Jan-July 2005 Archives

July 29, 2005

As a kind of fare well to livejournal, more scummy expat musings. (Updated with new and improved...)

A self indulgent reflexion.

First, a funny message yesterday from an overseas colleague who I saw while travelling two weeks ago brought home a rather simple lesson which may be summed up as follows: "It is always a mistake to go with a colleague of the opposite sex to a scummy bar that involves stripping." I note that I was not the author of the destination decision. Silence, only possible reply.

Also probably should not have had quite so much to drink during said visit insofar as I can only vaguely recall leaving - thank God that I did though. Very uncomfortable that.

Second, the new apartment is working out not badly. The somewhat unfortunate walls are growing on me, although I have now learned that the co-owner of said apartment has scheduled an irrevocable partnership signing date. Well, I creatively forgot about this twice, but barreling down on me now. Bloody hell, ah well most multinational joint ventures end in failure. Will this one beat the odds?

I have no idea, I can only share that in confiding this to a longtime friend, he told me that when he told his wife -who has had the misfortune of both being married to him and knowing me- she dropped the phone. That seems a bit excessive.

Otherwise, one of the things I enjoy about my new terrace is (besides its better sun facing, although have to find ways to deal with the apartment heating up � hate air conditioning, window fans are probably the best choice) that there is a highly sporting woman across the way � I mean across the street at a similar balcony level � who besides (despite wearing something of a traditional hijab) being rather fetching makes interesting noises late at night. Not that one would hear if one was not out on one�s balcony late at night, but nevertheless.

I have to ponder, is she a professional?

One of those things that should remain a mystery, for either answer is likely to take the bloom off the rose, as it were.

Nevertheless, the fetching young maiden in the head wrap (I hope I am not getting my hearing wrong, should be very disappointed if I were) I think will amuse me for months to come.

Otherwise, this new Fund negotiation seems positive so far except for their tedious insistance that I come to the United States. Have not yet succeeded in selling them on the value add for them of my continuing my scummy existance as an expat.

Finally from Central we have received yet another absurd "question / demand" regarding why in our reporting we have not been providing receipts for taxis, parking and the like. I wonder how many times I have to explain "THE MOTHERFUCKING TAXI DRIVERS ARE LARGELY FUCKING ILLITERATE, AND THERE ARE NO FUCKING METERS, AND THE BLOODY 'STREET GUARDIANS' ARE ALSO FUCKING ILLITERATE MIGRANTS STRAIGHT OUT OF THE BLOODY BLED, FOR IF THEY WERE FUCKING LITERATE THEY'D WORK A SLIGHTLY LESS AWFUL AND POORLY PAID JOB, YOU CLUELESS IDIOTIC TIME WASTING VALUE SUBTRACTING DIMWITTED GITS."

I expect this will continue until my resignation. I've set a deadline, the New Year, resigning and fucking off. Let the Titanic sink beneath the waves. Or maybe end of First Quarter, insofar as I have recently had my analysis and propositions on what business they should be focusing on validated by outside sources, and I would get some strange pleasure out of leaving them just as they were trying to ramp that up.

I note - thanks to a comment by Pantom - that I now live closer to a famous landmark, and am considering, why not the Blue Parrot? It should exist.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 04:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Iraq: Peculiar and Misunderstanding Journals

I got this comment on my brief comment on an Iraqi brokerage (http://www.livejournal.com/users/collounsbury/360731.html), which somewhat puzzled me and certainly amused me at some level :

Continue reading "Iraq: Peculiar and Misunderstanding Journals"

Posted by The Lounsbury at 01:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 25, 2005

Email and the like

Checking email from afar, I am touched to find that Embassy wants to know if I am still alive. I helpfully let them know that as of yet I have had the good graces to not get blown up on their watch and was not doing vac in Egypt, although suffering from the attentions of a European airport staff is almost as bad.

Also Central has suddenly sent around a note to overseas staff requesting emergency contact information in case "of need." I suppose they're counting the days until one of us gets blown to bits. Wonder if it would be entirely tactless to raise the concept of danger bonuses. Not that I need one, but why not extract a concession or two?

Finally, a note from a colleague asked me to transfer to his office as he needs people "with well developed character" around.

This last item puzzled me - "well developed character."

Hard to read that.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 03:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 23, 2005

On The Road During Bombing Week

At present stuck in a European airport whose benighted service (one can guess which one) almost approaches the horrors inflicted upon one flying international to the United States (I share for you the near universal disdain among my fellow business travellers for the chicken little over the top insanity of US airport security which since my last visit has gotten yet more idiotic. But details are for another time).

I note via this entirely inadequate wireless connexion that I see Egypt has had another bombing. Looks bloody bad. It has been an interesting week.

Regular collounsbury service resumes when back to home base, next week.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 04:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 18, 2005

Stunningly bad

I had dinner with some senior finance and US officials this evening, and discussed with them a concept that is being batted about among US Gov re a equity fund for the region. I was in love with this until this evening. As I listened I went from being voluble to silence. It is so stunningly badly conceived as to take my breath away. Among the key snippets I share is the argument from the main US Gov mover on this, that they could use the proposed fund to lobby and force political change.

Continue reading "Stunningly bad"

Posted by The Lounsbury at 11:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The US of A

Back in the States for the first time in quite a while. Always amused by how fat people are. Tubby people everywhere. Of course ever escalating portions I note seems to be reaching Roman levels of gluttony. Connexion?

Regardless, going to be very busy packing in meetings in my rare pilgrimage to the centers of power and the like.

Everyone seems to taling about the Karl Rove and Plame issue. I find the topsy turvey politics peculiar, but unsurprising. Rather clearly they leaked a secret agent's name for sordid political score settling. Law aside, that should be punished, sordid political score settling should be within certain bounds. I'm unhappy the "Conservatives" - or as I have taken to refering to these people, Right Bolsheviks - do not see that sometimes one has to cut out from the fold for one's own good. Having Agency people involved in open political warfare is a bad, period.

Well, no matter, not my concern in the end.

Else I draw attention to this important article in The Washington Post.
In Egypt's Countryside, Farmers' Anger Seen As 'Silent Time Bomb'
Recent Revolt Over Rents and Evictions Draws Support of Mubarak Opponents
By Daniel Williams
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, July 17, 2005; Page A16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/16/AR2005071601172.html

Will comment on later.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 03:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 16, 2005

Turkish Developments

On the road at the moment, I note reports of the resort bombings in Turkey, one of which is reported to have a Kurdish connexion.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 11:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 14, 2005

Various things

As I prepare to fuck off we get (as usual from on high with no preparation) an annoucement that management is restructuring central. The key take aways after reading the long PRish and yet poorly written note was my favorite MD is fucked and on her way out, and that the organisation is now entering a new, uniquely self destructive phase of running around like lunatics in panic because the iceberg ripped its guts open.

Continue reading "Various things"

Posted by The Lounsbury at 02:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Iraq Brokerage Comment

Well, at the request of Jerry I had a look at the brokerage site of www.isx-aman.com and company.

Interesting to be sure. My remarks are inherently superficial as I haven�t much time, but some initial thoughts.

Continue reading "Iraq Brokerage Comment"

Posted by The Lounsbury at 09:35 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 13, 2005

Banks, Banks and Drooling Morons

I am pleased to announce that the general strike in the banking sector has, in the interest of protecting the opporessed wage slave comrade bankers from (gasp) working an extra half hour, succeeded. The whinging cowards that run this country have backed down in the spectre of unionised bankers in bad pinstripe suits taking to the barricades over the burning issue of wage slavery (yes, wage slavery) in the sector, as suggested by the evil plot to re-arrange working hours.

Continue reading "Banks, Banks and Drooling Morons"

Posted by The Lounsbury at 11:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 12, 2005

Lebanon: The Lebanon II Scenario

No substantive commentary, but I draw attention to this:
Lebanon Deputy Premier Wounded in Blast

The target, a pro-Syrian politician.

I opined months back that I did not like the US supporting a maximalist approach to opposition politics because of the chances of playing into returned inter (and intra) communal violence.

The overall analysis behind this is that while, yes, a majority of Lebanese do not want a return to civil war, as in Iraq, and as in Lebanon - it is not the majority that makes these things happen. One simply needs enough hard men on either side who can make a profit in some manner, via power or money, to push it, and enough weakness on public authority side to be unable to choke the trend off.

Lebanon probably can choke the trend off, but the state is just weak enough that this can't be dismissed.

I also note the potential for a currency crisis which could help precipitate serious tensions.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 10:16 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 11, 2005

Bastards

Well, looks like I bet wrong on who gets the new telcom license. Thought the Egyptians would weasel their way in. Still looks like a well run tender and decision.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 03:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Various items of little import

First, having just fielded a call from the other side of the great Atlantic, I am irritated at the monolingual morons bizarre habit of making up their own names for dfis here, usually via bad translation, and then creating an acronym in English for it. I'm getting ask (as an example not the actual question) about the NEDB and blah blah, and my first reaction is "what the fuck is this person talking about, there is no NEDB bank." After some probing, I discover it is actually the BNDE. What the bloody hell was the point in translating the name and then making up your own bloody acronym off of it, that no one the fuck else uses.

Idiots.

Second, friend in town, excellent fellow, known for years. American convert to Islam, right-headed fellow how never fell into what we often refer to as "convertitus" (or being more Muslim than your average Mohammed). He's travelling around this fine country, came into town to visit his corrupt dissolute scummy expat amigo (me of course). Late. Explanation was properly amusing, but also reflects on current events. Being a conniesseur of fine mosques, he had been making rounds in the prior city, made the mistake of rapping with some bearded types (perfectly innocent by his account, which I trust given his experience) when our local Mukhaberat came round to inquire as to the cut of his jib. Four hours of detension and questioning followed for all involved. He was properly put off by the experience, but after rapping with him yesterday I pointed out the emerging network issues in re London - doubtless local authorities are under much pressure to look for strange Euro looking convert types. (Actually he's rather whitebread and preppish, none the of hippy wearing oddball "genuinely Islamic" pastiche wearing silliness one sometimes sees, nor Ikhouane-esque Wahhabite style clothing). Close call, although lacked much deep entertainment value like my last detension - what's a detension if you don't have a gun pointed at you, I say.

I should, when I get back, speak to thoughts on the North African connexions and the like.

Added, for Pratike: there is no Morocco-UK animosity. Moroccan or wider Maghrebine involvement would be entirely on the al-Qaedah thesis of Dar al-Islam at war with the Dar al-Harb / infidels, and in particular the Iraq invasion angle. You know, imperialist dogs and all that.

I should note that Moroccans I know (and I confess I know more than my share) have been universally horrified. For them, brought back rather bad memories of their Casablanca bombings.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 01:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

A Collounsbury Take on Frontier Investing

This was written for comments re investing in Iraq, thought I would reproduce as I rather like it on some level:

The Problems

That aside, 30 percent is a quality return, if and when you realise it. Thin illiquid markets can often show "quality returns" without being able to deliver the liquidity to realise. [In short, a market under buying pressure but little liquidity may appear to be delivering healthy returns, but when it comes sales time to realise, the same mechanics can make it impossible to sell without serious discounts, i.e. price decline - liquidity is the key, else one is trappe, many an emerging markets investor learned that in the gogo years of the emerging markets stock market boom of the mid-1990s.]

Further, electronic trading systems [noted in relationship with Iraq] have never stopped front running, playing with orders and the like. They make it a slight bit harder, but w/o oversight you have false confidence. Among the many things you need is delivery against payment with an operative guarantee system (still doesn't remove the risk as I have seen personally, but helps), and one has to be sure it is operative.

But what the fuck do I know, I've only seen it done in these markets under an electronic trading platform that was and is state of the art.

Finally on the underlying peg discussion, Frankel's theoretical proposal [in an article in the Financial Times suggesting a basked peg with roughly 1/3 Euro, 1/3 dollar, 1/3 weighted price of oil] is an interesting one as a variation on a crawling basket peg, although your online discussion takes his phrase rather far too literally in a classic case of seeking justification for a desired result. The obvious item, rather than the appreciation issue itself or false analogies to post-WW II Germany, to analyze is what a large appreciation means to the Iraqi economy. Any large, short term currency move is a shock to the real economy and few real world policy makers generally avoid such for very good reasons. In Iraq the play off is between current cost of consumption versus current income. That breaks out between consumption of domestic goods and that of tradeables - imports - although obviously some domestic goods depend on imported inputs. Immediately exporters lose the X percent of income, consumers of imports gain X percent of buying pozer, an implicit subsidy to consumption of imports and an implicit tax on domestic production that competes with imports. In short a penalty to the domestic producer economy ex-hydrocarbons.

Second of course, is the impact on real investment (in explicit contrast to speculative hot money such as yours). An X percent appreciation due to a revaluation on a peg immediately raises the cost faced by foreign currency investors for Iraqi assets, with no change in potential returns in the near term, insofar as no economic fundamentals, ex the penalty to real productive economy that is import competing (but with a boost to productive economy that has imported inputs, to the degree they are import factors and cost drivers). It is an effect a penalty to incoming money - as say for example the private equity fund I have consulted with which has USD 70 million in hard currency raised. [I of course did not touch on the disruptive effects of serious real price deflation]

Now, obviously Iraqi policy makers should be looking at these real economy choices, and not things that make hot money speculators happy. It may be that they will decide that subsidising current consumption of imports and current capital imports is more important than creating a stable real economic environment that is well-priced in regards to real assets and allows export competivity. Choosing near term "gifts" to urban consumers, who are heavier consumers of imported goods and services (running from food to white goods) than others typically in this kind of environment, and subsidising capital imports to the detriment of labour competivity is a frequent choice in these economies - certainly Egypt managed to do this ever so brilliantly over the last 30 years with a "strong pound" regime partially backed by its nat gaz and petrol exports.

I certainly hope they don't - but then to you this is merely being "negative." Contemptible speculation aside, I favour the real market and policies to grow it.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 10:07 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

In presenting your new payment facility

Do not, I repeat, do not call it an "Islamist payment facility" - it's "Islamic" - Islamist means something else you idiot illiterate marketing goon.

Bloody hell, these idiots will want to roll out an Qaeda Basic Islamist Finances Services Platform next.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 10:03 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Timely

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_07/006691.php

Posted by The Lounsbury at 09:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Radio Silence

Nothing to do with my rebranding exercise, have to get a report out and then travel on some extremely tedious business.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 09:23 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 08, 2005

Last note

From a moroccan paper, in English for you all, on reactions to London:
http://www.moroccotimes.com/paper/article.asp?idr=6&id=7973

Posted by The Lounsbury at 11:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Rebranding excercise

As a rebranding excercise, I am renaming this little blog
"Collounsbury Random Rant on MENA & Other Items"

Also, in the near future I am going to impose some .... controls and accessing some portions. I note issue of "interesting" site readership and my own aversion to spotlight has arisen.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 11:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 07, 2005

London: Bombings 7 Jul AM

This looks really unpleasant:

Explosions cause chaos across London
By Matthew Jones and Christopher Adams
Published: July 7 2005 09:48 | Last updated: July 7 2005 11:02

Multiple explosions on the London Underground and on three buses have left dozens with terrible injuries and caused services to be suspended across the city in what appears to be a co-ordinated terrorist attack.

Have to email the friends.

updated

Well, no one I know was involved.

Rather expect serious death toll in the end.

Interesting exchanges on items, talked about the IPO the head of the small cap exchange, who was glad to hear some positive news, given his offices were evacuated and he was trying to run things from off site. Promised to send couscous. Had a surreal meeting with an asset manager in town prospecting for clients (probably should have done his homework on the capital controls here before coming, but no matter. Talked about Abraaj and the like); convo turned to his London meetings next week and the awkward question of whether any of his contacts might not be available.

One rather suspects an al-Qaeda connexion here, but should not jump to conclusions.

Had the usual fights about our quarter report, which central wants to get out early - why the fuck they have to do these things in such a disorganized manner escapes me, but growing used to it. Remains a puzzle their bizarre management style, devolving shit to the field and micro-managing.

Very tired, bit drained from this London nonsense. Odd how draining these things can be. Stressful I suppose.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 10:26 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 06, 2005

Last item

Very good arty from FT on MENA markets:
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/a66c3ca8-ed8a-11d9-9ff5-00000e2511c8.html

Will try to do an Aqoul item on this.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 06:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

As an aside before pissing off

It appears I have upset the loons:
http://www.investorsiraq.com/showthread.php?p=74111

My last read of this shows that already my scepticism in regards to their dreams is attributed to some bizarre idea that "I want Iraq to fail" and a particularly entertaining digression about "freedom."

Although there was a kind and rational invitation to discuss things with them, I am afraid the frothing and irrational responses highlight the inescapable conclusion that the major motivation for most participants is a rather simplistic domestic political calculus. That is, their politics are in the drivers seat, not a cold analytical view of Iraq.

Nothing surprising in that, a bit pitiful, but what can we say?

Odd in any case that they picked up on my mocking them a week later, I had lost interest already.

It does make one become more interested in promoting a political fund for persons with more politics than analytical acumen. Structuring is of course the issue, along with (as discussed elsewhere), advertising. On the other hand, an exchange traded fund domiciled ... J or G or maybe Dubai? Can't recall if Dubai or Bahrain has the proper legislation for ETFs.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 06:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

IPO

I am a happy man, the IPO came in ten times over. Just got the call. And here I was getting paranoid that the underwriting syndicate was going to end up sucking this up. I is one content and validated bastid. I shall have to celebrate.

Update:
Even better, got the official numbers, 11.7

Excellent, excellent without a doubt.

There is indeed some liquidity to soak up.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 05:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

London

I see London had the misfortune of winning the Olypmic competition.

If I was a Parisian I'd be whooping it up right now, celebrating my good fortune that my city was spared the annoyance and needless expense of the Olympics.

If I were a Londoner, I would be quitely drowning my sorrows in a pub over the anticipated rate hikes and chaos, as well as hordes of clueless morons due to descend for the event.

I was lucky that this place dodged the bullet in its ridiculous pursuit of the World Cup.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 02:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

An aged BBC Article, but properly sums up the Live8 nonsense

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/4079958.stm

No African musicians, a bunch of aging yobs and idjits. Patronisaing facile leftist anti-globo bloviating......

There it is, the fat-assed "progressives" on developing world in a nutshell.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 01:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

On US Gov and Media Reform, an email

I reproduce here an email from a friend of mine in private equity and media in the Middle East, located out there. And an Arab too, not some whinging expat (ahem).

It is lightly edited to scrub certain references and the like, but I share it for its interest. I note that some US Gov types wanted to meet with media actors, including from the business side. I made the introduction. Here is my amigo's note afterward.

[The Girl with the Laugh] from [The US G Entity] came over this morning to the offices. I hope they do better with media than what they did with technology projects here. I was strongly against pouring money into NGOs and studies. I told her, if you want to make media work, facilitate a healthy environment that enables media start-ups to get healthy institutional investors on pure business considerations.

[some other irrelevant stuff]

Hope you ppt went well, and I look forward to the Bourse material/introductions

Well there it is, one Arab media investor's view of US G thinking on what I suppose is probably going to be a new effort rolled out soon on pissing away money on badly conceived attempts to change the Arab media.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 11:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Schedules

Comrades

Have to fuck off for meetings, lots of travel coming up. May be a bit silent. Advance warning on that. Not dead as of yet.

Promised, rant in regards to collapse of FTA issues and childishness of local decision makers.

By the way, I note that the readers, or some portion of them, of the "Iraq Investors Forum" [sic] have come to comment on the 28 June entry or so. You should enjoy.

Update
I forgot to mention that the Put on yours truly has been called. I found an "important" envelope this morning as I staggered out from the bed room to try to flush away the Cuban materials, that fueled a long note on the state of the local securities market, still kicking around in the system.

Contained therein: guidelines on requirements for foreigners to sell their soul and become permanently (or at least legally difficult and expensive to unwind) to the country. Something I contemplate with a mixture of bemusement and horror, but no matter. At least I am "in the money" as it were.... shouldn't have copped to the bloody augmentation, that was clearly an error. Or perhaps I shouldn't have copped to not being entirely happy with the salon.

Well, no matter, I suppose after some delaying tactics to avoid payoff (this being an unregulated market), I shall have to deliver on the contract.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 09:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 05, 2005

'Aqoul - Camel's Thorn, ongoing

Well, again a short note to indicate that I had at it, and I do believe I am going to like 'Aqoul (I by the way explain the rather arch reference in my personal intro for those of you that are curious).

This aside, on the matter of the blog, as it is a group blog, and not the main attention of most of the authors, I suspect (and please do correct me if I am wrong) that a diversity of authors will be required. The mistress of this little flight of madness, eerie, is the controller as it were - the Board of Directors. Main investor. Etc. However, for those interested in making the occasional contribution on MENA, please do drop me a line and we can arrange things. Do note, for the moment as the blog tries to find its own "voice" among differing authors everything is getting a look over - even and perhaps most especially me.

I think it wise. Regardless, drop me a line at my yahoo address for further information.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 10:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

General Strike, Bankers

Well, today we have something that has to strike any good Anglo Saxon as bordering on the surreal. A general strike declared by the bankers or rather the union that represents the bankers (this being a Code Civil country, we have unions for just about every possible profession, no matter how useless or surreal).

This on the pretext that the adoption of normal banking hours represents �slavery� � yes slavery. Indeed it is slavery to have one�s work hours changed from the highly theoretical 8 to 12:30 � 14:30 to 18:00 to the no doubt equally theoretical 8:30 to 12:30 1:15 to 5:00. A trivial change which merely reduces the Sacred and Inviolate Lunch hour, in theory, from 2 hours to 45 minutes, but lets one out earlier.

So, the Trade Unions have declared strikes to fend off this evil �Anglo Saxon� intrusion into the �social order� which represents a new form of �slavery� for the oppressed � yes oppressed! � bank wage labourers. These poor Financial Sweat Shop slaves will have a reduced opportunity to disappear for many hours during the day.

Speaking from experience, the real Sacred Lunch Pause runs from Noonish through to 15:00, as a bit of padding on either side is considered �established practice� � you know it would slavery, absolute slavery I say, to expect the poor oppressed Financial Sweat Shop labourers to say pick up their fat kids from the private schools ( a colleague informed me gravely � only her wearing the latest French fashion of rather transparent linen allowed me to not laugh as I was otherwise somewhat distracted by the Mediterranean region tendency to having frontal space � that �not everyone can afford a maid to pick up their children from school.�) and feed them the latest pastries and other plumpness inducing rot.

Now perhaps I am an evil purveyor of the vague conspiracy called �The Washington Consensus� but I think presently rebaptised, �the Neo Liberal Agenda� or some such rot, but I was unable to shake the sense of utter surrealism involved in this farcical revolt against what is in the end a fairly trivial adjustment of working hours. It does illustrate my utter contempt for the organised �labour movement� in the MENA region and its leftist twit moron allies in the West who eat up the posturing agitprop without a second thought.

Fine slogans, but in reality they represent nothing but cynical posturing.

Rather reminds me of the Academic Left�s howling when the CFA, the French backed African franc had to devalue (something like 50 percent as I recall). Much commentary was made at the time (early 1990s) about the evils of the Washington Consensus, how this was going to impoverish Africans, the evils of higher costs of pharma products, etc. Tear jerker stories.

A few points emerged from looking at this hysterical, ill-informed and largely wooley headed liberal arts student, graduate or otherwise, driven bleating.

First, it was largely driven by the largely westernised urban �intellectual� elites ( I mean that in the proper sense of current income elite) complaints, who such people (even if they pretend otherwise), largely speak to or are influenced by. This is not to accuse anyone of bad faith, quite the contrary. Being an economist or economically trained businessman, I rather prefer to leave aside morality in these conditions and look at interests.

What, then, would be the interests? An (artificially) overvalued currency is an implicit subsidy to those consuming foreign goods and services, as well as of course importers of capital. It is an implicit penalty to domestic producers of any kind (services, basic goods, whatever).

Well, enough on this.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 10:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 04, 2005

On Intellectual Property and Clueless American Git Lawyers (updated)

As I suspect this is too collounsbury for Aqoul, plus must keep my charming side up (ah yes as an aside to lawyerly readers - or one rather - I got the note on the fund issue will reply asap):

Recently I was at a consular event with the charming and dear British club (named after the charmingly porky Churchill) in its charmingly archaic setting, where I had the occasion (I should say the misfortune were I not entertained by the opportunity) to chat with the wife (or lover or some such) of a financial sector contact, a somewhat slump shouldered blonde from the Carolinas (or something like that, I confess my Anglo heretic ancestry and hundreds of years of well founded yanqui contempt for the South leads me to regard the entire southern United States as a backwards swamp of cretins. I can only say that spending a decade as the off and on intimate companion of that rare creature, a black female American bank vice president of Southern extraction only reinforced these prejudices [not in re her, she and her husband are excellent friends of mine to this day]).

The woman turned out to be a lawyer. Pity that, but we can not hold all sins against everyone one. Worse, she turned out to have worked with both my former employer and the clumsy market destroying imbeciles of Monsanto, and she is a specialist in intellectual property. Worse yet, she worked on the bio-engineering issues that I worked on, in the more business end.

I can only say that meeting an attorney who once worked on the benighted market killing legalistic narrow minded scum managed Monsanto�s efforts in genetic engineering provoked me a bit. Worse yet, she claimed to be a �true believer� in intellectual property rights (i.e. a short sighed economically illiterate hack for the market destroying morons).

This provoked a somewhat gauche and unpleasant conversation on IP rights in the region and what I politely called the �rude American idiocy of forcing things beyond any commercial rational.� I believe, if I recall my own inopportune turn of phrase, that in response to her sally re business opportunities (for her benighted American law driven views on IP law) in pharma sector IP rights that it would be �disastrous� and �fucking bloody counterproductive� to sue local firms on pharma doubtful IP infringements (the local market is not known to be a major scofflaw, and follow Euro standards in general) since you end up automatically the bad guy or as I put, �What kind of fucking market do you build suing the impoverished for a percentage? There is no fucking market upside.�

Fucking lawyers. I ranted on (to her evident discomfort, but the bitch only speaks Southern English, not even local languages, I certainly hope she is a good fuck else she is a liability for my amigo � bastard bloody well should not be associated with idiotic market killing Rich Americans sueing impoverished locals) about how lawyers never looked at realistic cost-benefit analyses on pushing suits, above all in re �total cost� to market. Fucking Monsanto followed people like her and fucking blew up the motherfucking gen modified market through their lawyer driven strategy. IPO rights are a social convenience for promoting innovation, not a divine right, and the smart firm in socially sensitive sectors with public policy and PR issues is sensitive to this.

But this idiotic bitch wants to bring American style �super� IP law to the MENA market. I am afraid I was quite rude (despite her intimate connexion with someone I like and respect in my field) about how stupid she was.

Fucking idiot lawyers. ( I note for my readers and in particular certain who I know that this, is aimed at the � well you know who you are and what I am saying. I also despise ignorant empty lawyer bashing, but I think we can agree that this sort of idiocy we mutually despise as counterproductive.)

Now, returning to a bit more substantive reflexion. Property rights are indeed important, and intellectual property rights as well. However, there are always trade offs. Certainly the idiot mentioning in particular enforcing pharma rights rather set me off as if she knew the least thing about international property rights developments, she would know that the Big Pharma companies broke their noses stupidly going after South Africa on this kind of issue (in that instance AIDS drugs), where a softer, less litigatious approach would have served them far better. Bad PR has a cost, above in this kind of business.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 05:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Reflexions on Outsourcing - via an apartment

Let me utilise some personal whinging to illustrate why outsourcing is not easily done, nor likely to be the great threat that frightened Western commentators make it out to be. Quality of delivery and poor developing world understanding of more developed markets expectations.

In this case, it happens to be me, the Development Market, and the various people, but essentially the woman who I outsourced all preparations to. This proved not to be a disaster but to have come in well-under expectations due to a mismatch in conception about what "quality materials," "moderate goals" and similar phrases thought to be well understood.

Now the result is not atrocious, it is minimally acceptable although it is the sort of thing I shall, when persons enter, have to do some plausible deniability sort of dancing so that no one thinks that I actually had a hand in it, directly. Ex-my smug fobbing off of all the things I did not want to do. Outsourcing.

Rather more complex an operation than one thinks.

I note, by the way, as a real datapoint that while outsourced services from Europe are a huge potential market, we have seen a number of initial entrants pick up stakes for reasona effectively similar to why on the next apartment finishing round, I shall take full control.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 04:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Well, here it is: the new site - Aqoul.com

Aqoul.com is open for business.

I made a long self indulgent introduction which few will read, but no matter.

I also attacked a fellow author in a long diatribe/rebuttal. Wasted too much time on that, but his stale Lefty talk irritated me. Bloody English major type "analysis." Smart fellow, could do better.

Now, will I republish here. It's idea to keep both going. Not sure if it is a good idea or not.

Ah yes, some entries that I liked already:
On Buildings and Property Rights
http://www.aqoul.com/archives/2005/07/cairos_collapsi.php
by eerie.

On intra-GCC relations
http://www.aqoul.com/archives/2005/07/burning_bridges.php#more
by secretdubai

Posted by The Lounsbury at 04:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Happy American Independance etc.

Well, the firm itself is celebrating the Homeland's (the word homeland is oddly ugly come to think of it) independance, but work must go on.

A quick word: I am going to be experimenting with keeping this little site and Aqoul as posting areas. It probably will be a failed experiment given my laziness in these areas (a mere hobby after all).

As such sometime in the next 4-24 hours (like the span?) I shall be posting there as well.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 10:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 01, 2005

Idiots: Marching in al-Qods

Stabbings at Jerusalem gay march
Attacker stabs marcher: Religious groups opposed the march going ahead
A religious protester has stabbed three people taking part in an annual gay pride parade in Jerusalem.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4639731.stm

I had read about this previously, and thought it stupid, so let me say that organizing a gay pride march in Jerusalem is fucking stupid.

I have nothing against such marches as such, but in the context of Jerusalem, it is idiotic.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 07:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 30, 2005

Some thoughts on Aid

Rnadomly found, I forget how, here: http://williamkaminsky.typepad.com/too_many_worlds/2005/06/anthony_cordesm_1.html

A summary of some comments by Anthony Cordesman.

This in particular caught my attention.
1) The US aid programs have to stop using "Russian standards of performance", to use Dr. Cordesman's colorful metaphor. By this he meant the following. It doesn't necesarily matter what your total expeditures are. The goal is not to spend money but to make definite, cross-the-board improvements in infrastructure and the standard of living. And, no, saying how much was spent on specific projects to that end doesn't count as a legitimate performance standard. Honest, timely evaluation of how well specific projects meet their specific goals is needed. On that note, the local success stories trumpeted in the weekly US aid reports, no matter how inspiring they are (and indeed they are given the danger in which many of those people work), do not constitute necessarily a good measure of performance either. All too often they are blips that do not fit into any systematic plan, or worse, occur in localities chosen for reasons of (often corrupt) service politics.

Well, all well and nice. However, I have a hard time thinking of a successful way to create real benchmarks. This strikes me as unrealistic wishful thinking. Who controls the performance data, are the benchmarks going to be on a reasonable time scale? If not, you just end up finding new ways to piss away money.

Given my limited exposure to development programs (and I confess I don't know or understand their internal dynamics all that well), I fail to see how "honest, timely evaluation" is to be achieved. Rather like exhortations to "good citizenship." Indeed ironic that he used the Russian reference in that context.

