I changed them. This in turn caused problems as Google tightened up quality standards. Google is great about transparency in several areas, but algorithmic search penalties are not one of them.
I should also say there are some exceptionally good SEO folks out there who always have amazing advice when I bump into them at conferences. David Naylor and Aaron Wall, and Todd Malicoat all have remarkable insight into the complexities of Google ranking as does Vanessa Fox who used to work for Google and Danny Sullivan who runs the SMX series of SEO Conferences. My general advice about SEO is to do it yourself or in-house, but there are a handful of people like this who know the game so well that the normal rules about avoiding SEO folks do not apply.
Think about it. You could retire in Oregon! OregonRetirement.info is a project I’m working on with friends in Ashland, Oregon and if you are thinking of retiring in Oregon you’ll want to check out the details about the many great retirement lifestyle choices your can make here in the state. We’ve got a lot of detail about each region, from Portland Area to here in Southern Oregon, and there are thousands of links to many other categories.
Wow, how obvious is this attempt to get our site to rank well for the term “retire in oregon” [answer: obvious]. Yet this should be considered perfectly legitimate “white hat” SEO because users would really, really want to find that site if they were looking for information about a pending Oregon Retirement or if they were searching for “Retire in Oregon“. Right?
I think economic analysis should be a key part of how we seek action plans for Climate Change, and although I’m partial to what most economists suggest with respect to Climate Change mitigation spending – moderate to low mitigation spending until we know more about impacts and our ability to change things – I also respect the fact that … they could be wrong.
A prominent economist who suggests we must act now to avoid huge future costs is Sir Nicholas Stern who was commissioned by the UK Government to answer the most important question with regard to Climate Change. That question is NOT “what’s up with the climate?” but rather “what’s up with what we are we going to do about it”?
Here is a great executive summary of Stern’s view and by extension the official stance (I think) of the UK Government. The key departure Stern makes from the more prevalent view of economist who study this relates to *discount rate*, which is the interest rate used in determining the *present value* of future cash flows. The gist of the discount issue relates to how we treat *current* cost and benefits vs *future* costs and benefits.
In a nutshell, Stern argues that climate change can’t be treated with the same discounting assumptions we’d use in a business analysis, I think (not sure here), because the time spans are very long and the stakes are potentially very high. This assumption is why in Stern’s model *acting now and acting big* is so important.
I’m still trying to digest the issues here, though intuitively I simply don’t understand why we should change the rules for Climate that we use so successfully in other economic analyses.
Although we were lucky enough to have Kevin’s* cousin as our Great Wall Guide for our trip to Simatai, if you don’t have contacts in China you’ll want to hire a taxi or take a Great Wall Tour. Always use caution with this type of business agreement and make sure you negotiate and understand the costs *beforehand*. Generally, it is acceptable form in China to clarify costs.
I was surfing for pictures of Simatai and and found this travel agency which runs camping/hiking/lodge trips along the wall. I expected the prices to be *much* higher so although I can’t directly endorse these guys this really looks like a reasonable price for a great trip. I should say you could probably get lower if know somebody in the area or have a good hotel concierge that could find you a combination of driver, guide, and lodging, but if you want the comfort of a quality experience this place might be a good choice.
In any case they have a great panorama of the Simatai Wall at their website:
http://www.thebeijingguide.com
* Dr Kevin, my friend and in my opinion the best Medford Oregon Dentist
Crepe Cart on the road to Simatai 847
Originally uploaded by JoeDuck
We pulled over for a snack on the road out to the Great Wall of China at Simatai, and a woman was making a sort of crepe on this into which she put eggs and some of the wafer stuff. I didn’t try one but those of us who did… seemed to enjoy them.
There’s a new show on CNN called GPS for “Global Public Square” and despite the dumb name the show, hosted by Fareed Zakaria of Newsweek, is brilliant – exactly the kind of dialog Americans need to hear as we face the complex challenges of the coming years.