2) The underlying notion of the US reconstruction efforts, namely that private companies have a special insight into reforming a kleptocratic command economy that has lacked civilian infrastructure investment for 20 years, insight beyond the international organizations that have dealt with similar problems in say, the former Yugoslavia and Cambodia, was always worrisome. It has now definitely proved to be a fallacy.

Not sure I get this at all.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 01:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Consular Affaires

One frequently learns things at them, if the Consuls drink enough. I suppose that is the point.

I learned some interesting things, which when public I will reflect on.

Otherwise, I feel I should find a moment to comment on an ongoing scandal I have alluded to in the past, that of a sex tourism and porno ring in Agadir, Morocco, which has been taking on a dangerous tone. I shall try to find a polite way to comment, as the socio-economic reflexions are interesting and surprising for a country in this region.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 12:37 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 29, 2005

The Big News of the Day

Ladies and Gentlemen, slobbering morons and other cretins who read this lovely blog rather than doing what they should be doing, and thus help justify my cretinous behaviour: I am proud to bring to you the great news of the day. News that has set off a wave of polemics across the country (well not of the day, but relatively recent).

Continue reading "The Big News of the Day"

Posted by The Lounsbury at 06:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Thinking of emerging markets funds

Just got a prospectus for a 100 mill China Buy Out Fund. Apparently someone was under the mistaken impression that I am qualified investor....

Interesting reading.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 05:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

On Convenience

I would like to share how much I love how Microsoft's infinate wisdom in "tight integration" among its office suite functions ensures that whenever my Outlook freezes up (because of course of the idiotic execution of the Firm's own internal connexion) EVERYTHING freezes up. Word, Excel, blah blah.

Makes me want to throw the bloody thing across the room.

^{(And save the IT advice, it's not stuff I am allowed, officially to touch)}

Posted by The Lounsbury at 03:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

al-Aqoul - a sort of Lounsbury on MENA w/o my self regarding and self indulgent idiocies, etc.

eerie, in a fit of madness, has launched herself on making a group blog, rather like Fist Full of Euros, work.

I note this as a point of advertising. I shall certainly take part, perhaps hiving off my more self indulgent idiocies for this ridiculous little journal, and keeping a serious tone (why, I might not even write fuck quite so often). However, me alone and others (I shall not confess on their behalf any participation) isn't worth eerie's hard IT work. A bit of a clan of self-indulgent persons with pretensions to know some small little abit about the MENA region is needed.

Thus, in my round about way, I am inviting interest. Or inviting you to think about interest. Or suggesting that one should have interest. I should note the site is not open yet.

Other than that I take this moment to expose some of my idiocy.

Last night, working late on this bloody data issue, I suddenly recall I am invited to something at the Briths Consul's club. Since there are people there I want to schmooze with, I close the laptop and make off in haste to the Consul's club down near the Corniche, irritatingly located among a maze of old 1940s era villas (the development being then outside of the city retreat). Arriving late, I am puzzled that there are no fancy cars and the like. Indeed it is all quite dark. No matter, I dash into the club and find... nobody, well hardly anyone. Just two women dining in the garden. Walking over to ask about the event I suddenly realise, bloody hell, today is Tuesday, not Wednesday. I actually slapped my forehead I confess, in a quasi theatrical fit of stupidity.

Well, no matter, I strode over to the two ladies and proudly announced to them that I was terribly sorry for disrupting their dinner, but in a fit of confusion I had come on the wrong day for an event. A fine conversation ensued, and they invited me to drinks and dinner. Thus, I rescued what might have been a total loss. However, I am not sure what knowing the Administrator of some Fund for Abandoned Women and Single Mothers and the owner of a pharmacy is going to do for me, although it was a pleasant enough dinner I suppose, and my unfortunate habit of making absurd pronouncements served me well.

Still, quite tired this am, and now facing another Consular thing, as well as a dinner with the new Commercial Attache the day after.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 09:59 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Why I do what I do.

Interesting point of reflexion emerged on my post on policy and funding last night. I shall extend commentary but for the moment, this post merely allows you to opine.

Well, before letting you opine, if I ever even bother, let me reproduce the comment that provoked this:
Your final paragraph is the key one.

First, all else being equal in theory developing markets ought to offer excess returns in pretty much every sector because they are not as efficient/sophisticated as developed markets. I made a sneering remark earlier about exporting best practices to Nigerian breweries. "Best practices" which ignore local political/cultural/social conditions are unworkable practices or, worse, practices that, when implemented, achieve some completely unintended effect. But you don't need to implement best practices to beat your competition in developing markets, just better practices. To do that, you must understand how and why things work they way they do in the country you're in.

The problem is that all things are not equal. Developing markets must compete for human capital just as they must compete for investment capital. The educated people who would normally be smart, agressive entrepreneurs in developing countries are either a) already part of the established rent-seeking system and, therefore, already making excess returns or b) taking advantage of better opportunities elsewhere. Why mess about with trying to crack the local system when you can make piles of cash in the developed world without having to worry about being economically or physically knee-capped?

In other words, you need the right kind of local partner to make these investments work. But the right kind of local partner often has better things to do than be your local partner. Thus, you're left to choose between various wrong kinds of local partner.

China is a good example of this. When China first opened up, it was as worthless a mess as you could ever hope to see. The best and the brightest Chinese got out of China and never went back, often starting or working for extremely innovative companies in the U.S.

But China did have a lot of highly-trained smart, agressive people who were willing and able (language skills) to game the system -- Hong Kong. They turned China into a place to do business. Now, many Chinese who left China back in the 70s and 80s have gone back or at least established strong business links there and have made piles of cash in the process.

Had you tried to convince some of these people to go back to China to start a business in, say, 1985, they would have laughed at you and quite right, too. But without their (or someone like them's) cultural/political/linguistic skills, any enterpreneurial effort would have been doomed to failure.

In conclusion, if you have the right sort of local partners with the right sort of modern business attitudes you ought to make money in almost any sector -- the more basic the better. If you don't have the right sort of local partners with the right sort of modern business attitudes, you're probably going down in flames no matter how good your idea is.

For example, few things are less sexy than distribution systems. But if you had people with the guanxi to pull it off and the modern business attitudes to run it, you could make piles of money with a Walmart-style business in almost any region in the developing world. The problem is that the folks with the guanxi are already part of the system and the folks with the modern business attitudes are in London.

I plan to comment more on this. The commentator has hit on a number of points that I absolutely agree with. Some items I would qualify, and an excellent area of discussion.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 09:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 28, 2005

Economic Development - Med Basin and Bindings Constraints, or rather The Binding Constraint

While this article is not about "my" region per se, it is evocative for everything noted here is equally true of the entire southern Med basin. Something that wet climate people do not properly appreciate and I suspect a nasty item that may not be easily surmountable or perhaps not surmountable at all.

Let me run through quickly.

Spain's worst drought just the start as deserts spread
The Financial Times
By Leslie Crawford
Published: June 27 2005 19:41 | Last updated: June 27 2005 19:41

A severe drought in Spain, the worst since records began in 1947, is playing havoc with livelihoods, sparking forest fires and threatening millions of tourists with water rationing as they head for the beaches this summer.

Worse yet, 2005 is unlikely to be a freak year. Spain is getting hotter and drier, with average temperatures rising by 1�C since 1960. The European Environment Agency estimates that average temperatures will rise by a further 4�C over the next century.

Winters are now so mild that storks have stopped their annual migration to north Africa. Scientists are witnessing desertification many estimate that up to one third of the country may be a desert within 50 years.

This is Spain recall. Now think of the pressures on the southern side of the Mediterranean, from Morocco all the way around to Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.

Official figures show that two thirds of the country is now affected by severe drought, with areas around Valencia, Andalusia and Catalonia, where populations more than double during the summer months, among the worst hit. Farmers and town councils in these areas are already fighting over the allocation of scarce water.

Tourism, the holy grail of interim development. A good economic boost. Long term costing however is not being done. Possible to do? Hard to say.

Agricultural losses are estimated at 1.6bn ($1.9bn), with much of the olive crop in Jaen, Andalusia, the principal olive-growing area, given up for lost. Catalonia has slapped restrictions on water for irrigation and industrial use in the hope of forestalling broader rationing during the dry summer months.

�We desperately need rain before October,� says Jaume Sol�, Catalonia's regional environment minister.

Season starts in October, roughly.

The drought has been exacerbated by Spain's construction boom, which saw a record 700,000 new homes built last year about half of them on the coast.

But the frenzy of building in one of the driest regions of Europe has severely challenged the ability of town planners to provide basic services such as running water.

In the provinces of Alicante and Murcia, on the Mediterranean coast, the regional water authority has asked councils to delay water connections to new tourist developments until after the summer.

The World Wildlife Fund estimates there are 10,000 illegal wells in the Costa del Sol, many of which supply tourist developments and are accelerating the depletion of water resources.

�Spain is abusing the sustainable limits of tourism development,� says Chuck Svoboda, a former Canadian diplomat who leads Abusos Urban�sticos No, a campaign group that is fighting corruption in real estate development on the coast. But the building boom shows no sign of slowing despite the lack of water. The J�car water authority, which supplies Valencia's 4.5m residents, estimates 1m new homes will be built in Valencia over the next decade. In addition, it says town councils have approved the construction of 67 new, water-needy golf courses in the region, bringing the total to 69.

Rafael Blasco, Valencia's regional housing minister, describes golf resorts as a �new kind of agriculture�. He wants the European Union to allocate farming aid to them and dismisses talk about development being overdone.

Emphasis added.

Well, among the items here (besides corruption) that attracted by attention was the amusing assertion of golf resorts as a "new kind of agriculture" and the idea of EU farming aid monies going to such.

I find that a delightfully stupid idea, delicious really. Delicious in its scope for corruption.

Cristina Narbona, Spain's environment minister, says the drought has put the spotlight on the country's farmers, who account for four-fifths of water consumption in Spain. Ms Narbona says fewer than 10 per cent of farmers use efficient irrigation methods. �The remaining 90 per cent still resort to flooding their fields, an incredibly wasteful practice that needs to be eradicated,� Ms Narbona says.

Ms Narbona has secured a 370m budget to fight the drought with desalination plants, more water recycling and the drilling of new wells in the worst hit regions. The risible price Spaniards pay for their water 30 times lower than the European average remains a taboo subject.

Earlier this year, Spain's agriculture ministry shot down a plan drafted by Ms Narbona's department that would have imposed punitive water rates on farmers who waste water.

Tourist resorts and golf courses, with their heavy water consumption, would also have had to pay 15 times more for their water than the average Spanish household.

Without cost incentives to reduce consumption, Ms Narbona can do little more than issue new appeals to save water.

Ah the taboo topic of water pricing. One that gets the Left all in a lather when it is in the context of emerging markets/developing world. The whole "water is a human right" blather. Senseless, mindless oppositionalism (why I have contempt in general for "progressive activism"), when the reality is that personal usage water is fairly trivial as compared to "productive."

Easy, price water. Nope. Not so easy. Emotive, a bit harder to pull off than the academic solution might suggest (proper pricing requiring infrastructural improvements that may be quite vast and expensive). However, absolutely necessary.

Even then, with declining input rates - i.e. less rain - and increasing reliance on non-renewable water resources (fossil ground waters), there is a real recipe for disaster. Now, Spain will have the resources (in theory) to address. Will the Southern Med basin be able to, and in the required time frames.

An idea I have been kicking around, by the way, is in regards to reforestation (a useful form of water retention as well as interesting for carbon sequestration) as a long term investment. Massive reforestation as say a 50 year time horizon placement. Problems, many problems, but as a private placement of capital, could be very interesting, and addresses the chronic problem of little namby pamby development projects - that is they're too fucking small and weak to make a difference.

Private capital mobilsation, with some helpful upfront development capital kickers to incent the initial projects.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 05:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

A last word on Muslim Brothers, Ignorant Cretins and Commentary

I remain blissfully unaware "pundita"'s response if any to my somewhat miscreantish battering of her illiterate, blundering, fact free drooling posturing in regards to the Muslim Brotherhood, etc. I intend to remain so. She is unworthy of even my contempt. One can go here, if one wishes, http://antipundita.blogspot.com/ to note any further idiocies on her part (contra Zen it's just a simple blogger site, no email stealing), I wash my hands.

However, some points of reflection.

First, her silly chicken littlish panicked posturing in regards to the Ikhouane and the like, and the rather sketchy, barely understood "facts" behind it rather demonstrate the dangers of getting informed about something one knows little about via the internet. It's fairly clear she's largely informed herself about the MENA region via websites, often of a hysterical and conspiratorial nature of the lowest quality (despite her lame excuses for the utterly vile nature of her citations, her inability to properly select something not wing-nuttish as a source merely speaks to either her lack of ability to think critically or an absence of judgment. Or both, not to pose a false binary of course).

One need not be an expert to comment intelligently on something, I rather like the clear headed, non-hysterical non-Know Nothing Bolshy Right commentaries that crop up on MENA on the Belgravia Dispatch. Clear headed critical thinking from a Right perspective, without slavish devotion to the ideo-glurge of the moment is a treasure. I hardly agree with all written, but it's an example of clear headedness and a real ability to sift through facts, data, and opinion and properly evaluate (in the sense of distinguishing dross and crap from things worthy of consideration).

The incoherent yet at the same time rather pedestrain, bourgeouis suburban frightened bunny blithering of pundita only highlights the danger of the inability to sift through information, evaluate and put in context. Certainly having experience and proper education on a subject is of great value, but the non-specialist that is attentive to his or her own ... well, lack of training and grounding, can indeed get up to speed and at least have somewhat interesting things to say.

Let me take myself, for example. I should flatter myself in opining that while I know next to nothing about Indian and East Asian politics, my awareness of that, and awareness of the traps one can fall into as a non-specialist blundering in should, were I to be so mad as to do so, I decide to start commenting on the subjects. I might even manage to be reasonably interesting, at the least I should be aware enough to sift through the axe grinding of partisans on various issues (let's say Bangledeshi - Indian politics, something I had some small intimate exposure to by accident of the wrong woman slept with).

The importance here is not pundita's politics (Zen incorrectly stated on his blog I treated her as I do Right non-specialists; I treated her as a blundering self deceiving moron who couldn't even muster the judgment to realise her assertions were absurd, distorted and derived from highly prejudiced sources - I am equally as harsh with Lefties who say idiotic things, as some commentator on eerie's journal learned when she said something moronic in re WTO rules.) but rather proper thinking, critical attention to one's sources, a view to understanding subtexts, and a judicious analysis of not only the facts but one's own actual understanding.

There we are. The contemptibly unfactual assertions and smears regarding Muslim Brotherhood Nazi connexions (silly, ahistorical, and clearly axe grinding by ultra-Zionist ideologlues), female circumcision (incoherent, irrelevant and unfactual blithering), and Islam (simply bloody confused) are not really worthy of further attention.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 11:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Understanding www.investorsiraq.com

I remain fascinated by this site. (http://www.investorsiraq.com/index.php)

Absolutely fascinated. I mean first I had no idea there really was a body of .... fools I suppose is the best way to put it, that were willing to put money into things like this.

A bunch of small time financially illiterate currency speculators. I suppose of the dot.com boom day trading mentality, I find it somewhere between attractive and pitiful their complete cluelessness as to the risks they are running. It's absolutely fascinating. Now, certainly there is a lot of posturing and so forth, but nevertheless some percentage of them have clearly actually gone and opened (long distance to be sure) Iraqi accounts to do petty ante speculation on a supposed revaluation of the Iraqi dinar (as well as get in on the ground floor of the supposed boom coming to Iraq).

I'm having a very hard time understanding how such delusions can be sustained, but they are indeed fascinating.

[Update, I urge those who like gory spectables to read the utterly confused postings on the Baghdad stock exchange. Here are people wanting to move into a highly illiquid, barely regulated emerging market and they don't even know how to understand share splits. It's fascinating. Truly fascinating.]

Posted by The Lounsbury at 10:38 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Getting away from my core competencies to blither on like a fool

Via another source, I found this delightful little site on Wikipedia, http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/wikiwoo.htm

Among the items I most enjoyed was, in re a discussion of Geghis Khan, this:
"However, much of the European historical record about Genghis Khan and Mongols were recorded from the viewpoint of the victims of Genghis Khan."

That's probably because most people who interacted with Genghis Khan ended up as his victims. If he left behind anything other than victims, I'm sure we would have heard from them.

Brilliant.

A later comment on something called democratic peace theory rather gets it right in re Wikipedia:
This article highlights the Darwinian nature of Wikipedia. Articles are written by competing viewpoints, but the winner is the most energetic writer, not the most informed or accurate.

Bingo. However, it is popular, and sometimes an okay source for basic factual information.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 10:10 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

New Feature: Comment ID non-livejourn, Thoughts? ; A generalist site

Livejournal, this free piece of crap that I spit on, has a new function: Open ID. Thinking of instituting it for comments.

I am not particularly motivated to really "know" who I am getting comments from, it's just a matter of a string of anon comments gets hard to follow. I ask then you, the readers and occasional suffers from my irascable nature, your thoughts. Does it work with faux web addresses? Should I impose it for all commentators?

Also eerie, in her own private journal raised the concept of a MENA board / blog. Now many of you know that I flirted with this idea, but being fundamentally too lazy and cheap (as well as busy) to pursue, I let this die. Apparently there is some support for the concept.

Livejournal Description
What is OpenID?
What is OpenID?

From our recent news announcement on 2005-06-27:
LiveJournal now supports OpenID. You've probably noticed this option when you go and leave a comment.

If you're confused, that's understandable: OpenID is a little new, and will make more sense as an increasing number of sites on the web start to support it.

In a nutshell, OpenID lets you take your identity with you, proving to other sites on the web that you own a particular URL. LiveJournal's OpenID support lets you use your LiveJournal identity (just your URL) on other websites which take OpenID, and also lets you take your non-LiveJournal identity and use it here.

What does this mean?

-- leaving comments on other blog sites, and proving who you are
-- being able to add/trust/ban people as friends who don't have LiveJournal accounts
-- off-site LJ utilities that require you to prove your identity

It'll get more exciting as other sites start to support it. DeadJournal, since it uses the LiveJournal software, will likely be the first. As time goes on, there's rumors of upcoming support in Movable Type, WordPress, MediaWiki, Bugzilla, TypePad, TypeKey, b2, TextPattern, perl.org, and a bunch of other sites.

In a nutshell, whenever you see this little logo: , that means enter your LiveJournal URL if you want to prove to that site who you are. LiveJournal will ask you to confirm if you trust them, or you can say "trust that site forever". Never enter your password on a non-LiveJournal site. A site using OpenID doesn't need your password, and if they ask for it, they're trying to scam you.

That's it for now. More announcements as we continue to polish our OpenID support and more sites support it. DeadJournal should be this Friday, I hear.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 09:52 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 27, 2005

Wolf: Capital Flows

I meant to comment on this, this evening, however, I was distracted and so merely share:

Martin Wolf: Capital flow must change course
By Martin Wolf
Published: June 26 2005 20:09 | Last updated: June 26 2005 20:09
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/2b30713a-e66e-11d9-b6bc-00000e2511c8.html

Yes, it's sub. Bloody well sub up, FT is worth it. Else fuck off.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 07:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Moronic Twit II (some clarifications)

This is thanks to eerie, who now owes me two hours.
Pundita, the ignorant whinging moron continues her blithering blundering about the Ikhouane and her general incoherence on the topic in general:
http://pundita.blogspot.com/2005/06/pundita-replies-to-questions-about.html

For amusement sake's only (although I suppose continuous mocking of somehow clearly do dim and ill-informed, not to mention such a bleedingly self-referential semi-literate git is perhaps moderately cruel):
1) For the reader who asked why Pundita picked on the British and left the French, Germans, etc. out of it -- because America is more an "Anglo" culture than any other. I speak very bluntly to the British, in the manner of "family talk."

2) It is so well established that Britain became the "terror capital of the world" by the 1990s that it's not necessary to provide data to support the statement. It is widely known that they had an open-door policy for every terrorist organization on the planet.

I'm not sure why I quote this other than to marvel at the talent for asserting exageration as some kind of fact.

What the fuck it has to do with the Ikhouane in Egypt and seeing where they fit in the political calculus of the day, I have no idea, but there it is. Bloody Larouchite whinging on I suppose.

BTW, what the squeeling idiot of a stereotypical Right Bolshy ignorant git of a Know Nothing pandering ideologue is refering to is the United Kingdom's fairly tolerant political asylum position in re political figures with, shall we say unsavoury connexions? Late 1980s through 1990s, something of a don't piss in our pond policy. Nothing new there, see Karl Marx. English liberalism (not American liberalism). Terror capital of the world is merely scare phrasing by people of the Chicken Little The World is Ending blah blah sort.

One should note that the following statement in re "not figuring out" is quite wrong, merely a bit of realism post 11 September regarding UK's "special friend" as it were. As a general matter the policy worked, precious little on English soil MENA radical actions. However, has some unfortunate side effects - but nothing particularly English about it. The United States practiced and practices to an extent the same thing in regards to the IRA, etc.

Real world, kiddies, real world.

Moving along from this irrelevancy, I skip over the hysterics regarding the United Kingdom etc. on the verge of collapse. Hysterics are often amusing, but in this case, this is merely ultra right Tinfoil Hattery at its self deluding pedestrian level of expression. Quite clearly the UK etc. is not in the grips of ... well some end of the world frippery I suppose.

Next, we have the public stoning thingy and we find the silly little of an ignorant Chicken Little Squeeler was raising something in Iran in regards to the Ikhouane - the connexion as one had to suspect when the initial reading occured was simply the vague "Some Muslims did Bad Thing X once somewhere and so this has to be connected to the Ikhouane because Muslim = Ikhouane in my confused benighted twittish thinking."

Of course is might be moderately uncharitable to point out that: (i) it's Iran, a Shia state, has fuck all to do with the Sunni Salafists and Egyptian politics, (ii) stoning really had fuck all to do with the original ludicrous claim that the Ikhouane were leftovers or whatever of the Nazi party in Egypt although one I suppose out of some marginal generosity can perhaps forgive an analytically impaired, hysterical dim wit for her flailing about in a rather pitiful attempt to string together an argument (or some hand waving pretension to a straw man), (iii) that the mere existance of stoning in other (non-Arab esp) countries doesn't say anything about the Egyptian Ikhouane, any more than ostensible Xians in South Africa stoning and necklacing (burning) presumed witches says something about Conservative Xians in the United States (other than stressed rural cultures seem to produce barbarities), (iv) her silly and arch presumption to know something here is rendered yet more comical by her confused blundering and inability to distinguish between countries and different sects in Islam.

In short, precisely what I thought right at the start, a quasi racist blundering about with a broad brush to smear (partly out of blind prejudice, partly out of inempt semi literate ignorance) rather than actually have an informed response to her initial idiotic assertion.

However, this blithering little Know Nothing bludering drooler of an ideological twit is not content to stop digging when her pitiful ignorance is exposed, she desires to charge ahead.

Next there is this wonderful bit of self parody (or in the alternative delightful window into the mind of someone so dimwitted as to lack the barest elements of basic analytical thought) of the confused shrieker as straw man builder:
For the male reader [ndlr: That would be yours truly] who expressed confusion about my application of the word "terrorism" to acts of public stoning and genital mutilation of female children -- I am not going to describe how these mutilations are carried out when not done in a clinical setting. My intention is to inform, not make the reader's blood boil. But the reader may trust that if someone did that to his penis when he was a boy, he would be properly terrorized for life.

Well, what can we say. I suppose it's intriguing to see a flat out admission of utter cluelessness, and the exposure of this idiotic git's clumsy confusion of political terror (what one typicaly means by terrorism in ordinary English language usage by persons who have managed some vague mastery of the language, its basic functions and even a bit of logically joined up writing - a category "pundita" rather clearly does not belong in) with simply being "terrified" or "terrorised" by an event. Obviously a rather clumsy and ill-thought out smear insofar as by this, well, what can one call it? Illogic? Anti-Logic? Negation of logic? Well, regardless, by this illogical blundering obviously drunken driving would be "terrorism" since it can "terrorize" people.

[added note]
Of course, having actually been (and not on motherfucking safaris) to such places where female and male circumcision is practiced, I can assure you, nothing happens under clinical conditions, you pampered Western fatass twit of a whinging moronic git.
[close added note to twit]

But we've really entered into the Orwellian world of newspeak (perhaps the semi-literate whinging little git should actually read some Orwell. The Elephant, his Indian works might - if we were visited by some miracle and the semi-literate git actually was able to follow and understand - actually educate her).

Of course, female circumcision done in backwoods places isn't pretty. But then neither is male circumcision. Same tools.

Of course, as pointed out previously this has fuck all to do with Islam as Islam or even the Ikhouane's political place in Egypt, or her absurdly hysterical unfactual shreiking about Nazi past.

Now, the following few paragraphs are more semi-literate illogical trash of some cesspool of confusion which I have not had enough rhum to inflict upon myself. Rather clearly the author is flailing about trying to latch onto something that will make me stop laughing derisively at her and perhaps throw a bone of pity. Sorry chicky, your blundering about remains contemptibly ill-informed and best characterised by a sort of juvenile confusion of illogic that I might normally associate with 5 year olds.

I only note in closing, because I want to fuck off and get back to real work, that the confused paragraphs asserting some bizarro world conspiracy of Muslim something or other leaders duping something or other blah blah blah about female circumcision is pure ... bunk. If not made up whole cloth, it rather appears to have been derived from some deluded reading of hysterical ultra bigotted Xian fundy sites on Islam in Africa (indeed one suspects that is the case, since it rather appears the semi-literate scrawler known as "pundita" aka drooling twit of ideoglurbe pimping whore for the Know Nothings lacks the barest or even most child-like critical thinking facilities or an ability to tell good sourcing from motherfucking looney tunes (see again Larouche and her other charming cites)).

Conspiracy mongering websites, confused ahistorical (and downright mendacious) blithering about female circumcision, all brought up in blundering attempt to prove.... well I can't really tell, other than I suppose it is some ineffectual attempt at a defence from my charge that she is at once (i) dim, (ii) tedious, (iii) a poor writer, (iv) absurdly illogical and incapable of proper analytical thought, (v) posessing the analytical skills of a small retarded child, (vi) likely a closest racist of that pedestrian polite sort that is afraid of the brown people, (vii) incapable of a properly organized argument and lacking in real entertainment value, (viii) grossly ignorant of the subject she is attempting to treat, and lacking in the natural intelligence to even begin to form an opinion, (ix) deluded as to her own reading comprehension, (x) tedious again, (xi) even more tedious for the scaberous illogic of her arguments that aren't even all that entertaining, (x) too pedestrain to be entertaining.

There you have it. I am done. eerie, don't tell me what this idiotic gimp of a self deluded semi-literate mongerer of putrid ideologue-glurge and driblling moron writes in response. I have better things to do, like laugh at the morons who are putting their dollars into unsecured Iraqi banks. Those dribbling circus freaks entertain me, this idiot merely annoys me.

[Added Thought]

On reflection the thrust of the blundering and blithering concoction of ad hoc assertions, confused smears, and general Chicken Little squeeling about the scary Muslims is "Muslims scary, people not like me very scary, must have people like me." The more potentially supportable, were it not bundled up in the vaguely racist tripe of this concoction of blithering, question might be "will they (the Ikhouane) play ball if they enter into the game."

Well, only one way to find out. Better it be in an organised sense than in Revolution. Not talking to the Shah's enemies, as Zenpundit rightly pointed out, did not change the socio-political calculus for the better.

Or to return to a point a business partern made to me that I love to cite: "Just because he speaks good English, don't be fooled." That is, just because someone has the superficial cultural habits that are familiar to you, don't think that means he's really your amigo. Self delusion is the worst sin of all in the realist world.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 06:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sucker Born Every Minute: Iraq Investors Forum, rubes to pick....

Investor's Iraq Forum
http://www.investorsiraq.com/index.php?

I daresay this is real. Pitiful and full of rubes, but .... it makes me almost salivate. Were I evil that is.

[Edit]

Okay, I have not been able to resist reading this site. It's just... wonderful in its pure idiocy. These are small timers speculating on Iraqi currency and potentially Iraqi securities with near zero knowledge of the country except the political angle and ... well just right out religious belief in the politics.

Posters expecting the Iraqi banking system to be FDIC insured. It's delightful in its naivete.

[Edit II]

I have really been sucked into reading this delightful nest of utter rubes. Someone crowing that a 2 year CD in Iraqi dinars returning 6 percent held with an unknown Iraqi bank is a "great deal." This ignorant rube has no clue what risks he's looking at, locking himself into Iraqi dinars at a set rate for two years. Illiquid placement in a highly unstable environment, denominated in a foreign currency, itself unstable and unproven. Bloody hell, one can get a USD return on a retail eurodollar CD of four percent.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 04:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Various matters: Apartments, Titanic Scenarios, Translation, US Comm in MENA, Iran and t-shirts (ed)

Well, I am pleased to announce (for the amusement of that small minority who know me somewhat in real life) that I managed to furnish my entire new apartment in a highly efficient whirlwind of strike-counter strike shopping. While I must note that certain women did some pre-sales reconnaissance, a mere afternoon of laying down my card suffice to execute all but my home office (which I am planning). A model of efficiency in buying that pleased me immensely.

Sadly, I saw the paint and colors selected by the women for the apartment. I suppose my preference for institutional white was doomed from the start, but I have to say I find the colors moderately atrocious, but not entirely unsupportable. While not truly awful, the salon is a strangely off yellow that while not offensive just isn't right. Well, no matter, something to be covered with hangings and lame excuses that I was not arround for the selection. My office to be is a bit too red, makes one think of things other than work, but what the hell. At least it has a patio door unto my terrace which I am already planning as my center for Cuban planning and the like. Rhum and grapefruit juice, although I think I should get more into red wines again. I also note in passing, and in defence of the women, that I think the dishonest scum of a contractor (no doubt no need for the adjectives) not only did at best a medoicre job of painting (lay down a fucking drop cloth you ignorant illiterate country bumpkins) but cheated on the paint, helping the yellow look so peculiar.

Now, to add local color, distracting from the unfortunate (but bearable) paint selection, that will take more time and less efficient buying, I shall leave that to local agents as I invariably find haggling over lamps and the like far too irritating, and I have a lot of fucking work to do.

Thinking of work, the stream of resignations in Central continues - in the past few days a newly hired Director quits, a Managing Director has partially resigned, a new product specialist hired away from the Big C quits (bloody smart, but that was fast), and some frustrated overseas staff resigned. I do detect a listing, but we must pretend all is well and continue to play a waltz, rearrange some deck chairs for the upper management and ignore the gringing noise from below the decks. The Captian assures me with a bit more speed we can power through this. Who am I to disbelieve the Captain? I note that I had a feeler asking me to "make a play" on the local side, I rejected absolutely out of hand. Why take responsibility for what is clearly doomed? I have my rubber ducky and my plans for paddling away fast enough not to be sucked under.

This aside, I was just reflecting on translation. Running through a translation for some items for the firm, I started thinking about the problem of translation in a business or operational context (not the business side of translation per se). It is not something much spoken of, but frankly I think it is more important than often let on.

Now perosnally I do a lot of translation, cleaning or just going at it myself, for my current and my past firms. Sure they can afford translation, proper translators and intepretors and it is a poor use of my time at some level, but frankly for technical issues (using technical in a loosey goosey sense) to get certain things right, it requires "expert" (i.e. not completely uninformed) input. I rather feel that most people do not realise just how mediocre most translators and interpretors really are, even at the top levels (and I do mean top). One depends on what are in fact rough approximations of what the other guy is saying - yet too many fail to understand that (and I note the online machine translations are even worse).

Well, regardless, a quick comment on Iran. Interesting is all I have to say. I have never followed Iran all that closely, it's outside "my world" as it were. Interesting interviews I saw on the Sats. A goodly number of interviewees seemed to suggest that the Mayor won the Presidency largely on his image of incorruptibility and simplicity. Driver, less ideology qua ideology, more a simple reaction against corruption. Will fail of course, interesting to see.

Next, I see from Zen that that contemptible semi-literate twit "pundita" (I have to say I suspect her to be a US Defence Department type or contractor, matches the semi-literate profile perfectly. Explains the CPA of course, full of these morons) has a post on "Going Native" where she manages to display even less of a glimmer of a clue than before. I suppose that is what utter and complete ignorance, in a willfully blind fashion will produce (along with a large dollop of wishful thinking and messianic transformational claptrap.). Perhaps I may later be moved to rip this apart, for the moment I merely note my contempt for such ignorant twaddle (although it does make a fine example of argument by mere assertion, and building fantastical castles in the air).

Small added thought here: I should perhaps suggest to that semi-literate navel gazing twit pundita that she might familiarize herself with Orwell (as in Orwell, George otherwise known as Eric Blair, 1903-1950) and his writing on actual colonial experience before writing transparently idiotic things about "going native" etc.

[ADDED THOUGHT]
I caught reporting on two items in relation to this sort of ignorant, self-indulgent navel gazing self deluding tripe.
(i) The international reporting on American criticisms of the legitimacy of the Iranian election. Taking for granted that the conservatives in Iran cheated to some extent, there was quite a tone of -not quite mockery but bemusement perhaps- across the Sats, Arab and Euro, in re American criticisms. Leaving aside the substance, a point to retain: blowing one's credibility raises one's transaction costs. As American street cred. is at historic lows, e.g. because of the rank hypocrisy and lies in regards to torture and the like (I understand the dabbling, but once the hand is caught in the cookie jar, the credible response is not the route that the Bush Admin -sadly predictably- took, rather clumsy denial that only seems to stick with the pre-fooled), American transaction costs for gaining traction on criticisms is at an all time high. Repeated games, mates, repeated games.
(ii) The same international reporting on the visit of a set of American senators to Gauntanamo had the same sort of reaction. I am afraid this sort of staged posturing really does little good (except I suppose among the base of the pre-fooled), and indeed gives the US an almost Soviet feel in its clumsy self indulgent self-deceiving agitprop.

Clumsy and counterproductive.
[END ADDED THOUGHT]

Finally, I note the incredibly stunning office manager has a particularly blasphemous shirt on that I am not sure I enjoy or not. Well, no, I do enjoy it, but feel guilty. Or something. It has a a print of two hands in typical Islamic prayer position (i.e. more or less like the more stylised hands of Fatima), where the hands end up, how shall I put it? Strategically supporting as it were. Very distracting. I shall have to avoid any conversations with her today.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 09:40 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Question re gadgets for the Gadget Wise

Without entering into the detials, I have the occasion, if I so choose, to get the following for free:
http://reviews.cnet.com/HP_iPaq_rx3715_Mobile_Media_Companion/4505-3127_7-30974568-2.html?tag=top
(also http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/11960_na/11960_na.HTML)

Or I can bank the credit for some future gadget.

Since I am in the market for a new PDA, I am intrigued. But the question is, good or not. NB the multimedia stuff ex wifi surfing is of little interest to me.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 12:52 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 24, 2005

Well, before fucking off for drinks and work - Muslim Brotherhood and Nazis

A comment on this, sadly brought to my attention by my dear eerie:
http://pundita.blogspot.com/2005/06/muslim-brotherhood-skeleton-in.html

A few comments on this then, as the whinging little moron doesn't have any on her own bloody place.

Actually as I reflect it's hard to know where to start in that morass of semi literate rambling.

First, I suppose I am bemused by anyone who cites to Lyndon La Rouche. I suppose that pretty much sums up the quality of intellect one is facing, sadly. The confused rambling about Iranian-EU relations is pretty boring and trivially confused ideo-glurge in my view. The para on British despising their own culture by refusing to anglicize immigrants is ... unique its combination of delusion and bizarrely misinformed stereotyping. The connexion is a bit hard to grasp, really, although does amusingly suggest a somewhat addled brain on the part of the writer.

Moving right along to this gem, which eerie cited for me and which prompted this:
Collunsbury is uninformed about the present activities and intent of the brotherhood's leaders. But this aside, clearly he does not perceive as terrorism the practice of sawing off a female child's clitoris for the express purpose of robbing her of sexual pleasure in adulthood. Or the act of burying a child in the ground up to the neck, then picking up stones and hurling them at the child's head until it is pulp; this done for offenses so minor among civilized peoples they don't even amount to a prank.

Barbaric tribal practices one can understand -- they are ghastly but at least comprehensible acts rooted in humankind's primitive past. But that this primitivism should be tolerated, accorded the rank of civilized behavior in the modern era by the British culture, speaks of an evil nearly beyond comprehension. It is an evil that threatens the survival of the human race. So if you find yourself wondering how someone such as Collunsbury can shrug off terrorism as "realism," go ask the British for the answer.

Well, what can we say. First, of course, this idiotic little twit sitting the United States wants to pretend to know something of the region. That's fine, shouldn't be so comically misinformed as to make grotesquely moronic comments like the Ikhouane are remnants on the Nazi party.

This aside, on the issue of female circumcision, raised.... well the lord the bloody fuck knows why except as some kind of confused smear I suppose.

Rather obviously female circumscision is not terrorism in any sense of the word. It's certainly a repulsive practice, but terrorism does not mean - for most people with say passing mastery of the English language, a modicum of logical skills and perhaps, just for the novelty value, some glimmering of critical thinking "Some practice I don't like."

Of course, this has fuck all to do with Islam or al-Qaeda or whatever. Female circumcision is an African practice, found in southern Egypt, down through North East Africa and over into the Sahel. Muslims and non-Muslims alike practice it, and the nexus is Egypt. It's unknown in most of the Islamic and even Arab world. What can we say. An illogical vaguely racist smear by an ignorant and confused twit. (Never mind the bizarre aside regarding British culture which is both incoherent and puzzling insofar as I am unaware of a means of a "Culture" should accord anything at all - it is amusing I must say though, one has a bit of a peep into the mind of someone more than slightly addled in thinking. Rather circus freakish actually, one almost feels bad chortling at the idiot)

Of course, this again has fuck all to do with the actual question: "Do business with the Ikhouane or not" - except in the addled mind of the commentator who appears to be stumbling through a fog of ... well I suppose some congenital disorder or something like that, and apparently is unaware of simple logic (I do refer to the "fallacy of composition").

Moving down further, I frankly have no clue as to the child and stone hurling bit, nor what possible connexion this has with the Ikhouane in Egypt. I guess we have to put it down to the writer having once heard that (presumed Muslims I would guess) somewhere at some time stoned someone, and this ipso facto devolves down to all Muslims do this, and ipso facto the Ikhouane are somehow responsible. As Muslims.

In short, more racist tripe of the most confused variety, really rather garden variety idiocy.

Down further, well the next part almost made my head hurt.

It appears from that confused muddle of paragraphs that this pitiful circus freak of an addled drooling little moron has derived the comical assertion the Ikhouane are identical to the Nazi party, as supposed remanants from a queer little ultra right wing conspiracy site with such overheated chicken little shreiking stories as "One in Ten Illegal Immigrants is a Terrorist" (getting the anti-immigrant scared of the darkies angle in with the shreiking, whinging, scared to death of the Terrorist filled outside world angle - all in one unattractive repulsive bundle for greater efficiency for the Know Nothing factor).

What can I say?

Well, the first thing to say is: How very unsurprising such a ridiculous, ignorant, ludicrously misinformed, overhyped and utterly illiterate assertion came from such a source. Second, how very unsurprising that angle is being pimped by someone with such books to his name as "The Secret War Against the Jews" which purports to prove the Western democracies have been trying to undermine Israel throughout the 20th century (including Reagan....).

I hardly feel it necessary to even go beyond that. I think... well I think we fairly clearly see that we have nice little American ultra right looney toon amusingly blithering on in her native habitate, oblivious to the real world except for those funny shadows it makes on her little bubble. Queer, moderately amusing in short doses, the native American ultra right looney tune, however does seem prone to muddled thinking and much blundering.

Regardless, this has now delayed my consumption of delightful Cuban products by a good hour, which is far, far, far too long.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 07:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Odd

I got a call from some USG type in the den of iniquity asking for my input on some oddball USG initiative of regional financial relation.

I guess I shall beaver away this weekend on a memo for him for free. The question arises, where the fuck did he get my bloody cell phone number from though? I suppose some disolute friend of mine exiled back to the land of plenty. Lord knows he must have been drunk, but still, titilated by the idea I could have some vague influence on policy and the waste of a handful of trivial millions, I shall indulge. Besides, kick start me on work I need to get done anyway.

In a vaguely related connexion, I noted this:
US foreign investment jumps to $252bn
By Christopher Swann in Washington
Published: June 23 2005 17:07 | Last updated: June 23 2005 17:00
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/7f43df94-e3ff-11d9-a754-00000e2511c8.html

Some interesting paragraphs:
Although US companies were aggressive buyers of foreign assets, there was no sign that the US was becoming less popular as an investment destination. Direct investment into the US climbed from $67bn to $107bn in 2004.

Mark Zandi, chief strategist at Economy.com, a consultant group, said the data showed US companies were spending record cash hoards mainly on Asian investments. “US companies are attracted to Asia partly because the currencies remain competitive, but also as low cost bases for production destination and as growing markets in their own right,” he said. “Europe is almost a mirror image of this.”

Inward investment into Germany and France, the largest economies on continental Europe, fell sharply last year. In France, inward investment almost halved from $43bn to $24bn. In Germany, foreign investors actually withdrew $39bn, having invested $27bn in 2003.

Wealthy countries overall stepped up investment in developing economies with overall OECD outflows climbing from $593bn to $668bn in 2004.

In particular, it seems like a good time to be having a pinky involved in emerging market flows. Might not be good for the investors, but fuck it, caveat emptor.

I also note this:
White House steps up defence of Iraq policy
By Caroline Daniel and Guy Dinmore in Washington
Published: June 23 2005 20:38 | Last updated: June 24 2005 00:21

Won't even bother with a link, the usual story. The Bush Administration will roll out a new, yet more unrealistic round of useless and self deceiving happy talk that will dupe the gullible and the Pre Fooled for a bit, while doing nothing of substance. Same story since 2003.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 06:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

France, never missing an occasion to apply the lessons of the early 20th century

France bets all on picking winners
By Peggy Hollinger
Published: June 23 2005 18:45 | Last updated: June 23 2005 18:45
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/ee034f20-e40c-11d9-a754-00000e2511c8.html

Perhaps I am being too harsh, but my frustration with the Hexagone's silly economic policies continues.

While most other countries have let market forces decide where skills and expertise lie, the French state is taking the initiative by asking the regions to compete for the accolade. More surprisingly in a country where governments have traditionally provided strong support for lagging regions, the policy appears to divert more resources towards those that can already show clear advantages.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 05:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

In other matters

I have, I am afraid, polluted Zenpundit's generally genteel space here: http://zenpundit.blogspot.com/2005/06/semi-strong-for-democracy-odd-sort-of.html as a contemptible moron irritated me with idiotic comments on the Ikhouane and other drooling ideologue glurge.

I should say I rather was in accord with Zen's realism and overall thinking. In short, reality is that the nice namby pamby liberals (in the classic sense or even in the American sense) are not the real opposition in any of the MENA countries, and if one wants to avoid Iran II, one should work with reality, not wishful thinking. Neutering the Ikhouane? I dunno about neutering as he puts it, but I have known enough real live Ikhouane to be of the firm conviction that a majority among them can be peeled away from al-Qaedah type nihilism into a more realistic engagement with the world - if they think they really get to play in the game. Total exclusion merely means that al-Qaedah sounds right. So there you are. Deal with reality or play wishful thinking and imagine some fantasy world of liberal center-right oppositions magically with real support magically appearing. They are not.

A further thought, on Rice's comments about not talking to the Ikhouane. If it's real policy it's stupid, short sighted wishful thinking as policy. If it's "No way are we going to admit such but of course in back channels because we are rational realists that understand the world is what it is, and not what we wish it were, we are going to build relationships - but of course we can't say this in public because the Know Nothing Morons, the Cry Bloody Murder Left Perfectionists Against Any Reasonable Progress and other assorted fools will whinge on and blow up the game" - well then I say, good move.

Finally, I was asked recently in comments if it continues to get harder to do business as part of an American firm and all that. I've given this some thought and have to say frankly more immediate issues for me overwhelm my ability to tease out current evolution. And I personally am too 'native' (as well as, ahem, roguishly charming or other such nonsense) to get this.

I do note this Pew Global survey that strikes me as about right: http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=247
Seems to me the United States is indeed on a sort of side crawl trend. I also note that the clear collapse in positive image in the past four years should be considered a real issue. International policy and positioning should never be a mere popularity play, but on the other hand, such a deep collapse of image is a real danger "to the brand" as we say. The United States would be well served to stop indulging in self serving Know Nothing self pandering and look to taking more effective action to boost its image among reasonable audiences. I note as I have in the past that I have heard and continue to hear normally quite pro American, indeed liberal (again in the international sense) business types increasingly anti-American sentiment. This is your core audience overseas. If you're losing these kind of people, something is going wrong, and should not be dismissed as reflexive Lefty anti-Americanism (which of course is a congenital disease about which one can do little other than mock them).

However, I remain certain that the Know Nothing types that have taken over the American Right will continue to celebrate own goals as actual scoring against the other team. Their equally congenital confusion and stupidity merely serves to illustrate that moronic ideological posturing is not merely for the Left.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 01:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Al Jazeerah - Durbin-Rice etc.

The Father of Ardvaarks opined and asked a question here regarding broadcasts re this Durbin issue:
http://abuaardvark.typepad.com/abuaardvark/2005/06/aljazeera_broad.html

I am not bothering to opine on what is largely a US domestic political spat of little interest to me (other than confirming the Know Nothing Ignoramuses continue to sputter on about al-Jazeerah), however since I (i) live in the region, (ii) am a regular al-Arabiyah and al-Jazeerah watcher (broadcasts) let me lend a hand since he seems to be getting much negative commentary.

I can attest that I do not recall hearing anything about Durbin on al-Arabiyah or al-Jazeerah during the time period in question. While of course I do not watch either constantly, I should say that I consume enough that had it been a featured item of great impact I probably should have seen it. Thus, while the remarks may have been broadcast (and so what), they were not high profile. Rice's visit etc was rather more so.

There you go. This of course is irrelevant to the ideological squeeling between the two sets of partisans on the other side of the Atlantic, but what can one say?

Posted by The Lounsbury at 10:34 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Oprah Affaire

I just read about this in the Washington Post. My only comment is these bloody people whinging on in the States have simply never dealt with French stores before. Closing hours are holy.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 09:53 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 23, 2005

Labor laws and the like

A brief moment before I fuck off.

I really have to find the time to comment on an utterly amusing article in the local finance journal about the "Controversy" regarding the new minimum wage and the like here. It is a textbook example of how not to do economic policy. In its simplest form, and most amusing form, no one can figure out exactely what the minimum should be. Sound strange? Well, yes, but recall we're under Code Civil here, and better, we look to France for utterly cockamamie ideas on how to do economic policy. So, what one does to boost (a small chortle is due here) living standards is pass two laws, one mandating (this is the first one) the minimum wage rise 10 percent. The other mandating the work week be reduced 20 percent, and further that "no reducation in compensation is legal" with this reduction in work hours. Then you leave it to the benighted morons in the "Labor Movement" (aka rent seeking corrupt scum) to "protect" the "social solidarity movement" (aka try to impose the highest costs possible so you can skim off more dues) to concoct a "reading" of the law that would have the minimum wage rise above the ten percent rise, because clearly if the work week is reduced and people are being paid less because they're working less hours, then this is an implied reduction in salary.

Protecting workers rights and all that.

Solidarity, Reg

(ten local centimes to those who get my signature line on these issues)

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Random Media Observations in the Maghreb

First, taking a break from amassing data and fiddling around with what I know to be an utterly doomed project as we flail about (well my local Director) in the desperate death throes of a firm that has just realized it has slit its own throat and somehow believes running around desperately squeeling like a piglet is an appropriate action. _{(The throat slitting being derived from a disastrous meeting with a Really Big Decision Maker - thank god I was not there - in which said RBDM decided he wants to crush us like bugs. As the RBDM is simply an influential person here, this is an indirect rather than a direct thing, but me fine local BSD had a meeting that was so bad with RBDM that an outside attendee said he told his intern -there taking notes- that it was a classic example of what never to do in meetings with RBDMs. Hey, I say, at least we're setting standards. Negative standards, but standards never the less)}

Second, I am bemused by the latest intra-Maghrebine spat - they arise quite regularly as while the Arab Maghreb is a brotherly union, sadly the familial relations are on par of those of family expelled from public housing for bad benaviour, and 'brotherly cooperation' may be translated into "ludicrously self defeating back stabbing while one piously postures about one's familial feelings for one's much hated cousins, etc. and one proudly blames all failures of family cooperation on the nefarious idiocy of everyone else in the family, as well as the odd outsiders who must be leading one's simple minded relations into error. France and US of A being convenient."

As usual this is about the Western Sahara, and the childish idiocy about that wasteland of flat stone desert whose only vague interest is a fuck load of phosphate deposits (well one has to grant the off shore fishing and the mirage of the off shore oil). The Algerians are still trying to fuck with the Moroccans, the Moroccans the inverse. It's really quite pointless.

Now, I add, in advance, that I entirely support Moroccan rule over the Western Sahara - but sadly for merely pragmatic grounds (although I confess I find the Moroccan pretensions to historical rule over the territory about as convincing as anyone else's, and the whole idiocy of little colonial confettis having a real existance [see Eritrea] strikes me as absurd posturing by corrupt elites with power on the mind).

Pragmatic grounds may be simply stated as the following, regardless of legitimacy of claims, one has to look at the reality.

The reality is that Western Sahara is a fucking wasteland. It's largely not even interesting desert. It's just bloody desert. Now, this little chunk of desert has a few choices, which may be broken down into the primary binary of (a) Impoverished and impossibly corrupt pseudo independent client state, or (b) Impoverished, potentially not so corrupt part of some other state.

Taking (a) as the prime case, what do you have? You've got Western Sahara as the corrupt client of Algeria (although the corrupt elite would likely play with the Moroccans as well). Probably subventions from the Algerian Vampire State would keep the elite in Laayoune (al Ayoune) alive and well. Saharouine would still have to migrate north for work, but would need passports for either Morocco or Algeria. Another corrupt little colonial remnant as state.

Taking (b) as the prime case, we get it as either part of Morocco or Mauretania or Algeria. At least being part of a bigger state gives more work opps, in theory at least, for the pop, and potentially a better chance of attracting investment. Now, of the three neighbors, who would you choose?

Me, I'd go with Morocco. Morocco ain't a paradise, but bloody hell, at least it's not Mauretania which is a nasty waste of real estate that should itself have been part of something else. Algeria? Well, let's say that being part of Algeria seems about as intelligent as joining up with Iraq. Ongoing civil conflict, vampiric elite self-funding through a corrupt hydrocarbon export lifeline..... Morocco has at least the signs of developing towards reasonable normality. Better deal overall.

Now, sadly, this probably means more Moroccan affirmative action for the backwards ass tribals from the Sahara, where they can be .... say put at the head of an employers assocation and then say incredibly stupid things. Not that Sahraouine are congenitally dumb people, it's quite simply that all that hot black rock tends to addle the brain.

This aside, this latest spat has generated a lot of heated press on the Sahara and the like. I have to say that while the Moroccan press on domestic issues ex-Sahara is getting to be pretty good, why sometimes even really genuinely informative, when we get back on the Saharan issue we rewind writing and so forth habits 50 years. Pure wooden and really dumb propaganda. Stunningly clumsy. Sadly, and oddly, a lot of locals lap it up. Sahara is more or less genuinely popular as in issue (it's ours!!! woohoo, some more fucking sand and idiots on camels. Who we tell dumb polack style jokes about (with some merit it has to be said)).

It is disappointing to see a press that is getting okay in terms of critical coverage, utterly regress on for. policy issues - even more disappointing is the sensation that the regression is not from actual censorship but pure lack of critical thinking and an excess of nationalistic zeal.

One the other hand, being anti-Algerian government is so very easy.

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Feedback

I continue to be rather busy, but a request to the readers:

Visit this site and tell me what you think: www.empea.net (Emerging Markets Private Equity Assoc.)

I note for the sake of full disclosure that I know most of the people behind this. Wanted to see what readers thought.

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June 22, 2005

I should write about the labor law

However, I am far too fascinated by the local scandal regarding a Belgian run porno ring. It's gotten so big even the business press is reporting on it.

At least it gives me the opportunity to use the line, "Well at least I am no Belgian." To much local amusement. However a bit of an ugly side to this, beside the abuse of the girls involved by the Belgian scum, going to give the Islamists ammunition.

Otherwise, interesting convo I had at another biz din about the comments of a certain Nadia Yassine about M6 and the monarchy. Although the locals were all of the quite liberal bent (libertarian if you will) not one defended her.

Added thought. Although the attendees were all liberals, business people, and largely pro American, the level of anger expressed in re Iraq was something that took me aback. I don't talk much about it myself, indeed it's not much of a subject, but since we had an American at the table (a real one in from the US of A, not a highly suspect Arabic speaking expat that no one trusts) they went to town. Disturbing.

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June 21, 2005

Roguish Charm?

Among the things I learned from a business dinner last night was that I have, and I quote, "a certain roguish charm." This was both surprising and a bit aback taking. Being paranoid, I believe there is something behind this statement.

That aside, dined with the Conference organizer, afraid I may have been too colorful in denouncing the local American chamber of commerce as a bunch of bumbling if well meaning imbeciles with no connexions, even if true. Very weak bunch.

However, among the issues that semi-amused me was the horror of the conference organisers to learn that even among the business elite here, not everyone has a credit card, and further to that, they can't bloody well use it for online payments because such is not authorised here, never mind getting access to dollars required is also a pain as there's not free convertability.

Bloody hell, it wasn't so long ago such things were a pain and difficult in the US of A, you gits. Don't expect the developing world is right behind on these things, and bloody well think about alternative facilities!

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June 20, 2005

Rotted.

It appears my mum has gone and had a bloody heart attack. This is damned inconvenient and moderately upsetting. Hopefully merely a spell or too much of one of her drugs, else I am going to have to fly back, the idea of which repels me. Wonder if I can get away with flowers?

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Various: Market Frenzy, Dumb Entrepeneurs and Ministers, Iraq

Afraid continue to be rather engaged. Limited time overall, but a few random obs.
(i) Bit of a frenzy in the market here, rumour has it we're going to see a repegging soon. I think they're 25 percent wrong. Not 'soon' but soon. Happen to know the central bankers who are doing the modeling. Very likely to happen. Timing in one year horizon or so is my guess. Sadly my central bankers don't drink, so I can only guess based on their work load.

Else, I am sitting pretty in terms of the currency moves. Quite content about that, although it was mere dumb luck. Of course, on short term currency moves, dumb luck has a lot to do with it. Thankfully for my current consumption pressures, Euro continues to flounder as the EU helpfully provides me with support via its bumbling budget negotiations. I say, "Keep it up mates, keep it up for another two months." That should get me through my distressingly large expenditures on furnishing my house, etc. Bloody expensive. Thank god for the Euro melt down, I would truly be climbing the walls otherwise - now I am almost sanguine in the face of these ridiculous expenditures despite the great liklihood I shall be a free agent come year end. Normally I would be hoarding cash, of course. Women. Bloody women.

(ii) The latest consumption stats were published. Two thoughts there. One, they date to 2000. Really now kiddies, five fucking years to publish your bloody stats? 2 years, okay. Five is absurd. Other than that, they do bring home for me that I easily spend more on a dinner out than the average country dweller spends on his family in a month. It's a sobering thought.

This region needs growth, growth and growth.

(iii) Writing (for free, my heart is so big. Well not really.) a due diligence memo on someone's potential investment in the region. Interesting to do. Spoke with the entrepreneur in whose project the mates are thinking of putting money in. Some thoughts come to mind on this:
(a) When someone "close" to the people thinking of putting money into your project (which is quite simply teetering on the brink of insolvency due to your personal poor cash management) raises questions about your expansion plans (and in particular in terms of priority), don't snub said person with
(b) Vision is great. Profitability is even better. Guess which one means you survive another year.
(c) When you're a foreigner and an entrepreneur in someone else's country, do not, and I repeat this, do not speak badly of and disparage the business sense the newly appointed Minister of the sector in which you are working. This all the more so if said Minister is otherwise (1) widely well regarded for his work since appointment among the locals, (2) from the financial sector (private) and very, very well connected, (3) among the people who turned you down for financing, with the wise advise that you should have an experienced partner. This makes you, not the Minister look bad, raises questions as to your judgement, and frankly is utterly daft as regardless of your foreigness, you can be crushed.
(d) Bad mouthing your key financier, the guys who injected the equity that made your project, is quite dumb. It's more than dumb, it represents a total failure of business sense. Literally no one else was going to roll the dice, so shut the fuck up and at least give them the courtesy of a listen. I know these mates, they may not be better than sliced bread, but given what I see of your skills, you bloody well should reflect on what they're telling you.
(e) Get a financial manager, don't be "surprised" when certain bank payments come due.
[added]
(f) Do not whinge on about business in the region being about connexions and who you know. First, you're in the motherfucking Middle East, get fucking used to it. Second, business everywhere is about connexions and who you know to some degree, and frankly your habit of complaining about everyone to everyone is the issue that is causing you local market problems, you whinging git. In other words, it's more you than them.

All in all, a good project run by someone with more "vision" than realism. If they want to grow this, they have to squeeze out the "visionary" into a "vision" role and get a real manager.

ADDED (or rather restored the accidental deletion)
(iv) Iraq. Odd the mood swings I read on this. Now its all pessimism again. I was amused by the silly optimism that sprang up after elections, and then again in the Spring. It should be fairly obvious this is entirely fucked - I suppose the True Believers among the Know Nothing wing of the right have to dupe themselves (I was reading the Belgravian Dispatch and comments on one of the posts there which included (or was it the link, no matter) idiotic whinging wishful thinking about both Iraq and Vietnam. Bloody morons. Bloody simple minded self decieving unrealistic drooling morons. I suppose this is what Tallyrand meant when he said "And about all, not too much zeal."). Otherwise, I have not much to say about Iraq that I did not say in the last round, it's already in the Logic of Lebanon, no way out until the sides beat the crap out of each other and get sick of it.

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June 15, 2005

Closing

As I am clearly more peppy today, some closing thoughts before I fuck off to celebrate my little docy that just may rescue this utterly fucked operation from our latest blunder. For a bit of time. Not much.

First, I read on the FT news ticker that despite the hysterical bleating of the theocratic lunatics that have taken over the US Republican Party, that bloody human veg Terry Schiavo was in fact quite brain dead. I am intensely pleased, being happy when these God Bothering illiterates get a stick in their eye.

Second, I note that my evil credit card company is now charging me a surcharge on foreign currency transactions. Since all I ever do are foreign currency transactions, I am deeply displeased. However, it does allow me to track my expenditures and categorize them deliciously. I am wondering if it's disturbing that after 'cutting back' of late, I still spend USD 1000 a month on alcohol. Allowing for the surcharge and all that, I still am transfering goodly sums to Cuba. I like that, since I hope that we can preserve at least one basket case tropical socialist paradise for cheap vacationing in the world. Of course Americans can't visit it, which makes me far more altruistic than is my nature, but what can I say? I am contributing to the betterment of my Canadian friends. Filthy snow birds.

Third, I was pondering what happens if the plug is really pulled in November. I expect it will be, or sometime afterwards if there is a trickle of a budget. Even if I am absolutely brilliant in executing a few more little operations here and there (and let me congratulate myself again for last week. Even the Big Fucking Fat Idiot who hates me as much as I hate him sent a congrat email and which will likely provoke my direct boss into yet more annoying behaviour), we're basically fucked. I probably, given another few people in NY (like the little rats that they are) resigned (Cowards I say!) will get 'invited' back to NY. Bloody cowards should stay on board. Sorry about that, back to the vaque point, such as it was. Yes, back to New York. I would have to resign as (i) I have no interest in going back to New York, (ii) I am bored by the US, (iii) my alcohol bill would clearly escalate to bankrupting portions, and it would no longer have the delicious thrill of subsidizing a basket case communist dictotorship for the betterment of sex tourists from Europe and Canada, (iv) I'm still bored with New York, (v) since 11 Sep 01 the bleating on about terrorism in the US annoys me - and yes my dears, I understand it, I was there after all, (vi) I would no longer have a maid, (vii) no more late night drunken exchanges in a strange mixture of European and Arabic dialects. On the other hand, I might get my bonus, which I am entirely sure I will get screwed out of otherwise.

Fourth, wondering about becoming all entreprenurial and trying to start my own business. This would require far less alcohol consumption, which is a minus on one hand, a plus on another. It would also require real capital. Given certain past issues which require me to transfer capital to the United States to pay for the error of my ways and the like, this is a bit of a binding constraint. I suppose I could dupe someone.

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Here and Back Again

Here and Back Again

Well, quite a week. Looks like despite closing a great little deal, we’ve gone and shot ourselves in the head. Pity that, no surprise there, although I suppose one has to press on. Although it is tempting to go into the bloody details, afraid there is no way to do so. Pity it would be amusing in a sort of amusing manner.

Looking to rescue something from this fiasco of an effort (not the deal, it was great – although probably a wasted effort now ) I took one of the participants down south on a bit of a mini-vac to rap about potential for joining his firm. Looks like there is potential if they go ahead with regional expansion, which they are seriously considering.

Leaving aside the various travails of my bizarre obsession with sticking in the Middle East and making a career out of dissolute expatism, the trip was amusing on many levels.

First, my investor / potential future employer was amusingly enthusiastic about everything. Of course he was always thinking FTA angles and export business, but he also had that naïve and almost boyish enthusiasm that was at once charming and annoying. As well as a bit dangerous. Now, since my job on this trip was to (i) solidify his impression that I am the guy to get on board if he goes with a regional expansion, and (ii) be charming, I had to hold back on biting comments. He’s also a great guy who I would love to work for if and when they make the jump into these markets, so biting the naively enthusiastic hand that might feed one would be really stupid

This being said, let me share some items that at once amused and annoyed me (although on balance we had a great time and it was a pleasurable business-pleasure outing):

(I) Do not talk to every random person who says hi or looks friendly. This is not Kansas (Or Connecticut). The drunk fellow with poor teeth may seem entertaining, but at midnight with our driver a bit lost, I am not personally in the mood to get harangued about the evils of Israel (why Israel? Who the bloody fuck knows. Drunkards are like that), it’s a portion of Arabic I am well practiced in and no longer amuses me. Besides, when the drunk guy kisses me, it’s vaguely disgusting. Only our total isolation and the need to get you back into the car saved me from being stupid. I also do not find getting kissed at midnight by drunkards who smell bad to be amusing, although investor and our female friend were amused. Grin and bear it for posterity though.