NOTE: This is NOT a blog by Mr. Zakaria: Go HERE For official CNN show site: http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/fareed.zakaria.gps/
Frankly I’ll be surprised if the show can last for long – the Larry King demographic is not going to tune this in, even if they jazz things up as Anderson Cooper has effectively done with AC360 in an effort to pull in younger viewers and a more mainstream news audience. In fact the weakest part of the show was the clever but insulting “GW Bush as idiot” sketch to close, effectively undermining the show’s (correct) contention that it’s going to bring together insiders and ask them very good questions. Note to Fareed – you’re a great example of a respectful but edgy correspondent. Don’t allow others to violate the trust this inspires in your interview folks. I noted that Doug Fieth, an excellent spokesperson for the neoconservative cause, hardly spoke or was severely edited. This was unfortunate as he was the only person on the panel with complete insider knowledge of the situation in Iraq. Don’t let your guests and their *opinions* undermine interviews with people who were the architects of the still-active Iraq policies.
Zakaria is one of the best observers of the global state of affairs. He balances the open, democratic, globalized, and entrepreneurial sensibilities we enjoy in the USA with the fact that most of the rest of the world does not share those sensibilities and in many cases *does not want to share them*. This simple realization separates his views from the more common, and naive, idea that everybody wants to be … just like us.
For me it is always painful to watch our American “Democracy” at work. I’m an independent and I think that allows me to see more clearly how even when they are combined the Democrat and Republican parties fail to do a good job of representing the country in terms of ideology or action planning.
Today the Dems decide how to handle the votes in Michigan and Floriday after previously deciding to totally disenfranchise those electorates. It is certainly true that rules should matter, and true that both campaigns agreed to these rules, and Obama supporters are right to say that it’s not “fair” to allocate to Clinton votes that might have gone to Obama if Florida party hacks and national party hacks had not mangled this process, but it’s *even more unfair* to disenfranchise the Florida voters – again.
I’m guessing they’ll do the 50% allocation thing – ironically the same idea the Republicans had for rogue voting states, though presumably with far less “processing” committee time.
If they did allocate the delegates according to votes in Michigan and Florida here are some scenarios:
Michigan popular vote: 55% to Clinton, 40% Uncommitted to Obama –
Clinton gains 23 delegates.
Michigan split the uncommitted vote: 75% to Clinton, 20% Obama –
Clinton gains 85 delegates
Florida: 50% to Clinton, 33% to Obama. Clinton net gain of 36 delegates.
Thus if we count these states Clinton would gain a net of either 59 delegates or 121 delegates depending on how you allocate the Michigan uncommitted vote.
As of today 201 delegate votes (160 pledged) separate Obama and Clinton so even the rosiest picture for Clinton would still have her trailing Obama, throwing the election squarely to the superdelegates and more party hack back room wheeling and dealing.
Welcome to Democratic Democracy?
More of my views on this at President Picker
Hongqiao Pearl Market, Beijing 449
Originally uploaded by JoeDuck
The Hongqiao Market building was under repair during my April 14 visit, but I think will be beautiful when finished before the Olympic Games. It is located across the street from the metro stop for the Temple of Heaven, a Beijing Attraction you’ll want to visit. A day in Biejing would be a shame but if that is all you have and you have great stamina you could visit Tianenmen Square, Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, and Wanfujing Street for shopping, food stalls, and souvenir vendors. All these places are along the excellent Biejing Metro which is very crowded but clean, cheap, and efficient. Taxis are also cheap and easy to find if you prefer that approach. For taxis try to have a written description of where you are going to show the driver. The subways announce the stops in English.
Hongqiao Pearl Market is one of several huge market buildings in Beijing where there are hundreds of vendors in small stalls hawking their wares. I didn’t see any Pearls here but bought a suitcase to carry home all the stuff I bought at … other markets!
Note that the vendors in China often practice a kind of cutthroat capitalism that is not common in the USA. Initially the price they quote you will be far above reasonable and the game is to get them to come down a huge amount while they make you feel guilty for doing that. I enjoyed the little jousting with the vendors, especially because they tended to have good English and I’d bring up other topics to discuss.
However I think the aggressive style common in the markets might upset or intimidate people who were simply looking for a good deal and in that case you should learn to say (phoentic spelling here) “Byao Byao” which means “no!”.
Joe Duck 