(II) As a general matter, either in casual or business conversation, it is probably helpful not to assume that the entire developing world is as wired as yourself. Nor that the latest, coolest media-internet trend is well known here. Nor does asking “Do you know about X” sound good on the third round. It helps you’re a genuinely charming and ebullient sort, but it does give a sensation of something between cluelessness and condescation. Now I personally know you’re sharp, and it is enthusiasm talking, but context and all that. I might add that it’s a bit odd to be asking locals if they are getting their music off of i-pod when you’re in a country with serious capital controls and where less than 1 percent even have credit cards or similar facilities, let alone the ability to undertake international transactions. E-commerce may be getting hip again, but quite frankly, in these markets, it’s a good decade away for all but the most wealthy and advanced. It’s further just bizarre to ask this question (do you learn about your music from i-tunes) of a simple small music shop owner in the medina. Worse yet, asking me to translate it. As if i-tunes even has Maghrebine music on it.

(III) Please do not tip taxi drivers and the like with large bills. I know that a 100 tip is nothing to you, but that 100 is like 100 USD to… well an American taxi driver. Okay, you’re loaded and don’t mind spending money like this when you’re in a good mood (and I am glad to hear the praise about my skills in all that), but bloody hell it sets up the whole foreigners are rich suckers thing. Then I have to get into shoving matches with taxi drivers because it annoys me to pay over the meter. The same goes for shops. This sort of behaviour raises me costs. I don’t like it.

(IV) Please don’t bloody take photos like a wild Japanese tourist. Also don’t ask me to ask people about this. I find it vaguely embarrassing. Also when the guys tell me no, don’t look insulted. Still, one has to admit, enthusiasm is a good thing, and I almost felt like I should find some new enthusiasm for something other than Cuban products.

All this being said, a fine effort this was. Hopefully I can play this, good guy to work for and I like the start up environment.

We shall see. After all, I have developed a record in the past year of being able to kill companies merely by talking to them (w/o even the dubious excuse of actually having done something to contribute). Really quite amazing.

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Media in the Maghreb: Study (for the Aardvarks, etc)

Of interest, a small study or rather resume of the same that I got my hands on. No, it's not online, but here is a resume. The data is from Sigma Conseil, a regional consulting firm.

The study was completed in april 2005 for the Arab Maghreb.

National TV stations in the Maghreb are doing reasonably well in audience terms. Tunisia and Algeria achieved daily audience levels of roughly 50 percent (of total viewership), while the quasi private 2M in Morocco hit 46 percent, against 21 percent for the prime state channel.

Arabsats did not score as well as might have been expected, but had significant share, although in Algeria the French channels were stronger, e.g. 22 percent for TF1, 16 percent for M6 (whereas the French channels had low single digits in Morocco and Tunisia).

al Jazeerah registered strong viewership, with a 10 percent rough score in Tunisia and Morocco. LBC (aka LebSlut Broadcasting Channel) held a decent 15 percent in Tunisia, 9 percent in Morocco. Egyptian channels lost major share position, with clear falling popularity.

When I get a chance I will try to get the full report.

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Iraq: The Lebanon Scenario bis

I long while back I opined that Iraq had entered into a "Lebanese logic" or perhaps more plainly, into the logic of civil war. I've stayed away from Iraqi things of late as I had not much to add beyond that.

Now an interesting report out of The Washington Post simply leads me to underline my earlier analysis (which I shall not try to link to because livejournal has such a shitty search function I never bloody find anything) that there was and is no way out of Iraq going through a bloody civil war.

But aside, the article and some links:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/14/AR2005061401828_pf.html
(If this is not a classic of ethnic civil war, I don't know what is)

Drezner
http://www.danieldrezner.com/archives/002118.html

and then in Fist Full of Euros
http://fistfulofeuros.net/archives/001546.php

Now, I reproduce my comment I made there:

I am afraid gentlemen that you're reading this wrong.

First, Edward is wrong on "sustainable" Iraqi nationalism. Arab Shias and Sunnis both have shared and continue to share a common Arab centered nationalism - except of course in re who should be in charge. Iraq itself is not in play in the intra-Arab game, it's who controls Iraq. The only ethnic group in Iraq that actively puts Iraq as an entity in play is the Kurds (the largely Shia Turcomans being too small have not opted for seperatism).

The scenario is not then an imminent break up of Iraq but civil war pure and simple, with four zones. (i) Kurdistan in the north, with a long fractured frontier; (ii) Baghdad central, multi-ethnic and ending up like Beruit, a killing zone, (iii) Sunni majority West-Central, homeland of the Sunni jihadis and others; (iv) the south starting some 60-100 k south of Baghdad down to Umm al-Qasr, safely majority Shia but subject to intra-Shia conflict.

The Iraqi Arabs are not going to accept de jure seperation, de facto may come from civil war.

End comment

I might expand to say I as I have in the past that what I foresee is something along the lines of the Lebanese civil war. The multi-ethnic disputed center disolving into mayhem, the "ethnic cores" becoming somewhat violent but largely stable "safe areas" for each group.

From my own perspective, doing some side consulting (very tangential) for some .... "frontier investors" who are running a fund in Iraq (and well, yes gents you can make money, to the tune of a 75 percent IRR, with ~100 m USD up - I don't ask too many questions though), it strikes me that you could see Kurdistan and the Shia south becoming de facto relatively stable states which might even get investment of this 'frontier' type. The center, Baghdad, will be like Beruit in the late 70s and early 80s though.

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Further thoughts.

Still fire fighting. Will explain about this eventually. In all his wisdom the Captain decided to turn the ship right head on into the iceberg. I suppose in the end we're sunk anyway, but I would have preferred not to have it be in a smash up. Working diligently to make sure my slimey self gets out with my usual rose odor.

Otherwise, some interesting reflexions on development to share I hope when I get some time. Meanwhile, for those who are interested in such things, the US is sponsoring a major investment conference in Marrekech this fall: http://www.opic.gov/PressReleases/2005/5-26.htm

Not new news, but given new info on local side attendance that I've had, I do encourage the serious among you to look into this. I may or may not attend given other issues. BTW, do not call up those numbers asking about me. (i) I will hear about it, (ii) it will blow my cool, (iii) I shall be very cross.

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Snow, Snow, Snow.

Snow hits out at EU antipathy to business
By Tobias Buck and George Parker in Brussels
Published: June 14 2005 22:09 | Last updated: June 15 2005 00:04
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/8cefecea-dd02-11d9-b590-00000e2511c8.html

While I am sympathetic to his attack on the modish new fad among the French in re attacking "ultraliberalism" (i.e. proper free market economics that may undermine the French elite), what the bloody fuck was the point of this? No US official preaching in Bruxelles is going to change minds. Quite the opposite really.

This was.... really pointless and counterproductive. And dumb. Yes, sometimes telling the truth is dumb, but there it is.

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June 13, 2005

Alive not dead

Problems to be dealth with, however. Big fuck up.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 10:22 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 09, 2005

Bangingly bad

Developments that is. Have to firefight, largely fucked.

BTW, for Pratike - Liberals, Saad Zaghloul, not Said. Creepy tomb that, I may add.

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June 08, 2005

Chilling

Speaking with my two wise men last night over dinner, we started talking Hedge Funds and Madness. Happens one of them was just doing some stuff with JP Morgan on credit derivatives. Mentioned he JP has net (again) net expore around 900 billion on this. We had a somewhat chilling conversation about the implied counterparty risk given what is likely to be an inevitable hedge fund crisis in the future.

Of course my wise man has been through the Peso crisis, etc. etc. so....

(Very amusing stories he recounted I may add about a trader he knew on that who got caught on the wrong end and decided, I quote "to go out all guns blazing since he was fucked anyway."

[added note]

Well it looks like game over. Note from central, rude bastards, no commitments beyond November. More later. I am pissed off, slimey scumbags.

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June 05, 2005

Practical Comments on World Bank MENA Development, Part II

Continuing on, due to the bloody annoying limits livejournal placed (and hopefully purged of the fucked coding):

Jumping ahead to the subject near and dear to my heart, “Improving the Investment Climate for Private Sector Development”

Let me quote the key observation that makes me prefer a focus on cleaning up regulation and reducing the vampire state’s grasp in the region (behind the reduction of tariffs):
“While a number of countries in the region have low tariffs, recent research suggests that openness to trade tends to have little impact on growth in economies that are excessively regulated. The impact of tariff liberalization will be constrained if the regulatory environment dissuades investment.”

Well, all I can see is that it is about bloody time the point was made. Assumptions, my dears, assumptions. In short, reactivity. Not, however, just a matter of regulation (i.e. governmental action), but also entrenched habits – the non-tariffs barriers are created

Now further:

“The formal private sector remains underdeveloped in MENA, still emerging from the culture of decades of state-led growth and industrialization. On average, the private sector accounts for less than 50 percent of GDP in the region. Private sector activity is concentrated in a small number of large firms that have benefited from protective policies, along with a number of microenterprises that account for much of employment but have little access to formal finance, markets, or government support programs.”

Emphasis added

The underlined section is particularly important to understand. Even in the private sector, the effect of the Great Families with the competition strangling cross holdings is particularly pernicious. Further, I note that in my experience, the US and European efforts to reach the small players are almost invariably co-opted by the clever families that set up fake “small-medium sized enterprises” to capture aid, and succeed because the development agencies have a penchant for dealing with “entrepreneurs” that speak English or French well, automatically excluding of course the real ‘new players.’

Here again, this is tied to regulation that while ostensibly aimed at “protection” does nothing really of the sort. Well, does nothing of the sort in the sense meant, it usually does a fine job of protecting a clique of those who capture the rents – the old club and the occasional entrant. It then operates to exclude new entrants, entrepreneurs.

Let me jump forward to page 56:

“While there are large differences in the levels of national regulation, the region as a whole suffers from overly complex, time consuming, and costly business regulations and licensing requirements, impeding the entry of more private sector businesses. These costs to businesses especially deter the development of the small business sector, which cannot afford to hire intermediaries to deal with the complexity of administrative procedures.”

Precisely what I was getting at above – regulation that serves no purpose but to protect established interests, all covered up in nice rhetoric about “social partners” and other typically French formulations of brilliant dishonesty sure to suck in the gullible illiterate anti-Globo left.

“Several areas of government regulation stand out as particularly burdensome for the region. The minimum capital required to start a business is exceedingly high in the MENA region, almost five times as high as the world average and well above any other region of the world (Figure 3.5). The minimum capital requirement is a measure of the amount that an entrepreneur needs to deposit in a bank account to obtain a company registration number. In Jordan , Saudi Arabia , Syria , and Yemen , this amount averages more than ten times the country’s average income per capita (with Syria requiring 50 times the average income per capita). Such high minimum capital requirements all but block entry into the business sector.”

I covered this in my earlier note on this document, but let me return to how completely insane and utterly useless (except of course to keep the club doors closed).

“These high costs are all the more burdensome considering the underdeveloped state of the banking and financial sectors. While the economies in the GCC, Jordan , and Lebanon have fairly sophisticated financial sectors, with high bank and non-bank financial sector development and generally good regulation and banking supervision, much of the region’s private sector still has limited access to market finance. Banks dominate the financial system, but in general they play a limited role in financial intermediation. Much of the banking sector remains primarily in government hands and is inextricably linked to state-owned enterprises (SOEs), subject to government intervention in its lending and credit allocation policies to SOEs. This intervention has led to a crowding out of the private sector where it is permitted to operate, especially in Algeria , Libya , Syria and Yemen . Lending remains predominantly short-term and trade-related, with relatively little being directed to either long-term investments or to households.”

I note that the state domination of the banking sector is not really true for Tunisia and the Maghreb, however while the private sector operates the banking sector, there is crowding out as both countries shift governmental debt issuance to the domestic market. Not the banks fault, however, good business to take deposits at zero interest and buy government paper at 5-11 percent. Beautiful spread.

I have ranted on here before about the issue of understanding of short and long term credits in the market – the issue of lending being primarily short term is in my opinion not simply a “development” or regulatory issue, but an issue of local risk tastes.

I also note household lending is expanding in Jordan and Morocco at a fairly rapid pace. Whether that is a ‘good’ thing I am not sure. Certainly I have the sense that it is largely consumptive and not productive (although allowance has to be made for small real estate acquisition and first time major white goods which certainly can be thought of as productive in the sense of boosting household efficiency).

Moving ahead to Section 3.4.2 “Developments in structural reform for private sector development” a few observations on their observations:

“Outside of the Gulf, two countries that have been especially successful in implementing business regulation reform are Morocco and Tunisia . As part of continuing industrial modernization efforts under the Mise à niveau program, new measures to create a more favorable investment climate and encourage private sector growth have yielded some strong results in both countries. By cutting the number of procedures for starting a business from 11 to 5, Morocco moved from the bottom half of economies worldwide to the top 10 percent between 2003 and 2004. Its privatization progress has been strong, with more than 40 companies wholly or partially privatized in the oil refining, road transport, telecommunications, and banking sectors. The largest of these is the privatization of Maroc Telecom. Morocco has made efficient use of public private contracts in several sectors, and it is continuing to liberalize, most recently in the audiovisual communications sector and air transport sectors. Liberalization in the former sector may reinforce the process of democratization, while the latter may stimulate tourism activities and help secure the target of attracting 10 million tourists by 2010. Other achievements include strengthening of property rights and the passage of a new Labor Code by the Moroccan Parliament in 2003, after years of discussion. Serious improvements in the business environment were also made in Tunisia , and recent developments include important reform in the legal framework for asset recovery and bankruptcy.”

Some precisions, on the improvements in Morocco , sadly too many are headline improvements whose execution is lacking. Above all in terms of process. In theory, e.g. there are 5 processes, in reality more due to “add ons” – certain operations in theory suppressed but Administration manages to reimpose. I also note the new Labor code is a complete mess and desperately needs revisions – too much copy paste from France with no realistic chance of working in Morocco (let alone in France where their labor code is strangling).

Regardless, the improvements are real enough, and if they could improve their factor costs – labor and energy – the economy might really see some opportunities to take off. Clearly expanded private power production and a more flexible labor code with provisions realistically applicable in country would both help immensely.

Moving to this:

“Elsewhere, however, progress in improving the business environment has been more uneven. Although Jordan has maintained steady progress with its privatization program (completing some 60 privatization transactions by mid-2004 and netting proceeds of $1,214 million), its overall progress in various areas of business regulatory reform has been mixed. It has managed to significantly reduce the time and procedures associated with starting a business, and it has reduced the regulation for firing workers, in both areas ranking above the 50^th percentile in terms of improving its worldwide standing. But it has failed to move forward in other areas of the business environment, including improving access to credit and contract enforcement, relative to worldwide progress.”

Here again I find the analysis too headline focused and too development idiocy. Access to credit? There is plenty of liquidity in Jordan , it’s less regulatory (although the interminable credit bureau tender letting process if ever finished will help) issues than private sector practices.

“Egypt’s structural reform program stalled between 2000 and 2003, and it has made little progress in improving the business environment to date. Recently, the reform momentum has regained strength, beginning in 2003 with the decision to float the pound. The announcement of deeper and more comprehensive reforms in 2004, including the long-waited reforms in the banking sector, is a welcome development.”

Well, I suppose it almost redundant for me to mention how deeply sceptical I remain in regards to Egyptian reforms reality. Potemkin village posturing in my opinion.

I note, for example in re the “float” of the pound the comedy of a step forward - two steps back that the Egyptians effected when they “floated” the pound and then imposed a series of non-transparent administrative controls to ration access to hard currency.

Typical Egyptian government scheming, rather similar to their operations at present in contesting the political opposition.

Moving on to page 60 I found myself annoyed with their discussion of access to finance by the private sector. Firstly because the strong regional variations make it hard to generalize, but largely because I am simply generally annoyed when I read development people’s writing about access to finance as I usually feel (perhaps incorrectly) they’re thinking in very non-market terms, and not about access to finance in business driven terms.

The following section focused on relative world progress versus MENA progress I found fundamentally uninteresting. A policy person’s discussion, I suppose interesting to those types but I saw little practical here.

Another item regarding measurement, playing off of an item on page 64:

“It is worth noting that in two-thirds of the MENA countries with labor force growth rates exceeding 3 percent a year (not including the GCC), the overall business environment is ranked below average, relative to the world (Algeria, Syria, Yemen, and Egypt

A few countries may offer some guidance to others in the region. Regarding procedures to start a business and contract enforcement, Morocco and Tunisia appear to have substantially more favorable conditions than the average for developing countries as a whole. This suggests that there is much that other countries in the region could learn from these two countries when reforming their own business rules and regulations.”

The first paragraph is a very, very important observation. Leave aside Yemen , who the fuck cares about shitty little Yemen . Problem is Algeria , Syria and Egypt . Big, important and potential disasters (well Egypt is a slow motion disaster already).

Now, in regards to the issue of measurement and characterization, I have to say that in my experience Morocco feels tougher than Jordan in terms of actually doing business. That might be because of the ‘wasta’ or connexions rather than general standards, but hard to know.

Indeed that raises an interesting issue regarding business culture. Gut feel on how easy it is to work may be more important than abstract measures that don’t capture experienced business.

I have no idea how to write about such, however there an intangible which World Bank reports can not capture: “East of Doing Business” in cultural terms or cultural practice.

I don’t mean some namby pamby sense, but how well real practices jell. Why do I ‘feel’ it is easier to strike a deal in the Sham rather than the Maghreb ? Although (i) by the data the environment is easier than the Machreq, (ii) culturally I personally like the Maghreb more than the Machreq and specifically more than the Sham. I note were it merely my personal idiosyncrasy in expressing this, I would merely put this down to my personal tastes and keep my mouth shut. However, I have heard similar opinions from both Arabs (Maghrebine and Machreqi) and Westerners.

Clearly then it is not merely my personal failing or tastes, even as I note the Maghreb is more welcoming on a social level than the Machreq. Frankly, this is a question for which I have no particular answer nor clearly thought through analysis. I have heard various explanations, some tying business practices to English influence in the East, or in the inverse French influence in the Maghreb (French practices being so notoriously rigid).

While I see some merit in that, I rather remain unconvinced the colonial influence is the determinant. Perhaps I shall one day figure out a way to writ something intelligent about this. For the moment I merely note this impressionistic observation and suggest that when economic policy papers are written they routinely miss something that the businessman on the scene senses.

The box on the next page, 65, is interesting, but I would suggest they would do better with research on actual execution. Nevertheless, the overview on Tunisia and Morocco (and I draw attention back to the media liberalization ongoing in Morocco where papers are actually – excluding the party papers – interesting to read and risk giving you actual information, all because of the fairly strong private presence) identify important issues with real importance for the private sector.

Finally, the final section, Enhancing Governance, some short observations. Certainly it is no surprise that by the index on administration quality MENA falls short even of its own income level peer group standards. “MENA countries have, individually and on average, lower levels of quality of administration in the public sector than would be expected for their incomes.”

Public accountability even by developing world standards is shit.

I however do not see this as something that will change by pushing political reform first. I’d rather see liberalization and a follow-up type of political development, as Morocco has been doing (and Jordan might if it were differently placed) and Tunisia certainly should start doing insofar as it is clear that the Ben Ali regime needs some sunlight thrown on it to head off certain developments.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 04:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Reflections on MENA Region WB Economic Developments and Prospects from a practical point of view

There, I think this is better

After spending Saturday recovering from my Friday excesses, a fine if somewhat cloudy weekend spent with issues related to my recent acquisition of real property – thankfully largely outsourced to its main motivator who was very fetchingly dressed for her oversight duties with the contractors making the changes desired. Rather boring details in my experience, move door here, etc. In any case, my inputs were fairly useless.

Luckily I managed to be so entirely useless I was able to escape to a nice fashionable café to work, and observe the new spring fashions the local chicas have opted for. Quite challenging, one has to confess to the concept of public morality, or even the typical stereotypes of the region.

Between sketching my comments I was happy to enjoy the clique of chicas who passed so many times, all wearing the eastern style head scarf (hijab) but also some very fashionable and form fitting mixture of the abaya and slinky pants, along with some quite interesting footwear. Rather dominatrix style.

More common though was the somewhat Leb Slut fashion that the world got to see in full splendour during the Lebanese “intefada” aka “Cedar Revolution” among the gullible nit wits who got all excited about ‘An Arab Spring’ based on an ignorant, superficial reading of events.

Of course one has to be marginally tolerant given the same commentators only a few months before imagined all the region to be like Afghanistan so the Leb Slut Protestors in the knee high leather boots naturally turned their heads. They did not have my receptionists over the past several years with the too tight and rather full shirts to teach them that not everyone wears a burqa here.

This aside, rather than solely wasting my day watching the young things go by in their barely appropriate outfits, I thought I might turn my attention to the World Bank report.

Following on my prior comment a kind of in depth commentary on the World Bank “2005 Economic Developments and Prospects: Oil Booms and Revenue Management” something of a commentary, by page and section, from the ‘practical’ point of view as someone ‘in the market’ – with the positives and the negatives that implies.

Some comments then, by section and page, which represent my reflections on reading this – I note from my sense of issues on the ground and not from the policy perspective that World Bank must take.
Starting with the “Overview” (pages v-xi), a few comments

First, one item to retain from the entire document is the fairly stark differences between the three groupings they propose – labor rich and non-oil producing, labor rich and oil exporters and finally the labor importing oil exporters in my terms – and the relatively conservative response to the recent boom in oil prices. In the key phrase from page vii:
“During the current boom, roughly 25 percent of the additional export revenue has been spent. This compares with nearly 60 percent during the 1973 boom.”

Rather substantial difference that, implying a large amount of capital available. As the report notes later, several of the governments are aggressively paying down debts, although there is a boost in government consumption, but more on that later.

A moment then to comment on WB’s “fundamental and interrelated realignments” for structural reforms
“(1) from closed to more open economies, to create more competitive industries, benefit from international best practice, and gain access to new technology; (2) from public sector dominated to private sector led economies, providing the basis for improved efficiency and expansion of employment; and (3) from oil dominated to more diversified economies, to reduce the region’s dependence on volatile sources of growth, maintain fiscal stability, and preserve important social expenditures. Achieving this realignment requires interrelated policy actions on several fronts, including improved governance, particularly with regard to strengthening inclusiveness and accountability, as well as enhancing the inclusion of female labor in the private sector to increase the flexibility of the labor force and make better use of the region’s talents.”

A brief comment on these generally inoffensive statements. I remain rather unmoved by the fashionable obsession with female participation in the labor force as a “key” aspect of development. That is not to say I am personally in opposition to women’s participation, indeed I often state that given my druthers, I would staff a firm entirely with women here – not for the Leb Slut Fashion angle, although that could be a side angle – but rather simply due to the fact that the women here work harder and better. (And I recall an amusing conversation I overhead in the elevator on my way up to my office one afternoon with one low level worker bee type telling another that women should be banned from work force because they work too hard –i.e. in the sense of being nudges– and make men look bad Same fellow asserted unemployment would fall if women were banned since more men would be hired to replace women) In that context, women’s participation is a good thing, and I am happy for it.

However, I regard the frequent assertions that women’s rate of participation is a “key” aspect of development. Certainly Europe managed to develop during its industrial age with legal and other restrictions against women not so different from those found in the modern MENA region, suggesting the faddish underpinnings of the assertions women are key. Faddishness is not per se a problem, my concern here is that making women’s participation a fetish one can easily waste effort tackling head on an issue likely better tackled obliquely.

Finally on this point, I can only but agree
“Although each area of structural reform is important in its own right, the lack of progress in governance reform, and in particular public sector accountability reform, is of concern because of what it implies for the success of a broader economic reform effort. International experience with structural reform suggests that where reforms have been successful, there have been strong coalitions for change. But the ability for coalitions to press for reforms depends on access to information to formulate choices, the ability to mobilize, and the ability to contest policies that are poor, all areas of governance in which the region ranks poorly worldwide and demonstrates limited progress.”

Emphasis added. In particular access to information is a bloody pain, and not only something that makes realizing investments, as well as proper business planning difficult, but also of course contesting poor policies. The relative flourishing of the press in Morocco – quite extraordinary as compared to the rest of the region – and in particular in my opinion important because of the attention being paid to the issue of private sector development, and economic policy – is both unusual (one need only follow the turgid idiocy that is published in Jordanian and Egyptian papers) and extremely valuable. Nevertheless, ridiculous secretiveness rather typical of the region characterizes governmental treatment of data. Absurdly, for example, a recent McKinsey study of the economy taken for the account of the government remains a state secret – largely because certain key actors feel their “pet” areas of activity were not properly treated. Inane response.

Nevertheless, it strikes me that the key area where outside actors might be able to assist in terms of information is not pressing on direct “political-political” issues such as “democracy” qua “democracy” and specific political actions, but rather push for information transparency. This is hard to appose, and if focused on technocratic issues, harder to spin. Not impossible of course, certainly one can look to how the French have invented a clever double language in opposing liberalization internal to the European market (to use a non-regional example) as ‘social dumping’ and another interesting phrase I heard while following the Euro Constitution debacle, fiscal dumping. Double language to politicize and put in question already decided principles.

But leaving aside my bashing of French politics, let me jump ahead to the chapter one on “Recent Economic Outcomes in MENA” and reflect first on table 1.1: “MENA growth performance (1990-2004). A good breakout of the differences within the region and a caution on the overview throughout the remainder of the document on the groups the document names “Resource Poor – Labor Abundant” (RPLA) and I called earlier “labor rich and non-oil producing” versus “Resource Rich Labor Rich” (RRLA) or what I would call “labor rich and oil exporting” versus finally “Resource Rich Labor Importing” (RRLI) or what I would call the labor importing oil exporters.
Taking a look at their RPLA group:
Egypt,
Jordan,
Morocco,
Tunisia,
Lebanon,
Djibouti
- I have to say adding in Djibouti is a bit nonsensical. Djibouti is… well a silly little enclave that really does not belong to the MENA region, far less than Sudan for example, which doesn’t even figure here. Leaving aside this small compliant the primary item I would like to highlight (and this will go for each group) there is one 800 lb gorilla that naturally skews the group.

Egypt, purely by the size of its economy and its population – combined with its status as ‘the bad student.’ Throughout the document the references to this group are skewed by the weight of Egypt. In general a coherent and comparable group except that Egypt’s specificities as an outlier and its enormous weight naturally skew observations.

Looking at RRLA:
Algeria,
Iran,
Syria, and
Yemen

My first thought is “ Yemen?”
Yemen? Well, okay. I guess. It is a net exporter, although just barely, and certainly on a per capita basis it is a bit of a stretch to think of Yemen as ‘resource rich’ (oil exporter makes more sense here).

Regardless of this carping, here at least the group weighting is more or less equal. Iran and Algeria strike me as comparable peers, in terms of large population oil / hydrocarbon product exporters. Of all the groups here the generalizations make the most sense.

Looking at RRLI: this is in essence the Gulf. The only problem here – the economies really do have pretty similar structures and this is the most coherent group – is that KSA skews things, being so much larger than the rest.
Now, this is not criticism per se of the WB report or its observations, merely contextual notation for considering the report’s “group” observations, i.e. that two countries in particular by the giant size relative to their peer group skew things. Taking a look for example at the group characterization on that same table, the RPLA numbers – population, labor force, GDP per active worker are largely Egypt. Of the population e.g. taking the 90-2000 average, Egypt makes up 70 percent of that figure.

Obviously that tends to make Egypt’s real problems the group’s problem, which while not unreasonable somewhat skews things.

The following page (5) also attracted my attention:
“Though oil exporters have been the drivers behind MENA’s growth acceleration, the pace of growth among resource poor labor abundant economies (RPLA) in the region has also improved, having benefited from a recovery in agriculture, stronger growth in worker remittances and tourism, and a modest fillip to intra-regional trade. While performance has been partially hampered by weakness in European export markets, growth among the RPLA economies climbed slightly averaging 4.1 percent a year over 2003-2004, up from an average 3.6 percent growth over 2000-2002.
Jordan has been a net economic beneficiary of developments in neighboring
Iraq. Increases in transit trade and the establishment of local reconstruction and diplomatic operational headquarters there have underpinned economic activity to a 5.5 percent gain during 2004. Lebanon, as well, which experienced depressed economic activity prior to the war in Iraq, saw a recovery in growth over 2004 to 3.8 percent. Egypt has enjoyed increased tourism revenues and Suez Canal transit fees, which among other factors served to raise growth by a full point to 4.3 percent in 2004. Morocco and Tunisia, linked more tightly to Europe through trade in textiles, other light manufactures and tourism, have been harder hit by sluggish economic conditions in that market, resulting in the waning GDP growth during 2004.”

Emphasis added.

In re worker remittances, a small problem with them, because of poor systems for directing savings or enabling entrepreneurial activities (business start ups), these go far too much for boosting consumption at the expense of investment, with a penchant for supporting imported consumption.

On Jordan: there is a very good case for Jordan, if it addresses the problems at Aqaba port and continues to invest in its transport infrastructure (and liberalizes an abusively clannish “union” of transporters – again a hint of what looks good on paper ‘a union to protect the interest of drivers’ in reality is abused by clannism and allows practices such as that of refrigeration truck drivers disconnecting the refrig unit to make a gain at the expense of the business hiring him, something one can not punish because of the union, one has to eat the losses in the name of ‘workers’ protections.), a very good business as entrepot for Iraq. The port at Aqaba and if developed with Syria transshipments to Lebanon, Amman can be a real logistics center.

In re Egypt’s performance: keep in mind the Suez canal fees. Nearly pure rents, those fees, insofar as little added value service is added. The boost from these fees is purely from external factors and has really fuck all to do with internal reforms in Egypt. Rents, the game of Mubarek.

“Despite the historically strong MENA regional growth, on a per capita basis, economic growth over the last two years lags the strong growth experienced in other developing regions, a reflection of both the firming of GDP growth rates across developing regions and the MENA region’s high population growth. A number of positive factors have driven a broad acceleration in per capita growth across developing country regions worldwide during the first half of the 2000s. A rise in south-south trade, the realization of gains from past advances in economic reforms, buoyant domestic and foreign investment activity, and a supportive external environment have all contributed to global economic gains for developing nations.”

First, on high population growth, keep in mind that the Maghreb has seen a near collapse in population growth rate to slightly above European levels – implying really that while in the near term they will see a demographic bulge adding young workers, in the medium term there will be a real platform. This is far less the case in the East, where growth rates remains very high – thus the MENA region “high population growth rate” which is really “the Mashreq’s” high rate. Egypt in particular is alarming. I like to cite the figure, roughly a million new Egyptians a year with all that implies.

On the intra-regional trade, here I would like to highlight one of the most annoying issues I have faced in the region, the frustrating degree to which clear win-win regional level cooperative projects are fucked over by myopic screw-my-neighbor-for-the-sheer-pleasure-of-it policies. That is, decisions that can’t even be justified by the bad excuse of corruption or narrow interest, but pure idiotic power plays.

The best example I have in mind is a project I had some small part several years ago, which throws into light such idiocy, in this case Moroccan-Algerian-Tunisian rivalries. First, on the context, here we have an economic unit (the Maghreb) that actually makes quite a bit of sense and could be extremely interesting as a field of investment for its own growth dynamic and also in relationship to Europe (especially if the EU can get its act together). Algeria
with its massive hydrocarbon potential, above all in relationship to newly developing natural gas facilities and swaths of its Sahara that have yet to be fully explored for nat gas deposits, is a clear potential industrial power house, and source of capital. Tunisia and Morocco excellent platforms for light industrial and services oriented development – in short near-outsourcing for Europe and the Algerian monster. Rivalry is understandable to be sure, but the petty cut-off-my-nose-to spite-my-neighbor is less so, or as a Moroccan compatriot in private equity said to me (in discussing a deal torpedoed by his own parent financial house), “We don’t have to look far to explain our under-development.”

Regardless, the deal in question which I had a tiny part in was a regional power development project for export on to Spain and Italy with generation based off of a massive generation facility co-located with a natural gas processing facility in Algeria. Really actually pretty decently conceived. And in the context of transiting to Spain via Morocco and the Gibralter narrows, excellent idea, entirely commercially viable. But no, no, no. Rather than going ahead with a plan eminently financable in the private sector and completely commercially viable, the Algerians decided to propose instead undersea direct lines from their site to Spain and Italy – undersea power cables hundreds of km long boosting the costs astronomically (not to mention seriously impacting efficiency, etc as I understood the engineers, although frankly I am not an electrical engineer to treat such issues). Sheer madness, utter and sheer madness. The sole excuse was the supposed political risk that the Moroccans and Tunisians might shut off the lines. In reality, it was all about fucking over the Moroccans and Tunisians. Really, the “political” risk there was clearly far less than internal political risk in Algeria (and remains the case).

A beautiful project, fucked for no better reason than the Algerian generals who run the show have a completely childish, rentier view of economics and are more interested in fucking with their neighbors than making a bigger pie for all. One might say that some of them might have been seeing option for nice fat envelopes off of the direct sea development, which is not excludable, but a big percentage of zero remains zero. Dead letter.

Anyone having done business can of course recount such stories – MENA is not Mars of course, however the degree to which short sighted idiocy continues to trump reasonable developments here is utterly maddening. Cooperation remains poorly developed, on a comparative basis.

The next section, 1.2.2 “Labor Market Developments” also has some particular interest.

First, the graph “Figure 1.2 Unemployment in MENA 2000 and 2004” bears some reflection.

[graph omitted]

Tunisia and Morocco look like decent performers here, in terms of growth per labor. Algeria ’s reduction in unemployment is largely state driven and probably not ‘real’ in sustainable terms

Egypt ’s unemployment rate strikes me as utterly khayali. I have zero faith in those numbers.

Moving on, page 7 has some interesting items. First, keep in mind this: “Region wide, more than 12 million jobs were created over the last four years12, a 37 percent increase over the average yearly job creation over the 1990s.”

Not bad, not bad. However, the next note is discouraging. “Despite this good news, the degree to which the current reduction in unemployment is permanent is questionable. A large number of temporary jobs have been created under Algeria ’s Economic Recovery Program. More generally, the region exhibits artificially high employment creation relative to the recent growth upturn (with the elasticity of employment growth with respect to output growth averaging almost 0.9, well above international averages for longer time horizons). Over a sustained period, this level of employment creation relative to growth is not likely. Though the employment/output relationship varies from country to country, the elevated pace of employment creation in the region, relative to its output growth, suggests that the strong unemployment decline has been achieved, for at least a few countries, only temporarily.”

Artificial boosting. Regardless, looking at “Figure 1.3: Employment Growth versus Output Growth” I note again our middle performers Morocco , Tunisia and Jordan are well within the reasonable and sustainable.

The next paragraph also needs some comment:

“Furthermore, based on the World Bank’s analysis of the employment situation in the MENA region in 2003, the number of new jobs that need to be created over the next 20 years to keep pace with labor force entrants and absorb the current unemployed implies real economic growth rates averaging 6 to 7 percent a year for a sustained period of time. In the last year alone, growth has moderated to 5.2 percent, suggesting that the fundamental problem facing the region in terms of job creation remains unchanged with the recent surge in growth.”

Emphasis added.

This is a real problem, however an item that somewhat moderates the starkness of the problem is that it is skewed a bit by the weight of KSA and Egypt, with very high population growth rates and anemic private sectors.

The following section, 1.2.3 Sources of Higher Growth is important. I have little direct comment, but will quote two items I consider important.

“The factors underpinning growth in the region have also changed substantially since the 1990s, with growth over the last two years fueled increasingly by government consumption and investment. Prior to the recent run-up in oil prices, during the 1990s, the MENA region found support for 3.6 percent annual GDP growth from a more balanced set of factors. Domestic demand accounted for 79 percent of growth, led by personal consumption spending, which was the key driving force for growth (providing 1.6 points of overall growth, or some 43 percent). Government spending and domestic investment together provided another 1.3 percentage points to overall growth (or 36 percent of overall growth), reflecting cyclical influences stemming from the oil markets, as well as domestic conditions. Net exports, meanwhile, accounted for about 21 percent of growth, contributing 0.8 percentage points to overall growth (Table 1.3). “

The breakout from the super-regional level does show that the big oil exporters are the main villains here.

Over the section on export growth, this is fairly clear, the only item to retain is the structural difference between the Maghreb, where all flows are essentially European oriented and driven, while those of Jordan and Egypt are as attached to the Gulf as not.

The chart and discussion on exchange rate (as well as the discussion of the Dutch disease issue) strike me as highly discussable, however without deciding to play economist and digging into data I merely note I have reservations which require profound analysis to do justice to.

Now, on page 13 I draw attention to this in re Egypt: “Particularly strong gains in Egypt were partly the result of the upturn in tourism receipts (up 19 percent since 2002), but also came from Suez Canal receipts (up 44 percent), which have soared with rising oil prices as it becomes a more cost-effective transit route for exporters than circumnavigating Africa.”

In my opinion Egyptian performance remains rent driven.

Skipping ahead, over the Capital Flows and Iraq sections to intra-regional ties, I note (page 23) the following (“This has greatly buffered the sharp declines in tourists from Europe, which fell nearly 10 percentage points, from 38 percent of total tourists into the region in 1999 to 29 percent in 2002, and from the US, from which arrivals fell from a far lower initial share of 3.7 percent of total tourists in 1999 to 2.5 percent in 2002.”) is a bit inexact insofar as arrivals for the Maghreb have performed well, this is true only for the Middle East.

Moving ahead, to page 38, I note an item of interest:

“This shift began in the 1980s and has continued through recent years. Also, beginning in the early 1990s, the expatriate labor force originating in the Levant, in Egypt, and to a degree, among the Maghreb countries, has given way to increased GCC importation of labor from South Asia and Southeast Asia. At present, the bulk of worker remittance receipts for the labor abundant countries in MENA now originate in Western Europe, where employment and wages have been stymied by a lack of economic growth over the last years.”

The shift to non-Arab origin labor of course was a strategic political choice, in essence the rentiers of the Gulf began to get worried that their fellow Arabs pan-Arabism might well imply that the princes and rentier families might come under pressure to share more of their rents, and stop treating their imported brethren like sub-human scum. Better then, for political purposes, to import Asians, either sub-Continentals or others, as the likelihood of believing they should be part of the club is/was lower. It’s worked fairly well, in a limited sense at least, although sadly the native population of the Gulf remains near useless spoiled idiots. On the next page there is some comment on the various programs to move more locals into private employment in the Gulf – as far as I understand (nota bene one has to count a bit of resentment here) from fellow Arabs, in general Khalijis – being largely hired for their nationality – operate at best at 50 percent of efficiency of their expatriate Arab confreres. Even taking into account the jealousy – resentment factor, I have to say that seems about right.

I note further, in relationship to this comment:

“Traditionally, oil rents have been used to consolidate the role of the state—they have enabled centralization and preservation of the state’s position. Now, at least notionally, all of the MENA oil exporters are in transition from large state-led economies to more private sector oriented economies in an effort to achieve greater efficiencies to improve economic welfare.”

Very notionally, in my opinion.

Next, some comments on Chapter 3: Structural Reform for Long-Term Growth.

A few key quotes:

“Although MENA economies have improved their market orientation, in general they have not kept pace with worldwide progress. Reform has tended to be piecemeal and lacking in coherence. In general, the MENA countries have made substantial progress on reducing tariffs on trade, but tariff barriers in many MENA countries remain amongst the highest in the world.”

“Despite the fact that the region ranks at the bottom in terms of public accountability and has the longest reform path to travel, virtually no country improved its worldwide rank in this area, and virtually every county showed a marked deterioration relative to the progress occurring worldwide.”

First, in terms of practical application, I am not particularly moved by the WB’s measure of relative movement. While I can see some utility in the concept in regards to having a sense of potential future progress, by my own gut I don’t find this particular measure convincing. I’d prefer they stick with the absolute comparisons, at least from the perspective of practical usage, although I suppose the political or policy user might find more utility, however dubious I regard their comparative – too much of the material noted is mere ‘headline reform’ (or sucker the Development Suckers reform) e.g. the Egyptian pound float, that doesn’t properly measure real implementation and thus for the practical investor or operator, doesn’t really reflect operation economic reality.

Moving ahead to the discussion of outward orientation, page 45 has interesting data to reflect on

“…the entire MENA region, with a population close to 320 million, has fewer non-oil exports than Finland or Hungary , countries with populations of 5 and 10 million respectively43. The per capita volume of exports of the resource poor countries in the region is small relative to that of other countries. In Egypt , exports amount to just over $100 per capita. Morocco exports are about $260 per person. This compares with exports of over $570 per capita in Turkey , $1200 in Poland and more than $3400 in Hungary . There remains tremendous opportunity for growth. But at the same time, the costs of inaction and falling further behind are likely to rise as countries such as China , Russia and Ukraine provide more intense competition in the narrow product areas in which MENA non-oil exports are concentrated.”

Stark numbers to be sure, but to retain from Figures 3.1: non-oil exports as a proportion of GDP 90-03

[graph omitted]

Only Morocco and Tunisia approach the average of lower and middle income economies. Jordan clearly has fallen behind – but one has to admit it’s not as if they’ve been well-positioned.

Jumping ahead to page 47

“Only a handful of diversified exporters, such as Jordan , Morocco and Tunisia , have developed non-oil export niches (with a high proportion of total exports in sectors with revealed comparative advantage, on par with the successful exporters in other regions). Oil exporters, by and large, have not found these alternative export niches, with non-oil exports scattered among product groups in which the economies do not demonstrate strong comparative advantage. A few exceptions exist, notably Bahrain and, to some extent, the UAE.

The region’s low level of integration is also reflected in the ratio of net FDI inflows to GDP (Figures 3.2a and b), which averages only a third of the average level achieved worldwide, this despite moderate increases over the last few years (noted in chapter 1). This weak exposure to foreign investment denies the region of potential efficiency gains from advanced management skills and technology.”

I note the aggregate data is a bit deceptive, as the FDI flows for Tunisia and Morocco again are right around those of East Asia and Latin American averages (my two little Maghrebine favorites emerge as interesting outliers throughout this story, don’t they?), although Lebanon and Jordan don’t do badly either. Qatar , I note, is boosted by one single project – the truly and incredibly massive RasGas natural gas project. I am fairly certain it would be right down with Kuwait otherwise. Not where Egypt is as well.

An important note to consider as well:

“Among them, protection remains high relative to countries elsewhere in the world. In addition, non-tariff barrier (NTB) coverage is still widespread. While the Gulf economies and Lebanon are relatively open, the majority of countries maintain protective import structures, primarily through tariffs. In addition, behind-the border constraints to trade are considerable. Transport, logistics, and communication costs are high, raising the cost of trade. Exchange rate management has also played a role in discouraging non-oil exports, with currency overvaluation hurting competitiveness. Finally, the overall business climate has played a role in hindering investment in potential export-oriented industries (discussed in section 3.4). “

Emphasis added:

I entirely agree, from an experienced environment point of view, the non-transparent non-tariff barriers, as well as what they term the behind the border constraints are deeply important. In particular the behind the border – poor transport and logistics infrastructure are particularly hurtful for the small start up operator and something that can have immense value add if administrative idiocies are removed and public investment directed to internal transport-logistics improvements. I place this, in personal opinion, well ahead of the tariffs issue if necessary.

You can lower tariffs to zero, but if you have brakes such as a broken port (e.g. my past comments regarding the utterly absurd practices at the local port here, all geared for the convenience of the clique of ‘workers’ in the formal section of the port services economy – leaving those in the informal entirely unprotected – solidarity Reg – and imposing disproportionate costs on the small would be exporter), that imposes crippling barriers on the new operator.

Returning a moment to the issue of implementation and real changes. (page 48) “Following the swearing in of a new cabinet in July 2004, Egypt reduced the number of tariff bands, annulled import fees and surcharges incompatible with the GATT, and instituted strong tariff rate cuts on most imports, resulting in a decline in average tariffs from 21 percent to 9.1 percent between 2000 and 2004.” I remain deeply cynical about how these changes will actually be implemented. As you have witnessed in the political sector, Mubarek’s government has a real flair for announcements that give with one hand, and implementation that takes back with the other.

Continued in part ii, bloody size restrictions.

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On Development Cuban Rhum Idiots Diplos and Recovery

(Updated to purge bad coding, added bonus, you get a pretence of customer service from me)

None of them terribly related, but what can I say? I have contempt for my own coherence.

That aside, I shall not be wearing a clown suit for the rest of my time in this country (an expression apparently amusing I add, but more on that later). Friday having been spent in hammering away at the backstabbing idiots at what damage they might do to themselves (none of us give a flying fuck about the organization, an appeals on such grounds would have been laughable), to make sure that they knew, whether they liked it or not, our interests were aligned.

Compromises were arranged, and this upcoming week I am busy with them seeing if we can not make something happen.

However, after working late into Friday night, past the last mournful call to prayer, I rang up one of my Diplo friends, one of the few American diplos who is not boring, boring and yet more boring to entice him into spending good United States Dollars of official salary on suspect Cuban products in equally suspect settings.

I am pleased to tell my American readership that some of your hard earned tax dollars flowed off to Cuba based on my efforts. I was in luck, as it happened my diplo friend needed some drinks based on idiocies emanating from the Land of The Free (or perhaps more accurately, the Land of the Knowledge Free in this context). He was also suitably amused at my expression regarding wearing a clown suit.

So off we went to my club to drown our frustrations (or in my case bring myself down from my quivering rage – when one’ left hand starts shaking from too much stimies, not good). Supposedly to be joined by our delightfully corrupt French compatriot and our “Friedman Source” amigo.

Neither showed, but my club was it’s usual plush red place with the well-heeled out and about for an evening of wine and music (of some vaguely Lebanese sort, annoying rotted Machreqi pop which I despise, but no matter).

After inducing my American diplo friend to contribute to the Cuban economy on our mutual behalf, and some ranting on my part in regards to the previously mentioned attempted but aborted fuck-over, we turned our talk to his annoyances, as well as the fact the hostess pays too much attention to me. Of course on the later, if he’d just get his mind around the real relational economy here, it would be very clear and hardly worth mentioning. Highly attractive passport spending decent amounts of hard currency supporting Cuba on a regular basis, of course she’s interested. 3^rd World Solidarity Reg.

This aside, while waiting for our delightfully corrupt French compatriot to show up, we had an interesting discussion on how much his colleagues rely on Mr. “Friedman Source” for their information about politics and economy. It was, one must confess, a bit amusing to hear – given Mr. FS is well-connected, but he’s also one point of view and while I like his take on many things, I also think he’s bloody unrealistic (but then to be a classic liberal in the Arab world is something of a bloody unrealistic thing to be if one thinks one’s ideas are actually going to be implemented). Regardless, the very things I mentioned recently in regards to the strange risk-aversion and life-in-the-castle syndrome among the American diplos was very much confirmed as my friend ranted on about their mechanical parroting on one source’s observations in cable after cable back to the Land of the Free of Knowledge (about MENA) and HQ of the gullible gits.

As an aside, this weekend’s FT had a delightful review of Friedman’s atrociously stupid ‘The World is Flat’ by our dear Martin Wolf. Diverting for a moment, I rather enjoyed Wolf’s sour comment, after quoting a few lines from it, “These sentences are, states the blurb, the product of a ‘world-class writer.’ Can such a concertina crash of mixed metaphors be world-class writing?” Wolf adds, “World-class writing [evidently] can be self-indulgent, prolix and glib.” I particularly enjoyed Wolf’s conclusion: “It is easy to laugh [at Friedman]. The language and enthusiasm are often absurd. The metaphor of flatness is misguided….. Yet the book’s energy will force sceptics to recognise that a world in which the cost of communications is falling towards zero and billions of people are trying to participate in the market economy is unprecedented.” Wolf goes on to throw Friedman some bones – out of pity one has to expect, Wolf’s own writing on the issue is indeed world-class and far better than Friedman’s simple minded…. enthusiasms.

Returning to the issue of American diplo isolation I was disappointed to hear that in my friend’s increasingly despairing view there were not any real counterweights to the increasing isolation of his colleagues. Quite the contrary, policy is apparently running to greater isolation and greater reliance on third hand knowledge. This can not be good.

On this issue he turned to some recent policy developments he was apparently incensed about. Largely, as I shall note, because it marginalised his emerging little fiefdom here, but what can we say? Interests. Well, this is unfair, his interests in this case I think are fairly aligned with what state interests should be.

However, for this conversation we decided to fuck off to a highly sketchy destination to cheer him up while he ranted. Or in the alternative, give us an opportunity to observe the burgeoning and highly liberalised late night service economy in operation. I luckily kept his mind on such high issues as policy, although the fine example of local late night service workers who stationed herself with her knee-high zip up boots, micro shorts and impressive white bustier did make this a bit challenging.

No, my diplo amigo is sufficiently incensed to ignore the boots and the bustier (or perhaps frightened by the same, as he’s also indignant that one of his colleagues is cheating on his wife with the wife of another colleague about which I did try to pretend to be in some vague way upset) for two of his key projects are being shot down by Washington. Here I am as well indignant, and manage to ignore our boots and bustier neighbour to delve into the details.

As it happens with the return of Liz Cheney (the woodpecker nosed daughter of Dick) has marked a change in heart in the Bush Administration in regards to MENA policy. While previously change via economic reform and growth (near and dear to my heart and wallet) were “in” the naïve enthusiasm for the “Arab Spring,” as the worthless ignorant functionaries and prattling slimy political appointee ignoramuses put it, has convinced Liz the Woodpecker that Political Change is the hot thing, and Economic Change is not. Disillusioned now with the sensation that perhaps all that posturing and prattle about the entrepreneurial nature of the Arabs was a wee bit off base and their ‘just add water instant economic growth and entrepreneurship’ policies might not produce instant change, the new instant change concept is Political Change. Why there’s an Arab Spring sprouting!!!! Oh yes, and Women. Preferably “Women and Political Change.” Woodpecker thinks she’s going to transform the region now, ride in and “save” women in MENA with little show projects “training” women parliamentarians, reformists and other such weak-minded useless nonsense. (Evidently not noting she is personally despised in the region for her family connexions and the real opposition doesn’t want anything to do with her projects.)

That means his little emerging empire of economic reform projects are about to get frozen or defunded or otherwise not grow in a manner to boost his career. It also means my scheming on some business along these lines is utterly wasted, which irritates the hell out of me. Gullible government money being problematic as it is also myopic and the policy makers have the attention span of small mentally retarded Chihuahuas.

Leaving aside my own plans to milk the Leviathan for some little scheme I was hatching (long shot, but…), the idea the one thing the US Administration was vaguely getting right (focus on economic growth) is being abandoned in favour of a ridiculous faddish enthusiasm for so-called political change through equally ridiculous “political training” projects and idiotic “women’s empowerment” mumbo jumbo rather chaps.

This means that the bird brained myopic gits are going to get back into the useless whanking on about fucking political change and not only waste their money on projects which I shall not be able to make any money off of them, but will not even have the slightest real impact. At least the trade and economic reform projects have some marginal impact. This idiotic women’s empowerment idiocy is pure Western whankery at its worst, and the concept of US financing political reform in foreign countries, let alone in the MENA region is laughable on its face.

All this quite spoiled even the slightest inclination to waste some time learning about the pricing of late night services or how the market was developing of late with the strong tourism arrivals. For the sake of knowledge of course, and we both left depressed at the thought of the lost opportunities and the fact that the idiotic Woodpecker’s newest obsession is apparently promoting MENA “Women entrepreneurs” selected via the ignorant blundering as her interventions in Jordan. The names cited were of the usual suspects… once again the savvy local elite operators with zero relationship to real entrepreneurial behaviour or reform managed to get the USG to pay for ‘training’ and junkets.

I’d prefer, as I have said in the past, more transparent bribery rather than devaluing the concept of promoting entrepreneurs or women entrepreneurs with this sort of transparent crockery – although here I am assuming the US diplos doing the selecting were in fact being cleverly corrupt in throwing the elite some bribes, rather than merely being hoodwinked. This is an assumption made simply to make myself feel better, as I rather suspect the contrary.

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June 03, 2005

Madre de Puta

I just got the most horrible phone call I have ever had in my entire professional career. Two of my peeps, competent peeps are scheduled to come into town. I have fucking killed myself to put them in front of the right people for deals.

They call and say they might have to cancel. No way are they getting away with this, the back stabbing motherfuckers. If this happens, I might as well wear a motherfucking clown suit every day for the rest of the time I am in this fucking country.

Phone calls, motherfucking phone calls. And on a fucking Friday. They're going to fucking pay for this, the fucking morons.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 07:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Italian minister moots return of the lira

Italian minister moots return of the lira
By Tony Barber in Rome
Published: June 3 2005 11:49 | Last updated: June 3 2005 11:49
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/0f0888a8-d41c-11d9-9db0-00000e2511c8.html

What can one say to this, but bloody hell.

I do note that the Euro critics in Italy quoted in the article are a bunch of hypocritical gits.

Pantom, for you, I say, don't bloody cheer. It's the opening act. Actually getting rid of some deadwood like Italy might do wonders.

_{By the way, as I sit here tinkering pointlessly with some data for my peeps, I wonder, does it make any sense at all to weight PER by capitalisation?}

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Why We Don't Get More FDI (Update, Reason II; Update Reason III)

Well, that would be the absurd lies told combined with how much of a pain in the ass it is to get information that resembles real information.

Lies, like bribery, I am fine with if they are well-constructed, and have some relationship with fundamentals. In which case we call it "smart marketing."

Lies that are pure fabulations merely reduce credibility, for their obviousness and stupidness.

Such as making the claim "When [Insert Name Here] comes here they are so impressed they immediately want to invest in [Insert other name here]." Now, anyone doing their due diligence will shortly or even at that time know this is false. Why say it? Sort of a cheap used car salesman strategy. Seems clever, really isn't.

Now, the other irritating issue is the control of information. I want some public information. If I get it, it does into a project proposal that could land these worthless jokers some nice pot of foreign money for their worthless backwards little filthy town. I've done me homework, I made the connexions, and blah blah. Okay, I find the fucker with the information. Explain the deal. I need his information. Simple. But he lives in Filth Town, and I am not there, but here. Now, I know he comes here for business, regularly, why not meet up here? Easier for me, and I am bringing money to the table. No, I have to go out to filth town to bloody take some tea with him, see the hovels of people waiting to be employed, blah blah blah, listen to his transparent lies and MAYBE get something resembling information. I only want resemblance. Not bloody likely to get it.

So, I am betting I leave this afternoon to waste my time in some bloody worthless waste of human flesh stinking hole to get nothing but tea and some lies that are not even particularly worthwhile.

UPDATE:
An actual conversation with the Bourse.

"Hello, I am calling on behalf of a foreign investor, I want information on [some data on volumes data on-line] at your website. Can I speak with your Communications department?"
"You're calling from where?"
"[Location]"
"For whom?"
"A foreign investor who doesn't want to be identified, I really don't see what the relevance is, I just want to check on something on your public site with your communications deparment."
"Please hold"
Wait, Wait.
"Hello, can you call back later, say around 15:00?"
"Sure, but now the money's going to another exchange. Good work on attacting money."

Update II
Actual Conversation II. Some modifications to protect the guilty.
This with "A Very Large Arab Bank and Regional Player" Headquarters. (Headquarters, again HEADQUARTERS)
(in loose colloquial translation of course)
Lounsbury: "Hello, I would like to have Mrs. Hamaqa, in your risk capital department - or investment capital department" [AKA I'd like to speak to Mrs. LooneyTunes in your private equity department; Mrs. LooneyTunes is the Director]

Receptionst: "Right away, [polite nonsense]"

Mrs. Hamaqa: "Hello, This is Mrs. Hamaga" (bedou accent)

Lounsbury: "Good Day, Mrs. Hamaqa, I am Lounsbury of [Incompetent Idiots, Inc.], I'd like to speak to you [About An Important Subject in Re Private Placements], Mr. Zelzela referred me." (Mr. Zelzela -Mr. Earthquake to you- is a Big Swinging D)

Mrs. Hamaqa: "I'm Sorry, I am the wrong Mrs. Hamaqa, I am in [completely irrelevant cost center type department]." Hangs up.

Lounsbury. Motherfucking rude assholes. Okay, here we go again. [Ring up the bloody worthless receptionist again, many tries, get through]

Lounsbury: "Good Day, I would like to speak with your risk capital department - or investment capital department."

Receptionist: "Yes Sir, [cheery airheaded Leb Slut nonsense]"

[Long motherfucking time on hold.]

[Answer]

Lounsbury: "Good Day, is this Mrs. Hamaqa of the Risk Capital Department? I am Lounsbury of [Incompetent Idiots, Inc.], I'd like to speak to you [About An Important Subject in Re Private Placements], Mr. Zelzela referred me."

Some Unidentified Confused Person: "No Sir, this is Risk Management. You want what?"

Lounsbury: [Suppresed cursuing] "Ahem, I am looking for your investment capital department, you know direct investments?"

SUCP: "Direct Investments?" [As if the person had never considered the concept before.]

Lounsbury: "Yeeeees. Direct investments. As in companies, directly investing in companies. Equities?"

SUCP: "Oh, our investment banking division?"

Lounsbury: "Well.... close enough." [Actually no, but indeed close enough]

[On hold for a long fucking time]

Another Unidentified Clueless Git: "Hello?"

Lounsbury: "Good Day, is this the investment banking division?"

AUCG: "No Sir, this is Capital Markets."

Lounsbury. "Right. Of course. What else would it be. Sorry about this, could you connect me with Investment Banking? Or better the Investment Capital Department?"

AUCG: "Certainly" [Puts down phone]

[Waiting, waiting, waiting]

Yet Another Clueless Git: "Hello?"

Lounsbury: "Good Day, your colleague was going to transfer me to investment banking."

YACG: "Ah Yes Sir."

[On hold]
[Disconnected]

Lounsbury: Bloody clueless morons. [Redial]

Receptionist: "Blah blah blah"

Lounsbury: "Good Day. Please wait a moment, I have been sent to the wrong office several times now. I would like to be connected with the Department of Investment Capital or Risk Capital. That means direct investing, like investment banking."

Receptionist: "Blah Blah Blah." Chirpy Twittery.

Transfer

Original Clueless Git: "Department of Risk Management"

Repeat Entire Process 5 times.

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June 02, 2005

More low value added musings (edit: regarding local market numbers) (pointless update re evil regs)

As I respond to a request for some information, I muse at the funny data I have from the local Bourse.

For example, what chance is there that the essentially bankrupt "We Have Pissed Through 4 billion in State Capital Injections" Bank (WHPT-4-SCI Bank, Piss Bank for short) merits, based on public information a 147 percent rise in its share value in the past five months, for an impressive 28 times earnings valuation?

I would hate to think there are insiders who know that perhaps, well, it's going to get another injection? Oh perish the thought. That could never happen.

Piss Bank, well, it may be a perrenial loser with no less than a third of former management on show trial, but the State is going to keep this shambling zombie alive. And going to give it hard earned (well borrowed) tax payer (if anyone actually paid taxes) dollars (or the near local equivalent).

_{(I add I categorically deny having any information of my own that would support the same. When I say I categorically deny that information, I mean, well.... perhaps I may have something along those lines, but how would I know if it's worth betting on?)}

Another example. The perennial money loser "Suck At Consumer Financing at Least by Our Published Accounts" Ltd. (SACFLOPA). although it consistently makes year in, year out literally no money, local wisdom has is valued at 42.3 times earnings.

Well, is wisdom wrong or are the published numbers comically fabricated?

You be the judge.

However, most impressive is our local maker of self-exploding gas tanks. Although of suspicious quality, the products, and disdainful of even pretending to distribute dividends, the market wisdom values our scrappy little producer of customer anihilating bon-bons a 90 times earnings valuation.

At least they allow that they make money of some sort in their published accounts.

Added thought:

You know, I just don't know what to think about an insurance company in a young market that is paying out 99 percent of net profits (as published). Taking into account regulation here, I have to believe their published numbers approach having some relationship with reality.

(Further thought: I note that the insurance company in question has been at this payout level for a while)

UPDATE II
I learned today that the Pharmacists Union (aka anti-competitive insensitive lying scum) managed to change the new bill on the sector regulation to ban the "evils" of "unbridled" and "disloyal" competition that allowing pharmacies to colocate with private hospitals represent. It is far superior for the health of the nation to force the hospitalized or the newly released to go elsewhere to fill the scripts.

They also managed to insert a clause requiring any new market entrants to secure the double accord of the municipal governor and the local Anti Competitive Insensitive Lying Pharma Scum union.

Galloping ahead we are.

However, it does appear that pharma producers may still be freed of the bizarre regulation forcing them to cede 51 percent of their capital to and only to the licensed pharmacists (of which 27.1 percent must be native born).

Regulation.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 04:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 01, 2005

Wolf: On Europe

At the risk of sliding into Euro weblabberdom, more on the EU.

Martin Wolf: Forget the hymns and fix the economy
By Martin Wolf
Published: May 31 2005 20:09 | Last updated: May 31 2005 20:09
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/db90b07c-d1ff-11d9-8c82-00000e2511c8.html
(yes it's bloody subscription, plump for it or fuck off.)

Martin Wolf has some fine choice comments as always, I highlight my favorites.
An earthquake has hit Europe. The move towards ever closer union turns out not to be inevitable. This is a source of both pleasure and pain: pleasure over the humbling of arrogance and pain at the triumph of reaction.

Indeed.

Before the vote, Jean-Claude Juncker, Luxembourg's prime minister and current president of the European Council, declared that France and the Netherlands should re-run their referendums, if necessary, in order to obtain the "right answer". Mr Juncker is all too representative of the contemporary European elite, which does not merely deserve, but needs, the kicking the French have given it.

Emphasis added. My position all along.

Who could better deliver that rebuff than the French? "Bureaucracy tempered by revolution" is, after all, not an entirely unfair characterisation of the country's politics down the ages. The voters, it appears, had a host of enemies: an incomprehensible document; their elite; Jacques Chirac, their president; Anglo-Saxon "ultra-liberalism"; globalisation; low-wage workers from eastern Europe; the enlargement of the European Union; prospective Turkish membership; economic change; high unemployment; immigrants; and foreigners. When the French look at contemporary Europe, they no longer see themselves in the mirror and when they look at their economy, they no longer see anybody in control.

Fair read.

If one asks why this rage was poured onto Valéry Giscard d'Estaing's hapless "tidying up" exercise, the answer seems to be: "why not?". Confronted by this indigestible mass, any normal person would wish to cast it on the fire. What, however, does this rejection mean for the future? I suggest five probabilities.

Gratitious, but perfect.

The probabilities by the way are:
First, the treaty is dead. I presume the Dutch will vote No. If the British cannot be threatened with isolation, they will also reject it. It is impossible to overturn the verdicts of the disgruntled citizens of two of the six founding members and two of the three most powerful countries in Europe.

Second, further movement towards deeper integration among all members of the EU is off the agenda. The Europe we have today is as much as - quite possibly more than - all will share.

Chart

Third, enlargement beyond Bulgaria and Romania has become unlikely. There will be referendums on Turkish entry. In current circumstances, these would be lost.

Fourth, France has set its face not just against the European project but against the modern world. That is going to make it far more difficult to pursue liberalisation, domestically, within Europe and globally. For that outcome, the French elite bear heavy responsibility. Their ceaseless indulgence in infantile anti-market rhetoric has had its consequence.

Last but not least, there is a chance of some unravelling of the European project, which has relied on a version of the bicycle theory: if it does not go forward, it risks toppling over. The belief that it must go forward is now dead. It is possible that some achievements, including the single market, will go backwards.

Finally I highlight Wolf's conclusion

Why is the right response to the rejection of the treaty this apparently narrow focus on economics? My answer is simple. Ordinary people want security and prosperity. What has gone so wrong in contemporary France is the belief that the best way to obtain more of the latter is to legislate more of the former. Europe must try to go round this obstacle by allowing the logic of the market itself to work through internal competition among the different policy regimes. But the ECB can also help by doing whatever it can to secure adequate nominal demand in the eurozone as a whole.

Another round of grand gestures of unity would be futile. Europe has suffered from a surfeit of such gestures. For better or worse, the treaty is dead. Equally clearly, much trouble now lies ahead. But Europe should at least try to deliver durable prosperity to its people in today's challenging world. That will not be easy. But it is essential. Without it, the European project may yet founder.

Now, what are the chances such clear thinking may penetrate Bruxelles by some queer chance?

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New Month, Entirely Abusive Pretend Customer Service Post

As is my abusive tradition, a generic post for the readers to remind me of topics I have dodged, ask me questions about myself which I will evade as I like, or otherwise make note of something.

As a new feature, I invite readers to speculate wildly about myself as an alternative to me being evasive.

Yes, tell me what you believe you know about me. (that select club who have really met me in real life, including the one person who knows where I work(ed), etc. shall keep their traps shut)

Otherwise, I am bemused by a nice little missive from Central inviting me to attend a corporate meeting on our new retirement plan. Next week. At Central. Right, I'm going to fly in for some robotic presentation on the new, yet cheaper and stupider retirement plan you have hatched. Requests my RSVP.

What is truly odd and perhaps a bit boggling is that the send of said missive specifically included a select group of the overseas staff by individual email - i.e. this is not explainable via mailing list.

I am not sure if this is mockery, stupidity, cluelessness, some vile dig or simply madness. Or some combination of the set. Being of a twisted nature, I expect it is some combination of vile dig, mockery and a bit of madness.

Adding that this line rather proves me theory:
"As an [Massively Incompetent Inc.] employee, you will need to take certain steps to be enrolled in this program. It is important that you be aware of the information that will be discussed at this meeting."

UPDATE:
Bloody hell, the EU Crapstition might do only moderately badly in the Land of Dikes. Idiot namby pamby yes voting Dutch fools.

I am however contented that we are having here in this fine country a heated discussion about the controversial "continual hours" versus "holy lunch hours" issue, which is keeping the dim wits in Parliament quite busy. Lord knows what a distinctly troublesome issue it is, this matter of national policy - and summer hours.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 01:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 31, 2005

Time to fuck off - but a contrast on Euro versus American Diplos

And take the woman out to dinner. Somewhere moderately scummy, but nevertheless intriguing. Then pack her off on a train and out of my hair for the rest of the week.

In the meantime, I am positively aglow with the news coming out of Europe. The French and the Bruxelles crowd in disarray, blundering about like the benighted fools they are.

However, let me take this opportunity, however, to praise the Eurocrats.

First, their diplomatic service in terms of staffing is far more interesting and competent than the American staffing. You might protest that the Americans get more done, and I say, yes. That is true, but that is merely by sheer force of effort - and the fact that EU is like a three headed horse. (Not three horses, sadly, but a three-headed horse) Sure, up top policy making is a bungled jumbled mess, but their on the ground sorts have real panache.

In contrast, your average American diplo type that I meet is (i) boring, (ii) boring, (iii) boring, (iv) rather more boring, (v) painfully ill-informed and almost sure to know next to nothing about his country of posting, (vi) boring, (vii) unable to buy me alcohol because of some bizarre puritanical expense account system, (viii) boring, (ix) gullible in a tedious sort of way due to points v and vii, (x) likely to be a mormon (redundant to points i-iv, vi, vii, viii and ix), (xi) lives in near total lockdown because the US is such a weirdly risk averse country when it comes to seeing its civil servants get whacked, (xii) well-nigh useless for information, (xiii) tediously middle-class functionary sort.

This does not stop me from feeding off of them, but frankly, most American diplos might as well be in fucking Idaho for all the work they really get done.

Not their fault really. US Gov has a bizarre approach to staffing risk (which despite serial failures in terms of spying and the like continues) where the bland and riskless are sucked in (Mormons, insufferable boring people), and anyone with the slightest panache is passed over or squeezed out.

Or so it seems. Now, ex the Diplo service and the Agency, very good we might say. But your Agency and Diplo types should be... well able to at least blend into the Expat world, if nothing else.

Add to this an entirely bizarre and benighted system of staffing which as far as I can make out requires -yes requires- that Diplo Officers not spend consecutive assignements in a region (let alone a country) and has such short assignments (2-3 years) as to positively ensure they learn nothing.

One can understand to be sure the fear of going local, but this clearly goes to far.

I contrast this with the Euro Diplos I know. Largely scoundrals - rather likable for that - potentially quite corrupt - again something that warms my heart a bit, largely through the Cuban products thusly consumed - and usually in place for a good while such that they have proper networks.

Now, very seriously, in a region where networks are everything, this is a non-trivial advantage.

True enough, I have seen enough signs of EU money being pissed away in somewhat less than transparent fashions, but at least some portion was spent on me, and surely one can have something of a combination of a bit of scoundraliness (to create a word) with otherwise straight dealing.

(I note that FT has this nasty and positively delicious op ed: http://news.ft.com/cms/s/62fafcc0-d138-11d9-9c1d-00000e2511c8.html)

Posted by The Lounsbury at 06:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Returning to low value commentary

Am a bit preoccupied at the moment, both work crises and a chica that has chosen to visit me at an awkward moment. Luckily the other one is busy with apartments. Messy, very messy.

Nevertheless, I was amused today in that she dropped by the office and observed that once I insisted on carrying a heavy bag for her, which was "quite out of your character" - I must agree it is - and "probably only because my mum was around." That may be true as well. Marketing. Marketing, and of course occasional product placement.

Otherwise, I was happy to learn that I can still be described as "fit" despite having a diet heavily weighted towards Cuban products. Of course, this might have been mere flattery.

Leaving this aside, the typical editorials appeared in the press today bemoaning the loss of France (ahem, I mean the EU) as a counterweight to the Big Cookie Monster. Very tiresome. More amusing was the absolutely bizarre reflexions on what EU failure meant for regional integration in the Med Basin. By some truly outre logic, one particular editorial writer seems to have come to the conclusion that if the EU is not providing a good example of integration, then southern Med integration will stall. Apparently the cravenly decision makers, in this editorialists' eyes, merely act by copying what the French are doing.

Sadly, having sat in on a meeting which consisted of a few of the same comparing their own org chart to that of a French counterpart and bickering over why they had slightly different reporting relationships (not by content mind you, I mean the bickering, merely over the boxes), one has the awful sensation that in the Maghreb this may very well be true.

Rather more risky, however, is a resurgence of French protectionism and more of the duplicitious, fundamentally dishonest anti-Globo Leftist moron posturing and pandering about "delocalisations" (outsourcing) of sclerotic French services hither and thither or the equally dishonest (although rhetorically brilliant) pissing about "fiscal" and "social" "dumping." A briliant set of phrases - really like "fair trade" and other quasi-Orwellian oxymoronisms to disguise the French fear of competition.

Sadly, among the items on the local agenda is an interminable debate about the stunningly stupid new labor law and the exact terms on which the work week (a la France) is being reduced, and if under the new law, it is not in fact required for salaried employees to actually get salary increases to compensate them for some supposed loss (as embodied through a ridiculously complex formula about minimum salaries and an equally nasty little provision about it being illegal for any employee to suffer any diminuation in salary tied to the diminuation of the legal work week).

This, of course, is all supposed to "create jobs." Obviously working so brilliantly in France, and of course the unions deny that there is any relationship between massive evasion of the labor codes frankly surreal terms and the lack of employment growth. Nope, zero, none, nada.

Regardless, in closing, I was deeply amused by Hemlocke's little missive on the EU (http://www.geocities.com/hkhemlock/rooster/diary-28may05.html), as well as his ranting about the structure of services. Insofar as I have to write a "lettre de motivation" to "justify" a simple fucking request for price quotes on acquiring some cheap fucking IT equipment (no, simply ringing up the under employed lazy fuck of a sales agent is simply not done), I concur.

Someday, France may enter the 20th century.

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De Villepin

Interesting. Very interesting.

What has been more amusing (although only in a sour way) has been the French Left's shrieking on about "social dumping" and "fiscal dumping" within Europe.

It's rather clear France has yet to shed its overweening Napoleonic desire to impose itself on Europe.

Meanwhile, here the event has been met with bemusement. I suppose the real issue the worry this may unsettle the markets over the next several months. It surely will, of course, but I doubt serious flow disruptions.

Have to see what happens when the Dutch add to the No and whether the ham-fisted fools in Bruxelles understand they can't simply berate the electorates.

In the meantime, Italian bonds are looking weaker. Italy is in for a bad time.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 11:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 30, 2005

Odd.

Quite a bit of heavy military air traffic over the neighborhood. Very unusual that (which is to say, never before seen). Well, hope no one has gone and done something unpleasant or silly.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 08:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Well, not just no, a crushing no.

No reason to recap, plenty of places for that, but a massive turnout and a good crushing ten percent margin, despite universal political elite support is fairly convincing.

Sadly the leftist nitwits are spinning this as an anti-liberal thing, which in some part it was, but want to ride the "social Europe" (read sclerotic dysfunctional economic model) into the sunset. Sunset in this case being a terminally declining Europe.

Regardless, the train has stopped and there is now a chance that reflection rather than blind full speed aheadness will have a moment. For the Europeans whinging on about Europe being set back ten years, I say this "Europe was just spared a nasty derailment."

A pause for digestion in a long term project is not, let me repeat, not a disaster, it is wisdom.

Prattling on about no plan b and rerunning referendums until the right result is had is disaster.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 10:16 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 27, 2005

Egyptian Liberals - Arab Liberals

In his fine blog Pratike asks:
http://www.liberalsagainstterrorism.com/drupal/?q=taxonomy/term/61
"So here's a case where the public sector is obviously far too large and powerful; the NDP is kind of like a nationwide political machine that dispenses patronage in exchange for power. And yet there's little discernable "small government" movement in the country. Why don't more folks make the connection?"

Because there is zero political tradition of the same is the easy answer. Political liberalism in its classic sense is virtually non-existant in the Arab world. I'm seeing some glimmerings in the Maghreb (where it has to be a hardy plant to fight off the French influence) and a bit in Jordan, but the popular reflex is to look to a nanny state model.

Let me share an anectdote from when I lived in Cairo.

One evening coming from a party in Zamaalek and heading off to Maadi where I lived, I struck up a conversation with the taxi driver, a garralous older sort. I was curious as to his background as he spoke excellent and refined Arabic - we spoke in high register dialect / low register modern standard - and after the usual banter, hit upon business. He in fact was an industrial engineer. Chemical engineer in fact. Trained in Egypt, of the 1960s generation (i.e. flowering of the Nasserist period). Now I was puzzled, since he indicated he had a fine job as an engineer as Revolution Whatever Plant, and here he was driving taxi as well in the evening. Recall while I followed the two day weekend, his job did not. He indicated he needed the extra money for his family - although he had a fine and well placed job in state industry. Well, that really puzzled me - my sensation was he was the competent type, in fact the idea went through my head I knew people in the private sector that might want an experience chemical engineer who clearly seemed to be hard working (two jobs, bloody hell) family man of some deep education. So I asked him right out, why was he working in the public sector - noting I was a man of the private sector (usually enough to get younger people with no qualifications at all to inquire after a job, even as a driver).

Oh no. Not the least bit interesting to him, not at all. Too uncertain. Too insecure. No, my neat as a pin, apparently hard working driver-industrial chemical engineer prefered the saftey of the government job, its apparent permanent security, its saftey and dirt pay which obliged him to drive cab at night to make ends meet to the private sector. Nevermind such an engineer might make ten times his public sector pay (or so, of course I am not sure my read of him was right).

Not in any way atypical, this conversation, although we did get more profoundly into things than normal. This was, hmmm, six years ago now?

The same thing is seen in the Maghreb. University graduates going on strike to protest in hopes of getting government jobs.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 07:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Demos - local anti Gauntanomo and the Euro (updated)

I am pleased that the authorities have contacted me to ask me to try not to get beaten up during this weekend's exciting anti-Gauntanomo demostrations, organized by our friendly neo-Islamist parties.

It is always a pleasure to know my personal well being is on their minds, as well as their usual paranoia that the expatriates might get a stubbed toe.

It is also encouraging, actually, that the authorities are allowing this to go forward, let everyone blow off a little steam and express their right and proper disgust with the whole affaire.

Of course, all other sorts of silliness will be mixed in as well, but no matter.

However, I for one will skip the fun for some of my usual decadence and scumminess, have to log it in before the wave of Khaliji scum take over the seamy side of things and unbalance supply and demand.

I also note I am insufferably pleased with myself that the timing of my transfer of capital for my new found ownership of real property -with that magnificent terrace just designed for maxizing the pleasure one can derive from consuming cuban products- will come right after the Dutch and French votes. I can take pleasure in a problem maximization of my dollar to local currency conversion such that even the insufferable haircut from the evil Bureau of Exchange Controls (rent seeking scum) will be barely noticeable as EuroZone goes through tumult and chaos to my greater profit.

Why it makes me so happy I could almost dance a little salsa, if my bloody toes were fully healed. Only the speculative report attaching blindness to viagra usage approaches making me this happy.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 03:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Chagrin.

I was annoyed earlier when one of our diminishing pool of suckers (I mean clients of course, the joy in Arabic is one of the words means both) asked us to provide them with a synopsis of the technical document in their lingo, one that we handed over to them in English about 2 months ago. I had thought, the cheap lazy fucks are making tons of money off of the interest rate spreads, they can afford to translate the bloody thing.

Having spent the morning on the thing, I am now left with a sense of doom. It's not really the Bank's fault. Frankly our man wrote a set of incomprehensible trash. There's really only two choices, make up a synopsis that is anything but, or get screwed.

At least they were apparently fooled by the jargon into thinking there was content or that the document might actually make sense.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 02:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Egypt

Well, I have neglected to say anything about Egypt. Rather busy actually, have not even had the time to entertain with a tale of regulation, concerts and scantily clad muhajabat that I wish to share.

Certainly Abu Aardvark had some fine notes, and since I generally loathe and despise Egypt (remaining literally scarred for life after working there - the spider finger and all that) I am not particularly moved overall.

Regardless a note, the interventions of Madame Bush and US Gov to date have been puerile. Rather clearly Mubarek has correctly calculated that aside from some "we don't approve of you too visibly beating up the opposition, above all on TV" language, he can readily use the stability argument to power on through.

Well, no surprise there. None at all.

Does put all the breathless "Democratic Spring" in the Middle East whanking in perspective.

But I am sure my old pal Mr. Stone would have interesting spin on that.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 01:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 26, 2005

How Not To Set Up A Super State: the EU bis

Référendum: une "stupidité de dire qu'on va demander aux Français de recommencer" pour Henri Emmanuelli
http://fr.news.yahoo.com/050526/5/4fp1i.html
"J'ai envie de leur dire mais 'Pour qui vous prenez-vous? Savez-vous ce qu'est le suffrage universel et allez-vous admettre une bonne fois pour toutes que la souveraineté appartient au peuple et pas aux technostructures libérales associées à l'Europe des actionnaires?", a poursuivi le député des Landes"

For the non-francophone, a quick translation:
"I'd like to say to them [Luxembourg's PM and the head of the EU Commission], "Who do you take yourselves for? Do you know what universal sufferage is, and will you admit in good faith for once that sovereignty is held by the people and not by the liberal [read free market oriented] technostructures associated with a Europe made up of partners?"

While I can't really sympathize with his stupid Leftist anti-liberal rhetoric (and it is highly ironic for the French elite to posture about sovereignty residing with the people and not the technocrats), but , well this is really a home run.

Most recent posturing by the EU eurocrats, the pro-Yes elites has the stink of contempt for a real democratic process. No plan B, Take It or Leave It, You're retrograde scum if you vote it down.

Nothing really positive.

The constitution, I predict now, is going down in flames. As it long deserved.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 12:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 25, 2005

Reality TV: Middle East Broadcasting Style

An interesting item I got today:

MBC TV is offering you the chance to start your dream business in a new reality show
'The Investors' is a reality based TV Show built around family business. MBC is offering 2 relatives the opportunity to compete against other families for their chance to win up to $500,000 of Initial investment in their dream project.

To qualify, the two family members must:
Be between 21, and 40 years old
Have a business plan and preliminary study
Have a proven track record of achievement in either business, marketing, PR, sales or an area related to the business plan
Be ready to relocate for 9 weeks from the end of June
Do you think your family has got what it takes to win?
Email us:

The CV of both family members
Photo of each family member
The business plan or preliminary study
Email address: investors@mbc.ae
For more information call +971 4391 9782
Deadline for all applications is June 10th 2005

Most interesting is the structure.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 04:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Management Issues

Beautiful column that I missed but wish to draw attention to:

Dumbing up of management thinking
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/a98a6ed6-cad6-11d9-9abe-00000e2511c8.html
"As we never know what we are supposed to be eating or drinking, the only sensible course of action is to take no notice. If you don’t eat or drink excessively, if you aren’t entirely sedentary and (most importantly) if you are reasonably happy, then you should probably leave well alone. The same is true for management issues. The only sensible course of action is to ignore all the research and do whatever seems like a good idea anyway."

Posted by The Lounsbury at 03:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

EU - Euro and dangers. Wolf, FT

A timely and interesting article from my favorite bar none commentator, Martin Wolf.

My excuse for commenting on EU is quite simply the sitting here on the other side of the Med from the EU, we have to be deeply concerned about what that sick giant of an economy is going to do.

Martin Wolf: Italy's predicament exposes eurozone
By Martin Wolf
Published: May 24 2005 20:24 | Last updated: May 24 2005 20:24
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/21f25198-cc82-11d9-bb87-00000e2511c8.html

Let us think the unthinkable: could the eurozone disintegrate? The answer is yes. Disappearance of the zone as a whole seems hugely unlikely, so long as the commitment to the European project survives. But the exit of one (or more) members, a sovereign default or both is not at all inconceivable.

Warms Pantom's heart perhaps, but looking into his argument I think Wolf's thinking is close to mine.

Yet those all-powerful watchdogs, the bond markets, apparently disagree. Interest rate spreads within the eurozone are tiny (see chart). Investors apparently consider the debt of the eurozone governments as close to perfect substitutes. This is astonishing: after all, ratios of government debt to gross domestic product at the end of last year varied from Luxembourg's 5 per cent and Ireland's 29 per cent to Italy's 105 per cent and Greece's 112 per cent (on the Maastricht treaty definition). Investors must not only believe that the currency union is impregnable but that each sovereign borrower is as good as the other. The latter belief assumes that all the fiscal authorities will behave in an equally responsible manner or that there is an implicit bail-out. These assumptions are highly implausible.

Absolutely agreed. Thinking Greece and Italy have anything approaching responsible government is madness.

A number of economists argue that the European Central Bank is distorting the market by treating all eurozone sovereign liabilities as equally riskless. Even if the ECB does this only at the short end, the knowledge that it does so will affect the entire yield curve. The solution, suggest Willem Buiter of the London School of Economics and Ann Sibert of Birkbeck, in an unpublished note, is for the ECB to accept government debt as collateral only at market-determined discounts.

But can you imagine the political howling in the EU if they did so?

Now, getting on to his Italy discussion, I'd like to highlight something for thought. Italy's underlying economic problems are very.... similar I would say to the problems of the southern Med.

Whether this idea would make a big difference to prices in the market is unknowable. What is knowable, however, is that it makes little sense for anyone to treat the debt of all eurozone members as equivalent. Because of its size and status as a founder member of the European Union, Italy's predicament is the most significant. It is also highly revealing. What has happened since entry, as I noted last week ("A more dynamic eurozone is a necessity", May 17 2005), is the precise opposite of what was needed: declining productivity performance, deteriorating competitiveness, faltering growth and weakening fiscal discipline.

In its latest survey of Italy, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development remarks: "It is somewhat ironic that Emu membership, by allowing sharply lower interest and exchange rates may, in effect, have relaxed the perceived need for structural adjustments on both supply and fiscal sides." It may be ironic, but it is also human - and potentially calamitous.

The scissors cutting Italy's economic lifeline have two blades: productivity and fiscal fragility.

Chart

Start with the productivity blade. Since 1995, Italy's output per hour has deteriorated by about 5 per cent against the eurozone average. This is the result of a decline in total factor productivity rather than of a (highly desirable) substitution of labour for capital (see chart). As a result, external competitiveness and potential growth have both slowed: relative to Germany, Italy's real effective exchange rate has appreciated by almost one-fifth since 1999; and potential rate of growth is now estimated at only 1.3 per cent a year.

Now consider the fiscal blade. In its most recent Economic Outlook, the OECD notes that the cyclically adjusted primary fiscal balance (the balance before interest payments) has collapsed from a surplus of 5 per cent of gross domestic product in 1998 to a forecast surplus of only 1 per cent this year (see chart). The OECD also forecasts the general government fiscal deficit, before the customary special measures, at 4.5 per cent this year and 5.1 per cent in 2006.

In order to regain lost external competitiveness, Italy must have substantially lower inflation in the costs of tradeable goods and services than elsewhere in the eurozone. Given the dreadful productivity performance, that would demand next to no increase in nominal wages over an extended period, which would also mean relatively high real interest rates. This combination would ensure even lower actual growth than Italy's already low potential rate. But that would further undermine the fiscal position. Unfortunately, efforts to shift the fiscal position back to balance would weaken the economy still more, since there are no monetary or exchange-rate offsets to such fiscal tightening.

Chart

If you think you have seen a case a bit like this, you are right: it is called Argentina. Bernard Connolly, a notorious opponent of the monetary union, even argues that the debt ratio will explode upwards, given the low inflation Italy needs and the declining potential rate of growth that Italy also has. Together, these will generate very low growth in nominal GDP (which is the denominator in the debt ratio).* He also believes that Italy has a structural primary fiscal deficit of 1 per cent of GDP. Under his assumptions, the debt ratio would rise towards 170 per cent of GDP over 20 years even if there were no rise in interest rate spreads. A fiscal (and financial crisis) would loom.

I will leave the rest for readers to ferret out, but an article well worth the read.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 02:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Arab Media, al-Jazeerah, a pithy comment

"Al-Haj Ali shows the Arab state in all of its red-faced fury... looking like a buffoon in the face of a reasonable, articulate critic... that's what al-Jazeera lets Arab viewers see."

From Abu Aardvark. In my experience this is precisely correct.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 10:11 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 24, 2005

Junk, Junk, Baby.

Like Ice, Ice.

Or shall we say, Fitch, one more pebble on the scree of the credit mountain. Rolling?

Posted by The Lounsbury at 07:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Nancy Ajram The Moroccan link for the Aardvarks

End of the day, the electronic version has gone up, I share then this:
http://www.leconomiste.com/upload/pdf_une/pdf_une_kiosque5.pdf

PDF, so you can get the front pager.

and this:
http://www.leconomiste.com/article.html?a=63114

Where you can learn that our Islamist friends were all wet, what the Wali was really thinking was in these terms:
"Ce n’était certainement pas une bonne idée d’organiser ce concert sur la place Jamaâ El Fna et ce fut le discours des autorités au lendemain de cet évènement."

One has to confess, if one knows Jama l-Fnaa, that a free mega concert by Nancy could be a bit of a dicey proposition.

What most intrigued me is that the ongoing legal war between Maroc Telecom and Meditel did not escalate to a complaint by MT in re Meditel use of Nancy. Now that would make for interesting hearing at the HCAM.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 06:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

For the Abu Aardvark Fans

Those following the Nancy Ajram saga, I note that today's Moroccan business daily has a full page spread on Nancy entitled (trans.): "The Nancy Ajram Phenomena."

This will be online tomorrow.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 10:26 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

On Hedging.

A short, random comment merely to calm myself before I go and meet some infuriating potential clients who I loathe. However, as I continue to pointlessly bail water out of this Titanic of a company, must try for the clients. On that thought, I am presently angling for business with one of the basket case State Banks, who I am counting on to be just gullible and ignorant enough to sign on.

Returning then to the ostensible subject, on hedging.

This comes in response to a comment a few days, or perhaps weeks, no matter, back, in response to my whinging on about my dollar exposure in a Euro dominated environment.

The response was why I didn't just hedge. (For the uninitiated, hedging is a financial operation involving buying or selling financial contracts giving the right or obligation to acquire (or sell) a specific asset at some time (sometimes specific, sometimes w/in a range) time in the future at a specific price.)

Essentially insurance (in theory) against price movements. Well, on the buyer's side, on the seller it is likely speculation.

The answer really is in the problem of hedging on real operations. First, of course there is the issue of cost. There is a price for buying a future or an options contract. That little wedge has to be figured into whether it makes sense to hedge.

The question becomes at what level does one hedge and for how long out? And of course what is the gain versus the cost.

Let me take a regional MENA actor's example that may illustrate why "hedging" is not as smart as it may appear at times. I won't identify either firm or amounts, as the operation was fairly well known in informed circles and I shouldn't wish to blow either my cool or anyone else's.

So, in brief, Big Ass Physical Product Producter (BAPPP), a private actor, decided that it should start hedging the dollar value of its Main Product, and that out to a year. It projected its production out for the year, hedged 100 percent of production in London, and locked in a fairly favorable price, and then locked in that price in their desired currency. Sold physical product forward, and hedged the resulting currency flow into their target currency. Bingo.

Super you say? Well. No. First, they hedged 100 percent of forcast production, then they hedged the resulting cash flow more or less 100 percent. Problem, of course, is this left zero room for error.

Error happened. As it turned out some "production difficulties" occured which resulted in a non-trivial short fall and a non-trivial difference between required delivery and what they had. Worse, prices were good, so they had to buy on the spot market to fill in, plus the currency moved the wrong way.

Double or triple whammy.

Made a big ass hole in their balance sheet, very upsetting to shareholders - esp as the shareholders are regional and not too taken in with these new fangled Western devices.

Well, that was none too clear but I have to fuck off. Beat me up later for my sketchy descrip.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 12:23 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Bloody hell

I open one of the local rags today and find an arty on something I've done, but with some completely ... disastrous spin. I fucking hate journos. I really do, slimey semi-literate scum that they are (with exceptions of course). Then I get a call from Embassy, my amigo. It appears that the spin on my ... well, it's upset people.

Fuck em. Useless assholes have no fucking clue what's going on in country or in region, sit on their useless asses sending moronic reports to home. Probably won't get invited to any more events though. Trying to decide if I care. There is the free alcohol, which is to be regretted, but the French are far better. Maybe I can take 14 July off.

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May 23, 2005

Here's to the Non Vote

The polls out of Europe have me in a fairly cheery mood (although this damned throbbing pain in my side is distinctly annoying and making me snappish).

First, Non looks good in France, although the blunders in charge of Oui might just pull it out (and of course we know in that pseudo-democracy in France that if the French political elite don't like the results, they will rerun it, but with more scare tactics).

Second, the Dutch No looks assured. Very happy on that account. We can take the United Kingdom's sensibleness on this as a done deal.

It rather looks like the sneering "There is no Plan B" of the rude and corrupt fools in Bruxelles is backfiring.

However, I would like to point you to a fine arty in The Guardian which despite it's Leftish leanings, gets things right quite often.

Hard to swallow eurofizz is a failing brand
Larry Elliott
Monday May 23, 2005
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,3604,1490023,00.html

Some key paragraphss:
One sign of success, certainly, is that more countries want to join. Nevertheless, it is considered bad form to state the blindingly obvious; that Europe exhibits more signs of failure than of success.

Indeed, as I linked to an FT article last week or before, there are dangerous signs that even the basics, the common market, are not working well. Bloody hell if the French are excercising their primative mercantile instincts against fellow EU members in the core single market heart of the EU, and worse yet, the bumbling Italians as well who so badly need some foreign expertise that it's positively painful, how the bloody fuck does anyone think the fucking politics are going to bloody work. It's painful magical thinking on the part of the Eurocrats and Muddled Neo Napoleonic Dreamers in Paris that if they just throttle the EU train up to max speed, the bent rails will just slide on by.

Stop and fix the fucking rails you stupid gits. Get the basics right, then move on.

As an aside, I note I care about this especially since an EU derailment (which I think is what that mess of a contitution is, it locks them in on the wrong track) is killer for my region's economic growth potential.

Moving on:
First, there is the constitution itself. Nobody is quite sure whether the new blueprint is an Anglo-Saxon Trojan horse or a device to enshrine high taxes and inflexibility across the continent. The lack of clarity suggests a dearth of vision and a surfeit of fudge.

Bingo.

Bingo.

Bingo.

Actually I rather opt for the later since one can be sure the clauses that would serve as a Trojan Horse for a proper liberal economy and the like will be bogged down in inflexible interpretations and various maneuvers (rather like the present), and those that expand inflexibility and the like in the name of fake "solidarity" (i.e. lock in our privs now and fuck the newcomers) are sure to expand.

Second, there is a reality gap between what people want, hope and expect Europe to deliver and what it is actually delivering. The acid test of social democracy is unemployment, because if you are out of work you are far more likely to be poor and marginalised. In the 1960s, unemployment in France and Germany was around 2% - half the US's.

Indeed. One has to think about this when the French Left (and much of the deluded neo-imperialist center right) ramble on about Solidarity. Faux solidarity to lock in elite (whether labor elite or political elite) privs, and fuck the immigrants and the native born non-white underclasses.

Today in the eurozone's two biggest economies it is above 10%, while America's unemployment rate is little changed. High and persistent levels of joblessness have proved fertile breeding grounds for the extreme right: fascism is now more evident in Europe than at any time since the second world war.

And anti-'native born' reaction among the immigrants or those of non-white euro origin.

As for the argument that Europe will be a cuddlier, gentler superpower, that doesn't appear to be the message from the one area where Brussels does punch at the same weight as Washington - trade. Despite all the pro-development rhetoric, Europe has the same self-interested, mercantilist view of the world as does the US.

Indeed, the EU Euro-Med agreements are stunning bits of hypocrisy, full of fine language about solidarity and other such typically French universalist rotted posturing without real follow through, but also full up with discriminatory access and non-tariff barriers on those "sensitive" areas where, surprise, surprise the EU (esp... France and Italy) are most vulnerable to genuine competition from the southern Med.

Posturing hypocrites, who should be beaten with iron rods when they blither on about the evils of the Washington Consensus. At least the US, for all of its hypocrisy, negotiates rather more realistic trade agreements. Although the CAFTA one ... well one word: sugar. Has a positively EU air around it this one.

Third, there's the hard evidence of Europe's recent past. The sequence goes something like this. Originally, there was a free-trade area, but that was not exciting enough a project. So, the idea for a single market was born. Once this was up and running (after a fashion because it is still not actually completed), it was decided that Europe needed a single currency to make the single market work.

Indeed even the original is unfinished business.

Now that Europe has a single currency, it needs greater political integration to make the euro work. This is very much the Gosplan approach to life; a group of central planners get together and decide what should happen. The comparison with the Soviet Union is not idle; at each stage of this process, the European Union has grown more slowly. The US has shown it a clean pair of heels in every year bar one since 1991.

What can I say, I have nothing to add to this but "Hear Hear"

Comparisons with the birth of the dollar are interesting. It took more than a century for the dollar to emerge as the single currency for the United States; in the 19th century states and banks were free to issue their own notes. The dollar emerged through an organic, biological process, not because a group of politicians decreed that it should be so. Those who warned about imposing the euro on economies that were not ready for it are now being proved right, because real signs of strain are starting to emerge.

Indeed, although I do think the Euro can work out.

Slow growth and high unemployment mean that public spending is under pressure. Germany is the most often cited case of the dangers of a one-size-fits-all policy, but actually Italy is the country with the biggest problems. It is not just that the country is technically in recession following two quarters of falling output, but that its higher costs and lower productivity mean its businesses are becoming less and less competitive. Italy badly needs a devaluation of its currency but that is an option no longer available to it.

See this week's The Economist for its arty on "The Sick Man of Europe." Most definately indeed Italy.

The single currency is Europe's New Coke; it's a failing brand. Unlike the Coca-Cola corporation, however, the pretence is that all is well and that no policy response is needed. Does this mean that the collapse of the European Union is inevitable? Not at all: nothing is inevitable. What is clear, however, is that the danger signs are flashing red. Some pro-Europeans have seen this coming for some time. Caroline Lucas, one of the UK's green MPs has constantly warned of the dangers of building from the top down rather than from the bottom up.

Bingo. Danger signs are flashing but the EU elite keep insisting this ridiculous piece of garbage is "the only path." Pure blind arrogance.

PS
The Lounsbury Read is:

Snap up Euro Assets during the stupid post no panic. EU is not crumbling, the slap in the face will have a salutory effect and the value will rebound. The silly arties in The Financial Times conveying asset manager unease and a faint hint of "oh fuck" are a perfect sign.

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Various trivialities

First, I appear to have kidney stones. This is very unpleasant, but I have to confess given my habit of drinking vast quantities of coffee and probable constant state of dehydration, nothing that should be surprising. Better start watching my health, getting to be an old man after all. Ha. Have to look to hydration. [edit to add: I have to note that the women are all insisting that I go see a proper medical doctor about this. Rather like the broken foot incident (which has healed admirably except I can't move the toes anymore. Just bloody toes though.). In regards to the pain and all that, my personal rule is suffer for one week, see if it goes away. Hate doctors any way, always asking probing questions I don't particularly feel like answering, and so bloody disapproving hear if I answer honestly. UPDATE II: Amusingly have caved to the pressure I went to a doctor who ran all kinds of fun tests. Rather looks to be a minor if discomforting affaire, but better, complimented me on the health of my liver. Ha.]

Second, will be sparse again. Working on several proposals, one of which an exit strategy. Said to look good on the side of the US investors and 50 million is already lined up on the other side. We shall see. Maybe Mr. Get Kicked Out of His House didn't fuck things up so badly after all.

Third, a quick note on the World Economic Forum conference in Amman, Jordan. Actually only one phrase.

"The usual motherfucking useless posturing by the usual motherfucking media hog morons, gullible Western twits and corrupt players."

Why do I regard the WEF conference with such contempt? Because I know some of the main actors that get invited. The sort about which I say "Just because they speak good English doesn't mean you should trust them."

Case in point from my old Fund, the MD and his son were always invited (have no idea if that was the case this year); and they talked the talk. This is the same pair that corruptly ripped off US and other investors of a good and cool 50 million USD in hard capital, about whom I went nutso as you can tell in my early journal pages. But they were feature guests and invitees.

These conferences are, to be frank, useless wastes of time for empty posturing and grandstanding. I'm all for useful conferences focused on real practical issues, but these sweeping piece of filth do nothing but allow the corruptly connected to posture and often make connexions with the gullible "just came to town" twits ready to lap up the same old same old because they have no fucking background. See Liz Cheney, twit in chief. (Or else make idiotic posturing noises in re women and blah blah - repeating the same old Development Retards just so stories).

Otherwise, I was relatively recently amused to find a livejournal forum on Morocco that seemed to consist almost entirely of Western and especially American chicas that having once gotten shagged in Morocco by some or another skethcy Maghrebine lover, have fallen entirely and uncritically in love with the place. Amusing in its own way, although it does puzzle me about young chicas that come to a country to get fucked and fall so syruply and uncritically in love with a country. If only they knew what their boyfriends call them behind their backs (hanging out with young lads back in the day, I can attest it was rarely respectful nor complimentary. Gullibility. Shall never understand this particular form of it.

Finally, I received an amusing, for me if not its author, email from a friend, sent as a rant to his Lebanese partner who is two years in arrears. He copied me and followed up with a note that he had tried to make it as insulting as possible, especially to Muslims.

I have to say that it did not strike me as a particularly wise move - certainly it was fairly insulting, but on the other hand two years of arrears rather does suggest a typical Leb rip-off move. On the other hand, my amigo always knew that he'd get shafted at some point. I guess I would be upset too, but on the other hand... well, I mean really this should have been priced in. No sense getting this bent out of shape over all too typical practices in Leb Land.

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May 20, 2005

A comment: Arab Investment

Wasting time in between meetings, and properly shagged out, I visited blogs and noted this:
http://www.liberalsagainstterrorism.com/drupal/?q=node/1191

A few quick comments.

First, the idiocy of USG speech on "BMENA" an ugly and idiotic acronym for USG's latest nonsensical "regional policy" (meaning ignorant ill-informed bumbling moronic half baked pie in the sky policy ideas) for "Broader Middle East and North Africa" or as one local USG official likes to call it "Bangladesh to Marrakech." Well, this is idiocy irritates me.

Then to the points:
· Increased legal and regulatory transparency, and greater government and business accountability;

Fine, good thing.

· Strengthening the rule of law, especially protection of property, enforcement of judgments, and bankruptcy procedures;

Desperately needed. Bloody fucking hard to pull off, however.

· Strengthening the financial sector through privatization, competition and better regulation;
Well, other than the better regulation... okay I'll go for better regulation, it's such a meaningless phrase.

· Revitalizing the strong pace of privatization of state-owned enterprises that has slowed in recent years; and
Super, absolutely agreed.

· Focusing on creating an attractive investment climate overall - not on providing special incentives to individual projects.
Now that is a good obs. Not original one has to confess, but needs to be hammered home insofar as the regional bumblers love the big special projects. Sexy, makes news.

This, however, is pure USG and Development Retards posturing:
With the dynamic culture of entrepreneurship that thrives in the BMENA region, there is no reason that reforms would not lead to much higher investment levels.

You have already read my sour comments on this mirage, this ... what is the word for it... gratitious self deception that USG and the Devalopment Retards practice on themselves in regards to a "dynamic culture of entrepreneurship" which most certainly DOESN'T MOTHERFUCKING THRIVE IN THIS BENIGHTED LAND OF CAPRICIOUS RENT SEEKING RISK AVOIDING TIJAARI SIT IN THEIR FUCKING SHOP AND WAIT FOR BUSINESS, LOOK AT THE NEAR TIME HORIZON RISK culture.

Oh and for the bloody commentators chez Pratike, lui compris, the governments here bloody well do need to be hollowed out. "Better government" is pie in the sky self deluded tripe given the entrenched habits and the like. Break the rentier enforcers allies backs I say. At the least we might see the utter waste of tax paying citizens payments be reduced a mite.

Otherwise, in regards to the comment re American based multinationals "swooping in" - what I often say to locals in the region "If only you had your fucking act together enough where this was remotely even a possibility or a real threat, then this khayali nonsense might make sense, and indeed would be a great problem to have." It's outlandishly stupid anti-Globo morons khayali idiocy to think internationals are going to scoop up anything all that important in the region, or even that they have any substantive effect on the economies. Bloody well the contrary actually. Given the risks, investment is minimal, as FDI flows clearly show. Stupid economic 19th century mercantilist illitarcy of the first order.

Of course there is a real problem of making liberalization work internally and not just for well-placed clans, but then the well-placed clans generally profit best from having regulatory capture - despite the wide idea Development Retards and Leftist Self Deluders bright eyed innocence in regards to somehow magically 'transforming' the way government is actually done.

Realism, my dears, realism will get you somewhere, not theoretical idealised scenario whanking.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 11:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Out still but a tidbit

I am still out of office, but this tidbit from Abu Aardvaark (now unmasked as an academic specialist in media, explaining his time for such things) is interesting:
Excerpt from an interview in one of the leading regional dailies, ash-Sharq al-Awsat (The Middle East), with al-Arabiya's director, Abderahmane ar-Rashed.
http://abuaardvark.typepad.com/abuaardvark/2005/05/rashed_intervie.html
"Rashed criticized the American dealings with the Arab media, which he describes as indiscriminate and full of misunderstandings and reliance on incorrect messages, and also had this to say: "The main problem the Americans have in the region is that they don't know the Arabic language, so they confuse people and places and even policies and make fatal mistakes for themselves and for the people of the region... [and] have made big mistakes in Iraq because of this ignorance."

Quite true, really. Maybe not "the main problem" but certainly a serious problem.

Non-trivial really given the number of people who get their MENA news from the intel-op that is MEMRI and its nasty little spin (see the bit on al-Jazeerah in Abu Aardvark where MEMRI claims Jazeerah did not report on an item it ... actually reported a day before MEMRI's claim.)

Posted by The Lounsbury at 09:11 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 19, 2005

Kicking

Absolutely kicking day, I think we did a great deal today, but of course bringing all to fruition is going to be tough. Another biz din now, I shall slime up to one of the leading asset managers of the region.

Was at event, I think someone took me pic, very unhappy about that. Next time will slump down are make faces. Thankfully more important people were at table, I expect their pics will be the ones retained.

Else, met President of regional exchange today. Important fellow. Bad teeth. Odd they appointed someone with such bad teeth.

Eh well, much to do, and have to fuck off now. Looking forward to a return to home base on Sat.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 07:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Amused.

I hear from my office that our HP dealer sold us a lot of contrabande HP ink cartridges. Not even particularly good ones at that. I am amused. Official licensed dealer trying to foist off contrabande / pirated (I mean fake) print cartridges. Got a good spread on them, motherfucker. Well, hopefully this will not require legal action.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 09:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 17, 2005

US Dollar Policy, aka short sighted nitwits in charge

I read today in the FT that the US has given a "deadline" to China to revalue its currency or.... what? Pout? Find bizarre ways to cut off nose to spite face? Or perhaps experiment in ways to prevent China from buying US Treasuries - show the PRC bastards what the US is made of.

Actually Snow's statement smells like weaseling:
Mr Snow said: “Unfortunately, the debate on China’s currency regime is clouded by a number of misconceptions of US policy...First, we are not calling for an immediate full float with fully liberalised capital markets. This would be a mistake at this time – China’s banking sector is not prepared. What we are calling for is an intermediate step that reflects underlying market conditions and allows for a smooth transition – when appropriate – to a full float.”

Staving off truly moronic moves from the short sighted, ignoramuses in the US Congress?

US policy is in the hands of nitwits. I wouldn't much care except my bloody salary is in dollars. Motherfuckers.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 07:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Entertaining and reflecting - MENA, Dev; US Reach and Stupid Laws

Still out fucking around trying to pretend the grinding, wrenching noise of the iceberg ripping open this ship's guts is not echoing in my head ( I sleep so well. Wonder what bonuses are going to be like... hahhaha. Bonuses. Fuckers. I hate them, I think I am going to write in my dumb fuck review that my best accomplishment was not engaging in so much cannabilism.)

This aside, the question arises tonight - is tonight's dinner legal? Is is a "gift" and further that, if I put the Cuban economic contribution on a side tab as... well, I will get creative ... does that make me amoral or immoral? Can't quite decide.

Further, it gives me the opportunity to reflect on an FT arty yesterday or was it the Economist? Well, no matter, it was about the USG's increasing reach overseas in pursuit of foreigners in re violations (claimed) of its laws, by people who never set foot in country. Despicable and will rebound on USG head. Wait for the squeeling like stuck pigs when the reverse happens one day. This sort of thing positively enrages me, that and all the fucking time spent reporting useless nonsense.

Finally, I note I now officially own real estate in this country. A point of horror as it dawns on me that I am bought into the other part of the package. Pity the no Shia customs are legal here, or that they passed that fucking divorce law.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 06:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 16, 2005

en deplacement

As we say. Out of the office. Silent for a while. But I read from Cental another senior officer has resigned, effective in 2 weeks. The decks are positively awash in blood now. We're not AIG yet, but....

Posted by The Lounsbury at 08:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 13, 2005

Arab Sat TV Market, Media Review: I am an illiterate moron who needs remedial reading skill assist.

Ahem.

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

In fact there is a discussion of the Arab Sat market:
The Rise and Potential Fall
of Pan-Arab Satellite TV
http://www.tbsjournal.com/fakhrads.html

To Pay or not to Pay? Free Western Entertainment Channels Seek Pay Package Audiences
http://www.tbsjournal.com/khalil.html

A quick review both seem interesting. I will comment soon. In the meantime, again, I am an illiterate moron for missing these.

However, I still remain morally superior to MEMRI.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 06:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 12, 2005

Italy: A Stinging Rebuke on the ABN shenanigans

Somewhat far afield for me, but something I have been following closely in regards to what the Commissioner properly frames as the question of whether the EU is going to be a market or a vast bureaucracy with internally squabling fiefdoms and non-tariff barriers:

(will edit down later

Europe must embrace market forces
By Charlie McCreevy
Published: May 11 2005 20:23 | Last updated: May 11 2005 20:23

There is a whiff of unreality in the air in many member states of the European Union. Facing ever lower growth forecasts, some even blame competition for their troubles.

In a sense they are right, but for the wrong reasons. It is the lack of competitive pressures that lies behind so many of the ills Europe faces today. A competitive financial services sector is an essential ingredient in supporting economic stability and growth. In spite of the progress made in integrating financial markets in the EU, there are still obstacles that prohibit competition. This is most obvious in the retail banking sector. Very little cross-border merger activity has taken place. We are currently examining the various reasons for this (legal, economic, cultural and so on) and will present a report to the EU's economic and finance ministers in September.

The report will be based on a number of elements including economic and legal analyses of the present situation as well as input from market practitioners on their views about current obstacles. I want to set out a wide-ranging examination of the factors inhibiting cross-border mergers and acquisitions, warts and all. On this basis, I intend to raise with ministers various key issues that need to be tackled in order to improve the competitive environment for European banking.

One of the issues is the need to adapt EU legislation to the requirements of a dynamic economy. The current controversy about bank takeovers in Italy has helped to highlight some of the problems. For example, it seems absurd to me that if the competent authorities of one member state accept a company which is a viable bank in their territory, the competent authorities in other member states undertake a separate evaluation of the suitability of a well-established and supervised bank. In the specific case of ABN Amro's bid for Banca Antonveneta, valuable time was lost because, under the relevant legislation, the Italian authorities undertook an adjudication of the suitability of ABN Amro's management and shareholders. This meant requesting information from the Dutch authorities and evaluating it. In contrast, the Italian authorities would not have needed the same information to adjudicate on Banca Populare di Lodi, as they already know well the Italian bank's management and shareholders.

In the context of a competitive bidding environment, these delays could give a domestic bidder a clear advantage. This was never the intention of the EU's legislation. While banking authorities must have a role in reviewing the suitability of those in charge, this must be done in a clear and transparent way that does not allow any discriminatory treatment. I believe it should be possible to lay down conditions whereby a form of mutual recognition of bank shareholders could operate between competent authorities.

To redress this and other potential barriers, I will present before the end of this year an overhaul of the relevant provisions of EU banking legislation so that any legal obstacles or ambiguities can be removed. As well as the mutual recognition point, other aspects that need to be dealt with include setting out the relevant criteria and procedures to be followed by competent authorities in member states when assessing new shareholders of banks.

The relatively low levels of bank profitability in the EU make mergers and takeovers less attractive. Increasing returns to scale through efficiency gains, consolidation or otherwise are necessary if EU banks are to break out of this vicious circle of low returns on investment. In the US, the legislature gave the impulse necessary for consolidation to take place. The positive results are evident. The US industry is generally healthier and the economy is stronger. Through further efficiency, Europe can achieve similar beneficial results and ensure the efficient and liquid markets necessary to drive the EU economy. If we want financial institutions that are global participants in the years to come, a strong competitive domestic market is a basic requirement.

What is clear is that we cannot afford to keep important sectors of our economies sheltered from market forces. Whether it be financial services, car manufacturing or textiles, no one is well served by protectionism. Jobs "saved" today are usually at the expense of those who will come on to the job market. In addition, consumers pay higher prices. This is not the pathway that leads to sustainable growth levels. One thing is sure: if the European economy is to regain momentum standing still is not an option.

The writer is a member of the European Commission with responsibility for Internal Market and Services

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Various

First, via Abu Aardvark, media hounddog, several items of interest:
(i) A new Arab media report. Pity it's all focused on the democracy and governance aspect of media, but I suppose that is what I should expect. Unless I missed it, there was no business aspect (although yes I know, given the state of the media...)

Of note several US program connected discussions. The prime item that stood out to me, however, it the irritating translit al-Hurra seems to have adopted. Alhurra? What kind of childish subliterate translit is that? Gives me the sense of some half-educated British Council English class chat driven failure.
See http://abuaardvark.typepad.com/abuaardvark/2005/05/tbs_14_online.html

By the way, the articles on al Hurra suggest it is getting 'better' and indeed gaining share, but by programming fluff. Good use of money that (and yes the programs mentioned in the reviews can be found elsewhere, e.g. on LBC etc.).

(ii) MEMRI caught in blatent spin and ... lies.
I like it. http://abuaardvark.typepad.com/abuaardvark/2005/05/memri_nails_alj.html
I like it alot. A lesson for those of you who would depend on this mendancious for intel op.

Second, I attended some blah blah free trade promotion blah blah waste of time. Some development people were there, I think USAID idjits, blithering on about how expensive credit is for "small and medium sized enterprises" (SMEs in development speak). Are they smoking crack? Local enterprises can get credits ranging from 7-13 percent over a 1 to 5 year term. That's positively ludicrously low given cost of capital and risk premia. Bloody development people, ignorant fools. No wonder their programs are so poorly conceived, they don't understand the bloody market.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 03:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 11, 2005

On the Xian Concert in Marrakech, an observation

A comment on a comment on a comment.

Brilliant.

Well, leaving aside my archness for a moment, at this site there is a comment that I wanted to shred, largely because I am mean, but also because it irritated me:

http://www.liberalsagainstterrorism.com/drupal/?q=node/1075#comment

A certain "Andromeda" commented:
I'm not ready to assume this is a bad thing.

One of the things that I've been pondering is that Christian fundamentalists may be better at communicating across cultural boundaries with moderate Muslims because both sides share a strong faith, and a similar set of conservative moral values.

More cultural interchange between Americans and Muslim countries can't possibly be a bad thing. An interfaith dialogue between Christianity and Islam could be extremely helpful in dealing with issues like church-state separation and women's rights, because they'll be less likely to be seen as an attack on Islam if they are conveyed by people who also have a strong (if different) faith.

I do worry that if they get pushy it could provoke antagonism though.
I don't want crazy Christian evangelicals pissing people off.

Also, Muslim and Christian conservatives could also join forces to roll back some more liberalizing social influences as home, which is another negative side effect. But I think that it is more likely such interaction will help liberalize Muslim societies.

This is possibly one of the stupidest things I have read in a bit. Well, to be fair, actually I have read far stupider things, so merely it is irritatingly stupid coming from someone otherwise perhaps not quite so stupid.

First, the idea fundamentalists might be better at communicating across cultural boundaries because of supposed share strong faith is idiotic. Shared 'conservative' values never helped Protestant and Catholic wing nuts communicate during the wars of religion and contemporary conflict. Nor would it appear that "strong faith" has much meaning insofar as the Xian fundies deny the very validity of Islam, where except the most looney of Islamists, Muslims don't deny the validity of Xianity (only look at it as superceded). A fundamental hurdle, that. It's like saying that because I have red hair and you have red hair (I don't actually, but no matter) we understand each other better.

As for Church-State seperation, this is idiotic. There is no Church, the structures are utterly different, no comparision. Nor would Xian conservos make a "dialogue" more "compatible" - a truly idiotic thought - as in fact it would associate the concept of secularism (not Church - State sep) further with what the Islamists insist is a Xian assualt on their religion. In other words, precisely the wrong fucking move. Same for women's rights. Idiotic thinking.

Strong faith has fuck all to do with it. Perception of outsider and the fucking colonial era are the problems. The motherfucking colonial period. Bloody naive gits.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 08:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Random Low Value Thoughts

First, today at lunch, after nearly being murdered by a random Fiat (and reflecting that being murdered by a piece of junk like a Fiat would add insult to injury), I was moved to reflect (not for the first time) on the fiendish cleverness of the local authorities in managing to design crosswalks that maximize the chance of murdering pedestrians.

While urban planning in the developing world is frequently said to be non-existant (and the sheer horror of modern Cairo is hard to argue), I for one appreciate the evil genuis that went into the local traffic planning - all with an eye for ensuring the survival of the fittest and weeding out the stupid and the inattentive (as well as the unwary foreigners, who needs them anyway).

While the design here in the financial district is particularly brilliant - the feeding via traffic circles that ensures that regardless of traffic light color, none of the cross walks are ever truly free of traffic - I don't mean mere turning traffic, but full bore run-you-down traffic - I have to say that the most fiendish touch is across me office where a dual light, an ambiguous traffic circle and the leafy quasi Parisian boulevard ensure that while the unwary and unworthy pedestrain may assume they have the light (due to the stopped traffic, one high speed lane remains "green lighted" and partially screened.

A truly brilliant design, sure to whack at least a few insignificant scum. It's a good thing the locals are the proud holders of the title of top ten most murderous streets in the world (which we can also attribute to the peculiar half-observance of traffic laws, which is to say 80 percent of the time they are observed, but a good 20 percent of the time not, just to keep you on your toes).

The other item I have to observe is the irritation I presently feel with the Ministry of (Late) Statistics which just managed to provide me with sub sectoral data to 2002 (lord knows we wouldn't want state secrets slipping out too early), in electronic format.... in a locked pdf. Supercilious pompous gits. On the other hand I am finding scanning the print out, tedious as it is, actually appears to be more efficient than copying data straight out of the PDF. Of course an excel file or something similar would be far too easy.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 08:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 10, 2005

Well, not such good news: Turkey-Kurds

Overlooked I believe, this is not a good thing:

In Turkey, New Fears That Peace Has Passed
Army Takes Offensive As Kurdish Rebels Return From Iraq

By Karl Vick
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, May 10, 2005; Page A12

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/09/AR2005050901253.html

Posted by The Lounsbury at 07:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Various Random and Marginally Relevant MENA Obs

First, I am moderately entertained that the Big Shrimp Eater and The Eye Doctor are having a pow wow in Sharm esh-Sheikh
(al-Hayat: http://www.daralhayat.com/arab_news/05-2005/Item-20050509-c2f022b5-c0a8-10ed-0053-d3cf9c0afa19/story.html) Thursday. I can only imagine the fun that conversation will hold.

In related matters, I was very amused to read this little bon mot from Abu Aardvark's favorite Egyptian commentator, Baheya: http://baheyya.blogspot.com/2005/05/enter-ikhwan.html
"You�re starting to sound like Rif�at al-Said (the most venal joker on the Egyptian political scene), and I just don�t buy your claim that the Ikhwan will never change and should be shunned forever."
Not amusing to any of my readers I am sure, but I know Rifaat. He's an entertaining figure, and while I can't disagree with her...brutality, it does bring to mind being in his office once for some, eh, discussions quite a few years back, and him deciding to slap his Beretta down on the desk between us. A most unnerving moment, he being a more than slightly odd chap. Well maintained gun. I even think he knows how to use it.

Mind you, I like the actual commentary there as well. But the bon mot on Rifaat really touched me.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 06:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Idiocy: "Christian Rock Concert for Muslims" (updated, with more vitriol and new improved abuse)

Christian Rock for Muslims
By SAMUEL LOEWENBERG
Published: May 10, 2005

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/10/arts/music/10chri.htm?pagewanted=all

This deserves extended comment, when I get a moment. Will update later. From a comment at Abu Aardvark in an item on the Nancy Ajram concert in Marrakech that I mentioned a bit back.

[Update]
Well, I was fascinated that I had heard literally nothing about what would normally be a terribly controversial event. I bit of research showed why: it was spun on the local basis as a purely cultural event with no mention of the religion angle. Indeed only in Western press do I see that echo.

Some interesting links and comments from local press (afraid we shall skip the Arabic press, too hard to search on):
Tourisme
Un nouveau festival pour Marrakech
Marrakech est dotée d’un nouveau festival.
Le «Festival de l’amitié». La première édition aura lieu du 6 au 8 mai en plein air à Bab El Ghli.
Au menu, une programmation axée principalement sur le rock.
http://www.aujourdhui.ma/tourisme-details2407.html

Rock'n' roll arabe à Marrakech
Près de 40 000 Marrakchis et touristes, des jeunes, mais aussi des familles entières, se sont rendus à Bab Ighli, en face des remparts et des jardins de l'Agdal, vendredi 6 mai, dès 18 heures, pour assister à l'ouverture du premier festival de l'Amitié de la ville, le Friendship Fest, sur une grande place dominée par une scène monumentale
http://www.casafree.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=2202

Un festival de rock américain à Marrakech
· De grands noms y sont attendus
· Le Friendship Fest cherche aussi à renforcer la coopération culturelle maroco-U
http://archives.leconomiste.com/article.html?id_journal=2006&a=62494

Marrakech fête le rock
· Le Festival de l’amitié commence aujourd’hui pour trois jours de musique
· De grandes têtes d’affiche sont au programme
· La ville s’oriente vers une cadence d’un festival par mois
http://archives.leconomiste.com/article.html?id_journal=2015&a=62755

Well, if one reads over the various articles it is pretty bloody clear that it wasn't seen as a Xian event but an American rock concern (reflecting I suppose the near complete ignorance locally re American rock and low profile overall - hiphop gets far more play), and most highlight the local groups that played.

The saddest part, however, is the Moroccans putting Xian rock in the context of Marrakech being an emerging destination for the jet set, and mentioning this backwoods rube art form in the same context as the Montreux jazz festival, etc.

Poor hoodwinked bastids.

Now, my comments on the NYT article
Christian Rock for Muslims
By SAMUEL LOEWENBERG
Published: May 10, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/10/arts/music/10chri.htm?pagewanted=all

MARRAKESH, Morocco, May 9 -
In a sprawling open space alongside the Royal Palace here last Saturday night, Baimik Youness and his friend Salahe Boudde were jumping with excitement, about to see their first American rock concert. The Moroccan students had never heard of the band, Rock 'n' Roll Worship Circus. Nor had they realized that the three-day concert they were attending was a Christian rock festival.

"It's not my business," said Mr. Youness, an 18-year-old Muslim and heavy-metal fan. "I just want to listen to the music."

But Mr. Boudde had a question: "What are 'evangelicals'?"

From the accompagning photos, it's fairly clear our boys here are from the Marrakechi elite (or perhaps Casaouie), certainly heavy metal is not something generally popular.

Last weekend's concert, organized by several American evangelical groups and the Moroccan government and called the Friendship Fest, was staged despite criticism from Moroccan Islamic groups and opposition political parties. Seven American Christian bands alternated with Moroccan groups. The event drew more than 15,000 Moroccans a day, police officials estimated, as well as dozens of evangelical Christians from around the United States.

I wonder how this got sold - I have to suspect the Tourism people got some whack ideas in their head about one day attracting large numbers of American rock fans.

The concert was about more than power chords for Jesus. From the evangelists' perspective, it was an opportunity to gain a foothold in a relatively liberal Muslim country and give religious priorities a more central role into American foreign policy.

Wonderful, as if more ignoramus input is needed in American foreign policy.

"We see ourselves as doing important foreign policy work that the Bush Administration is not doing," said the Rev. Richard Cizik of the National Association of Evangelicals, a Christian-values lobbying group in Washington and one of the organizers of the festival.

"As followers of Jesus, we should, in our civic capacity, work to reduce conflict by promoting international understanding," he said.

By organizing a rock concert......

Well, I suppose in some odd way it makes sense.

From the Moroccan government's point of view, it was a chance to interact with what is perceived to be a politically influential group in American politics at a time when the country has been criticized on its human rights record and continues to grapple with a longstanding dispute over the status of Western Sahara.

Some media commentators in Morocco said that by befriending the evangelicals, the government was attempting to curry favor with American political leaders. The magazine Telquel said the government's embrace of the festival was intended to "sell the image of Morocco to the neo-conservative lobby in America."

Telquel eh?

Scrappy little newsweekly with somewhat dubious reporting standards.

A quick visit to their archives finds http://www.telquel-online.com/174/culture_174.shtml with some sour commentary, but nothing regarding the Neo Con lobby. (search non-existant, so we'll have to take the author's word, must have been in another section or edition. Rather more important for local fans, Rachid Taha is coming to Casa l-Mghribe next week. Bloody hell, now can I manage to be in attendance?

The Marrakesh regional president, Abdelali Doumou, said in an interview that the government hoped the Friendship Fest would bolster Morocco's image on a variety of fronts, as "a modern country, a democratic country" and "to improve our image in the States in politics, in economics and everything."

Marrakech regional president Doumou is a gullible cretin in my opinion being exploited by dishonest god bothering scum, but what the heck, some money into the economy.

I am amused how the Moroccan government manages to insert the Western Sahara into every fucking subject possible. Miserable whankers.

However, it seemed to have worked on the ignorant rube organizer:
He was more coy on the political influence wielded by the evangelicals but said, "If it happens that they are strong, it can help."

For Morocco, a pressing issue is Western Sahara, former Spanish territory that has been under Moroccan control for much of the past three decades. More than 150,000 former nomads from the region, the Sahrawi, have been in refugee camps in Algeria since fleeing the invading Moroccan army in 1975. Several American evangelical groups have provided assistance to the refugees and backed calls for a referendum to resolve the region's status. Some here say the government's welcome to the evangelicals was an attempt to co-opt their support.

In fact, one of the evangelical leaders who was behind the Christian rock festival, the Rev. Rob Schenck, who leads the conservative Christian lobbying group Faith and Action in Washington, said that after what he had seen in his meetings with Moroccan officials he would now seek to get evangelicals to reassess their position on Western Sahara and the Sahwaris' political leadership, the Polisario Front. "Evangelical Christians have to be extremely cautious about supporting any group that would sympathize with a socialist or Communist philosophy or world view, which is completely in conflict with an evangelical or Christian worldview," Mr. Schenck said in an interview. He said Moroccan officials had told the evangelical leaders that the Polisario had received Cuban training and aid.

First, I find it strange that these idiotic god bothering backwoods ignoramuses have a position on the Western Sahara (let alone know the name), but this pales in comparison with the sheer delight I find in this ignorant hick fool getting sold on the Moroccan position in re Polisario - ooh the evil socialists (the ignorant hick twit is unable to distinguish between Marxism and Socialism. Not that I am personally favorably inclined to either per se, but his idiocy and gullibility amuses me.

In particular I am pleased with the Moroccans sheer .... creativeness in raising the Cuban angle. Sure, what 20 years ago some Polisario cadres probably got some training from Cuba. Everyone did back then, you gullible floundering ignorant rural git. It's Algeria that is the main culprit here, Cuba being fucking irrelevant to the question.

The evangelicals did have to retreat on another front. After criticism from the press and Islamist groups, the Moroccan government canceled a planned conference on Christian-Muslim dialogue that was to have taken place in the week leading up to the rock festival.

Good, Moroccans were spared listening to utterly uninteresting god bothering nonsense. Might have turned them even more against America.

One of the country's main opposition parties, Istiqlal, said the evangelicals were trying to use the events as a covert means of conversion to Christianity.

Well, Istiqlal is right. Not that one could expect the drooling hick god botherers to have much success.

By the way, although the clumsy writing here manages to imply Istiqlal is Islamist, it most certainly is not. It's ... well conservative in a social sense (old school pre-whack job takeover Salafist roots, with a strong nationalist component, but rather all over the place on economics - indeed horror of horrors, often a mite taken with Arab "socialist" policies in the past).

Mr. Doumou played down these fears, saying critics had drawn false inferences from some of festival's early promotional material. One evangelical organizer, Michael Kirtley, had called the event "an expedition for hearts and minds." Mr. Schenk had told The Christian Post, that the evangelicals would "communicate clearly why we personally embrace Jesus Christ." By the time of the concert, however, the evangelicals were watching their words, and there were no references to Christianity in promotional materials or on stage, outside the lyrics of the songs.

Doumou is either stupid (which I credit) or mendacious (a given), or both (entirely possible, I go with mendacious)

Communicate clearly why they embrace X. Super, go over like a lead balloon.

Evangelical attendees were given written instructions by the organizers not to proselytize, which is illegal in Morocco. In interviews with more than a dozen of the evangelical Christians attending the concert, most stuck closely to that script, speaking instead about "bridging cultures" and "making friends." One, who would give only his first name, Samuel, said that some of his friends had been interrogated by the Moroccan authorities on suspicion of proselytizing. Many of the American Christians at the festival said they were thrilled at the chance to interact with local Muslims.

I can only imagine. A bunch of idiot god bothering rural gits with limited language skills wandering among the spoiled elite. I am sure it was a match made in ... heaven.

"To play worship music openly in a Muslim country, this is something that lots of people have been praying for for a long time," said Steve Iliff, a 44-year-old cook from Wisconsin who had traveled to the concert with four other members of his church.

News to idiot hick (a cook, super): Morocco has a religious music festival where "worship music" (fine and literate turn of phrase that) of an Xian persuasion has been played "openly" for over a decade.

Ignorant fools.

Some Moroccans at the concert, like Mahmoud Zuine, a 21-year-old economics student, enjoyed the music but found the Christian component of the rock concert unsettling. "They know we love this music, so they use this music to pass their message," Mr. Zuine said. "It's like a magic way. It's not direct."

But he doubted that many of the Moroccans understood the lyrics. "I laugh because nobody knows what they are saying," he said.

True enough, and even those that knew English were not likely to pick up on evangelicals particular hick jargon.

Following on this, let me also comment on the quite similar and perhaps even more stupid Telegraph arty

Christians take their message to last frontier
(Filed: 09/05/2005)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/05/09/wevan09.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/05/09/ixworld.html

Evangelicals rock with Muslims, writes Isambard Wilkinson in Marrakech
The Rev Harry Thomas often organises Christian rock music festivals for God-fearing Americans. But this weekend he staged the first such event in the Muslim world, in the desert city of Marrakech, despite fierce opposition from Islamists.

Uhhuh. Fierce opposition of the Islamists which managed to make almost zero noise.

The noise over Nancy, that everyone was aware of, this? Nada.

Of course, the article forgets to menion they had to back down.

As he watched Gabriel Wilson, the lead singer of Rock & Roll Worship Circus, blast out a doleful paean to "God's Love" in front of thousands of Moroccans, Mr Thomas realised he had accomplished a mission, a mission from God.

Its organisers had billed the gathering as "an expedition for hearts and minds", an "apostolic journey into a heretofore closed nation" and a "Book of Acts experience".

A closed nation?

I don't know what to think about this ignorant god bothering gits - perhaps they could do just a bit of research before coming.

But Mr Thomas was more circumspect. "We are not here to proselytise," said the white-haired preacher from New Jersey. "We are here to sing."

As the born-again President George W Bush, a hero to America's Christian Right, wages his global war on terrorism, the festival's backers were not so much hanging on to Uncle Sam's coat tails as stepping where US foreign policy fears to tread.

"I am convinced that this is the crack in the door of the Islamic world," said the Rev Rob Schenck, one of the project's religious leaders, adding that Morocco "provides a potential model for other Muslim nations".

Emphasis added: meaning he's having entirley unfounded conversion fantasies. American rube Xian fundie porn.

The mission rhetoric is to "combat terrorism by confronting stereotypes" and show that "people of different faiths can be friends and live in harmony". Although, as Mr Schenk said, he does not want to be seen as "getting soft on Islam," the "last frontier" for American evangelicals.

Getting soft on Islam?

As the sun sank over the khaki-coloured folds of mountains behind Marrakech, the Friendship Festival, featuring such stars of Christian rock as the Newsboys and the British band, Delirious?, got going.

Men in jellabas and women in headscarves listened to the entertainment but many were oblivious to its message. "I don't think most people know or care about the message of the music - they have just come to listen to it," said Aiman Karim, 22, a student.

It was free after all.

Incongruous among the crowd were a hundred or so stiff-backed and baseball cap-wearing Americans.

One of them, Steve Peterson, 53, chief of police in the Wisconsin town of Augusta, said: "It is a great gathering. I have just a great love for people. I believe this is another open door for Christianity and I am praying for that."
Emphasis added:
Conversion Porn.

Stupid hick moron.

Another member of his group, Jerrid Stetter, 35, also from Wisconsin, said: "I have travelled here for an historic occasion not just for Morocco but the Arab world. In a country where it is illegal to stand up and preach, to invite Christian bands to sing about the Lord in public, well, it blows my mind".

Stupid hick moron, bis. Playing music isn't illegal, trying to convert people is.

The concert was partly sponsored by King Mohammed VI, who is eager to strengthen his reputation as the most liberal of Arab monarchs. But the heavy security served as a reminder that the concert was a risky venture for the king.

Seated with Mr Thomas in a backstage tent, Abdelali Doumou, the president of the Marrakech region, acknowledged that the National Association of Evangelicals and the National Clergy Council, the groups behind the event, were linked to powerful Christian lobbying groups.

"We know which goal they are fighting towards and we know what ours is," he said. "Our goal is improved standing in the western world. They should know that it is better to teach us to be good Moroccan Muslims than anything else."

His comment that "we would have get on as well with them [the evangelists] as if they were communists," made Mr Thomas, whose colleagues loath "Reds" even more than "unbelievers", shudder.

Doumou, not sure if that last was a brilliant comment or merely accidental. However, overall is a twit.

The US is already co-operating with the region's military and collaborating with Morocco on its plans for democratising the Arab world.

Collaborating with Morocco....

As part of the wider initiative, a team of evangelical Christian doctors has been despatched to work in villages outside Marrakech.

The third prong of the "Messianic offensive" as one Moroccan magazine, Telquel, described it, was to have been a debate between evangelical pastors and Muslims. But after an outcry it was postponed. Even moderates were aghast at the prospect of Christians trying to convert Muslims to their religion.

There are sour memories in this regard from the French colonial regime. Something these ignorant hicks have no understanding off, as they blunder around like the ignorant mornic god bothering cretins that they are.

The Americans had been warned not to distribute Christian literature or proselytise. Several Christians have been jailed in Morocco over the last decade for preaching or handing out Bibles.

For this batch, however, this visit was a triumph. After all, Christ's gospel had been heard in the desert once again.

Eh. Cretins.

UPDATE:

Oh, my this hit the big leagues: al-Hayat
http://www.daralhayat.com/arab_news/nafrica_news/05-2005/Item-20050509-c2f7075b-c0a8-10ed-0053-d3cfc4959ec5/story.html
The article is in re the Islamists being pissed off.
On this angle I can't say I blame them, as the entire thing seems to have been one fucked up dishonest farce.

It was free though.

Wonder if we could get a free angle on Rachid Taha?

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Realism and expectations: Egypt, Expats and Witless Fools

I was at once amused and irritated by this comment in an expats blog:
http://www.livejournal.com/community/mid_east_expats/18103.html

The poor thing is all wigged out to discover, horror of horrors, that al-Ikhouan are the real political opposition in Egypt and hopes they don't come to power.

Witless fool.

There are in fact only two real options in Egypt: Algerian solution or a prise de pouvoir in a more or less democratic fashion by the Ikhouan.

One or the other is inevitable in the medium term in my opinion, the Egyptian system is too sick and I see no realistic way for a "liberal" opposition to win democratically.

So, you either continue the sick system but with a more palatable face, or you hope for a Sistani like wise head (aside, yes, harder to pull off in Sunni context as the Imamate doesn't exist) can guide the Ikhouane through a reasonable compromise.

Merely squeeling about Islamic law isn't going to get one anywhere. Bloody people like this thought the Shah was a good deal. It's judo that wins the day, not boxing.

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Charming: from the wires - bomb aimed at Sistani

"In the holy city of Najaf, security forces dismantled a four-kilogram bomb hidden 150 metres from the home of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's top Shiite"

Now that will help Shi'a - Sunni dialogue.

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May 09, 2005

Goddamn Expense Report Nazis, ruining my scummy lifestyle

Bloody expense report nazi just wrote me telling me that I can't charge so much alcohol on my dinners.

Fuckers.

Now I shall have to play the bloody US Gov and development people's little game of getting bills rewritten w/o alci mentions. Self righteous kill joy twits.

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An article to share: Sex Trade

A controversial article published some months back, in French, which I ran across by accident (searching for leasing companies actually, wierdly enough) on line today:
Maroc : Le business du sexe
Lejournal-hebdo nº 196. Du 19 au 26 fevrier 2005
http://www.mediterraneas.org/article.php3?id_article=328

I share for those with a reading interest. Perhaps later for comment. I have to say I think one has to take many of its assertions with a grain of salt.

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Iraq: Government - Bahr ul-Uloum; Settling of Scores

Well, Chalabi did not last long, must be terribly upset.

The run down on the government is here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4493999.stm

Our man Chalabi still has his fingers in the pie, however.

Note from The Independant:

Former ministers flee as Iraq begins corruption inquiry
By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad
09 May 2005
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=636841

While I am sure there was and is corruption, I am as sure that there is more score settling than real corruption fighting going on.

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Aoun the Fascist: Sat TV all the time

This weekend was rather taken up with coverage of Gen. Aoun's return to Leb Land. Bloody minded killer is back and sadly back to his old games it appears. Claiming he played a role in the Syrian withdrawal..... Hah.

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World Bank Middle East and North Africa Economic Developments and Prospects 2005 Initial Comment

For those of you interested in such things, I thought I might take a moment to draw your attention to the relatively recently released World Bank report entitled “Middle East and North Africa Region 2005 Economic Developments and Prospects: Oil Booms and Revenue Management.”

A fairly longish report with all the various benchmarking indicators one could want – or at least most of them if one is a policy maker. Rather less useful from a private investment perspective, but nevertheless interesting reading. I shall try to find some time to actually comment on this in extensor, but frankly given I need to get cracking on the private equity in MENA note for this fall, this may not be soon. Or ever.

Some quick observations, from a lazy weekend spent digesting this and other items. First, this contains some of the most poorly labeled and obtuse graphs I have seen in a while. I flatter myself in thinking I know how to read these things, but some of them require a good few minutes of study, and one (unemployment) is so poorly labeled that I defy anyone to make sense of it. WB should know better, a graph should not require a minute of reflection to puzzle out, it needs to be right there and understandable in 5 seconds.

However, this is mere whinging. Decent report overall, the aggregated indicators are interesting (although again, the manner in which they chart them out, requiring a full paragraph footnote to explain suggests that they could have spent some time in rendering the presentation). The overall message – economic reforms have improved conditions, but much slower than the rest of the world. No surprise, but they do present an analysis of different factors. I would note that their breakout of MENA countries (or a sub-set, some are excluded for data reasons) into ‘resource-poor – labor abundant’ (RPLA); ‘resource-rich – labor-abundant’ (RRLA); and ‘resource-rich – labor-importing’ (RRLI) breaks out the economic structures better than the usual regional groupings do. Reflecting on the discussion, which I will have to get back to, on private sector development, I came away not agreeing with the Bank’s habitual focus on trade barriers. While free trade is important, my experience suggests that in order for the poor but labor abundant countries to successfully improve their export performance, reforming internal business environment – ease of business creation, related regulation – needs to be at the forefront. Obviously both are important, but my sense is that at present, the focus should be on internal reforms such as more reasonable labor laws (flexibility, flexibility; hiring and firing has to be easy) and ease of business creation.

On this last item the minimum capital required to register a business is particularly evocative (as well as truly puzzling). As the report notes, the minimum capital for starting (or better, legally registering – obviously one can be an unregistered ‘grey / black’ market business where rules don’t apply) is “exceedingly high in the MENA region, almost five times as high as the world average and well above any region of the world.” By was of explanation, they note the requirement is “a measure of the amount an entrepreneur needs to deposit in a bank account to obtain a company registration number.” Expressed in percentage of per capita income (based if appears off of Gross National Income – GNI, not GDP) is extraordinary, even stunning. Eyeballing the chart, Egypt requires minimum capital (c. 2004) equal to 800 percent of per capita income, Jordan somewhat over 1000 percent of per capita income, Morocco somewhere around 750 percent, Syria around 5000 percent. More “reasonable” figures in Tunisia, for example, 350 odd percent, UAE, 400 odd percent, Kuwait, somewhat under 180 percent. By way of comparison, the chart reflects an average for Latin America in the 50 percent rage, Asia-Pacific in the 180 percent range.

That implies an enormous of amount of capital, relative to disposable resources in country, to open a business – legally of course. Now, certainly one can do so ‘illegally’ but being ‘illegal’ or unregistered – above all in a Code Civil country – carries no small disadvantages in terms of access to resources, financial or otherwise. As the report blandly notes, such “high minimum capital requirements all but block entry into the business sector.” They certainly make a step-wise, evolutionary development for entrepreneurs rather more difficult and immediately open up rent-seeking activities for rentier capital holders.

Now, I have all kinds of observations in this connexion but let me share rather a conversation I had, about this very point with my afternoon coffee companion. A banker for one of the largest (fully private, international) banks in the region.

I shared my outrage and incomprehension over these figures with her (Yes, sadly in taking coffee with attractive young women on the weekend, I remain unable to have light conversation. I am afraid she only puts up with it because she wants to bed me and my handsome passport. I remain coy. Ha. Besides, otherwise we have to talk about her hair or some boring nonsense – or I end up talking to her fetching white but too tight and full shirt, better to get wound up on macro-economic data and entrepreneurship. Save me from making my life more complex.), and I believe rather got something of a window on the thinking – perverse, conservative and risk-averse – behind these otherwise completely incomprehensible numbers.

First, she argued that high minimum capital requirements are very positive because that ensures that undercapitalized companies are not created. This left me aghast and I pointed out that her confreres are always complaining that local companies of all sizes are severally undercapitalized with too little capital retention for investment, and local entrepreneurs tend to slip out the capital regardless. Rather clearly the high minimum capital requirements are not doing anything effective there. She granted that this might be the case, but then argued that things would be even worse if it was permitted to start up even more thinly capitalized firms – where upon ignoring her leaning back most improperly – I noted that if one is strangling off enterprise creation to start with and the result of a policy is under-capitalization, it hardly seems that the regulation is making things better. After bickering about the mentality of “Arabs” and enterprise creation, we declared a truce on the issue of whether comportment would be better or worse without the regulation, per se.

However, she most interestingly asserted that the ‘wrong kind of people’ would create firms if just anyone with a little capital was allowed to do so. I found that an amazing assertion, above all as coming from someone coming from a modest family. It was an amazingly clear statement of unconscious rigidity. She also argued that there would be “too much” firm creation by doubtful types and that this would lead to explosion of failures, of bankruptcies. Again, her ideal – as a banker mind you – seemed to be firm creation by the “right” people with the “right” resources, and to forgo possible growth for more sureness. Not “too many” bankruptcies by “the wrong kind of people.”

As one might suspect, this absolutely horrified me and provoked a perhaps too excited anti-regulation rant (and anti-French, there being some French people nearby to gratuitously insult for having foisted the idiocy of a particularly rigid version of Civil Code thinking off on the Med. Basin. Afraid they merely ignored me, but I do believe I got under their skin.) on my part, where I believe my best point was quite simply that all this creation and failure is going on anyway, but only in the black or grey market where for lack of proper legal protections, financing, etc. really renders the economy less stable – although it does render the formal economy more ‘stable’ in a rather conservative, rent seeking fashion. Forgone growth for a false sense of stability and continuity. The sense of continuity I think is important. Rather a similar situation to the situation in labor market regulation where they are always copying the most ‘protective’ regulations to “protect” the workers – and manage by doing this to squeeze a significant percentage of employment out into the grey / black markets where no protection at all exists. The moronic mistake of the anti-globos, pushing for more “protection” for workers in terms of useless laws that will only present opportunities for rent seeking corruption and blithering on a “fair trade” as a polite way of saying “protection.”

In the end we only partly agreed – I think largely because she wants to pretend to agree with me, I doubt I convinced her of the evils of government regulation in such areas.

[edited]
I note that contra certain rumours, this was not in fact a date. Just wanted to clear that up. On dates I talk about concrete business.

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May 06, 2005

New Month - Reader Feedback etc.

I almost forgot my abusive tradition of pretending to be customer friendly, so here it is the place to remind me of questions neglected, ask questions, ask me who the bloody hell I am (and get the usual evasive answer), etc.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 07:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Intellectual Property Management Sanely

An item of some interest to me, as I both live this and (sometimes tangentially, sometimes somewhat less than tangentially) deal with these issues: IPR or in non-jargon acronyms, intellectual property rights.

I also hope this is a return to some real value added commentary. Laziness and a bit of burnout set in. Pity that, but what can I say. You should be happy I post this rubbish at all.

Now, as those who have read me somewhat off-kilter online ranting since the message board days know, in the past I worked on issues directly and intimately tied to IPR. Gen Mod actually, although only on the touchy feely business end, not on actual science. I revive this to highlight that I have an inherent sympathy to IPR, in its proper place.

How piracy pays
By Guy de Jonquières
Published: May 2 2005 19:36 | Last updated: May 2 2005 19:36
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/771c7db2-bb32-11d9-911a-00000e2511c8.html

When western businessmen in China and other emerging Asian markets meet, the talk soon turns to pirates. Not the seafaring kind but the armies of imitators, counterfeiters, criminal syndicates and corrupt officials who profit by violating the rights of intellectual property owners.

Well, real piracy too.

Almost every company has a story of new product designs mysteriously appearing in shops before it has launched them; of vast markets in illegal copies and bogus spare parts; even of Chinese customs impounding genuine imports, claiming they were fakes and then charging legitimate importers a stiff fee for their release.

I have to confess, in terms of the way market power works, I somewhat admire what the Chinese are doing. Strategic respect is probably far more intelligent than reflexive respect.

Piracy is estimated to cost US software producers as much as $10bn a year in lost revenues in China alone. Neither hot-shot lawyers nor Washington's diplomatic table-thumping has stopped it. Periodically, Beijing rounds up a few offenders, but new ones are on the streets the next day.

Indeed, using hot shot US lawyers in an emerging market is often a recipe for cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face.

The hot shots rarely have a sense of the real limits of legal power in emerging markets. I’ll sue you is something that the well connected in such markets laugh at.

Tough World Trade Organisation rules on intellectual property rights enforcement, established a decade ago at US insistence, were supposed to crack the problem. But the only time they have been used against a developing country was a public relations disaster. When big pharmaceuticals companies sued South Africa in 2001 for overriding patents in order to import cheap generic Aids drugs, an international outcry forced the industry into retreat. Today, even the strongest advocates of the WTO rules flinch from invoking them, fearing their companies will suffer a political or commercial backlash.

I have to say that despite my Pharma history, this should have been obvious as a PR disaster and a loser from the get go.

Lesson one from this: Never let the lawyers decide strategy in these areas. Same bloody thing Monsanto did, bloody gave the anti-Gen Mod ignoramuses vast ammunition. Lawyers rarely know the meaning of Pyrrhic victory, and rarely, even when they do know it, understand the meaning. Now, to be fair, you pay your lawyer to be your unflinching advocate on the battle field. However, too many executives think that one should cede strategy with legal implications to the Champion. No, no, no. Bad idea. The Champions are almost always in favor of the death match. The cold hearted Machievelli who is your strategy man should be there to tell the Lawyer-Champions, “well yes, you’ll win in court and you will lose in the market.” In general it’s the market that counts.

The South African Pharma case fairly stunk of a loser –sure if pressed it might have been one ‘legally’ but only at a pointless loss of face and damage to one’s own market. Now the Big Pharma boys objectively had no small point in re their issues re leakage etc., but anyone smart should have know that this was an issue best treated as a compliance issue. That is cut the deal on cut rates and then police for the re-exporting problem. Hire Kroll or whomever (Kroll having gone seriously down hill in my opinion, I’d suggest a local actor) to police this, and when it leaks, bust it. And give yourself the spin of protecting the locals, rather than play the Big Bad Moron 800lb Bad Guy.

Simple strategic analysis, but they fucked it. Fucked it. Rather like Monsanto fucked us on GMO – motherfuckers….. Still bitter about that. There was a beautiful, rational industry strategy in place before the morons took over at Monsanto. But I digress.

No wonder they feel frustrated. Now they are trying a new tack, reining in aggressive lawyers and rolling out programmes in developing countries to teach consumers to respect IP rights and governments how to enforce them. Whether the soft-cop approach will work any better remains to be seen. But at least it is dawning on the IPR lobby that it has been fighting the wrong war with the wrong weapons.

Thank you (oddly my above rant was written before reading this paragraph closely, fits well by accident, I was ranting from heartfelt experience).

Indeed IPR has been fighting the wrong war with the wrong weapons (or generously, the right war with the wrong weapons).

Violations abound in poor countries, not because their citizens are crooks or their governments corrupt and lazy - though some undoubtedly are - but because they are poor.

BINGO!!!!

Well, not on the governmental part.

Actually, respect of rule of law is lacking too, so I am not sure I would say citizens are not ‘criminals’ by intent, but rather they are … innocent criminals? Criminals of circumstance rather than open volition against a reasonable standard?

I go back to comments I have made here over time: there is nothing worse for the respect for the rule of law than making laws that fit some far away ideal but are in fact operationally ineffective. While one may make some superficial foreigner happy and the check box investor (who will get fucked anyway because he believes those motherfucking “development report” driven data bullshit “summaries”), one does not build what is truly important – sustained local respect for the rules.

An aside if I may in regards to the issue of local respect and the “Check Box” approach of the development community and the disservice they do – unintended consequences as it were. About a year ago, no a year and a half, I read a pious piece of rubbish by a development agency (USG connected) asserting that the Moroccan securities market was doomed to its 1998-2002 bear market unless it adopted a range of “reforms” – largely making it a real Mercedes of a securities market. All this was piously asserted as the “solution” to their problems. Mid-2003, without any bloody substantive changes, well sentiment changed, and the market took off again. I will not bore you with my interpretation of what happened, the reasons were multiple, but the real lesson here was that the foreign consultants wanted to impose an idealized version of North American securities markets standards on an immature market. This was “obviously” correct – forget that the idiots who wrote the report knew literally nothing (I am afraid I do not exaggerate) about the market or country. Nope, cut and paste. Indeed, if one looked at a real success in addressing relatively similar issues in terms of a public securities market in the developed world, I point to OFEX and AIM in the United Kingdom as clear rebuttals to the pre-packaged nonsense of the development “international best practices” (aka overly idealized market structure nonsense) crowd. Transparency. Blah Blah. All that necessary to attract FDI. Well except that it’s not. A component to be sure, but not the overriding one. See PRC. Reasonable protection of property rights, certainly, but a dynamic market is far more important. Dynamic either internally or export driven.

Returning to the article:
“Many people in Asia yearn for better living standards. Globalisation has whetted that appetite by exposing them to slick marketing campaigns touting the desirability of sophisticated foreign products and affluent lifestyles. But many of those products far exceed their means. A suite of Microsoft software would cost the average Chinese worker several months' income, a Louis Vuitton bag even more. When the genuine article is beyond reach and risks of prosecution are low, buying an affordable copy is a rational economic choice.”

Indeed, and as in fact a USG officer charged with IPR (but whose apartment is full of Malaysian knock off DVDs) told me, “I see it as building a market – building tastes. Without piracy most of these people would rarely see our [US] products. When they grow rich enough they will opt for the real thing.”

I suspect that this is right. The real problem is leakage to developed markets, not piracy in the poorest markets – although some effort has to be made to start the process of course.

Or in other terms:
It is still theft, of course. But it is not always socially retrograde. One Asian-born American recalled recently that his generation would not have received a decent education in their, then backward, homeland if parents had been unable to buy cheap pirated textbooks. Today, his native country is rich and he is a Silicon Valley tycoon.

In short, there are payoffs for the holders of IPR to turn a blind eye in some cases. Or it is best to take a longer view rather than a penny wise pound foolish view. Above all as a policy maker.

Further highlighting my argument, or better the argument of my US Gov amigo who turns a blind eye to that which he is supposed to be suppressing (I suppose a bit hypocritical given the salary drawn but better use of money):
“Nor is piracy all bad news for brand owners. It has been so effective in creating a mass market in China for Microsoft's standards that Beijing is trying to break their hold by buying home-grown Linux-based systems. That may cost Microsoft state contracts. But it is unlikely to sever the allegiance of millions of private computer users who may one day be able to afford genuine Microsoft software.
Emphasis added.

Bingo.

Finally on the argument of stages:
History tells us they will. Japan, a serial violator of IPR while it was industrialising, now upholds them vigorously. India has just passed a tough IPR protection law with enthusiastic support from local pharmaceuticals companies that once fiercely opposed such legislation. As they start to develop new drugs, rather than just copy existing ones, those companies are eager to enjoy the monopoly over rewards from innovation that patents seek to confer.

Again it is the argument against being penny wise pound foolish.

The conclusions are obvious: first, relying narrowly on legal measures to protect IPR is pointless, unless the market provides effective incentives to respect the law. Second, those incentives grow as economies develop, industrialise and innovate.
Emphasis added:
Proper market driven incentives and a real sense of what is possible given the market.

And don’t let the lawyers drive your strategy nor policies.

Americans who rail against IPR infringements in poor countries should listen less to lawyers, study economics and learn from history. Until a century ago, their country was the world's most persistent pilferer of other people's intellectual property. Today it is IPR's global policeman. As Rupert Murdoch once observed, monopolies are a terrible thing until you have one.

Indeed.

I should add based on my own experience from what I see in this region is that there is little point – that is little real return – in squeezing the local market. It is best to adopt an intelligent policy of simply cracking down when (i) the violations are too open and more seriously, (ii) when there is leakage out of the emerging market into core developed market territory.

Besides, I have come to cherish my “Adidos” brand super cheapies for mucking about. Adidas is for sports, Adidos is for mucking around…..

Posted by The Lounsbury at 12:59 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 05, 2005

EU: Walking to the edge of failure - or the Constitution is irrel

I may be getting off my reservation for the moment, but a comment on something I have been watching closely, both for its professional interest and for its reflection on problems that impact on my region of interest. On the impact on my region of interest, MENA, I make the following case: the hypocrisy and "do as I say, not as I do" attitude found in this case (ABN being blocked on an Italian acquisition for transparently 'national' reasons) also goes for Euro relations with MENA - espcially France. French penetration and exports to MENA - super, wonderful, dandy. Off-shoring of services to Maghreb, say call centers - oh the horror, "social dumping." Pure mercantilism of the stupidest kind.

Well, to the article:

Europe balks at a free market for bids
By Guy Wyser-Pratte
Published: May 3 2005 19:45 | Last updated: May 3 2005 19:45
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/dd9aa6b0-bbfd-11d9-817e-00000e2511c8.html

"It is widely acknowledged in financial circles that an effective guarantor of good corporate governance and effective management oversight is the existence of an unfettered market for corporate control. Corporate executives who consistently destroy value in a free market are replaced by good managers, often through takeovers. Potential bids are a "sword of Damocles" dangling over incompetent managers. "

Well, one has to admit this is a bit overstated. Incompetent well-connected upper management is often suprisingly resilient and well-rewarded for its destruction of shareholder value.

"In this regard, the sad spectacle of ABN Amro's attempts to take over Italy's Banca Antonveneta sends a terrible signal about the future of the European Union's corporate sector. The Dutch bank has complained that the Bank of Italy has allowed a rival Italian bank to build up a large, potentially blocking stake in Antonveneta.

It all seems a far cry from late 1999, when Vodafone, the British mobile telecommunications group, launched a hostile takeover of Mannesmann of Germany, providing a glimmer of hope that corporate Europe was changing. Despite clumsy interference from Gerhard Schröder, the German chancellor, Vodafone's bid succeeded in April 2000, becoming the largest cross-border transaction in history.

Elsewhere, however, it was a different story. In 1999, LVMH, the luxury goods group, attempted a full takeover of Gucci, the Italian fashion company listed on the New York and Amsterdam stock exchanges. Pinault-Printemps-Redoute, the French retailer, always eager to block the ambitions of its erstwhile adversary, used an obscure Dutch law that enabled Gucci to issue new shares to its employees' pension fund. As a result, PPR gained effective control of Gucci through a minority interest, preventing a free auction from occurring. So much for the Netherlands. Following PPR's "victory", other European companies began incorporating there to obtain the same takeover protection. The Netherlands had become Europe's Delaware. "

The main point here really should be the blocking of cross border transactions - within the Euro zone or at least within its zone of influence (granting that Swiss companies are not precisely EU) - is clearly becoming an issue, and intra-EU corporate consolidation is being blocked by outdated national-mercantlism. The same issue struck at the services directive.

It seems abundantly clear that integration, real integration, is stalled out and doesn't have proper support. Political posturing tied to French elite dreams of Great Nationhood is not a proper substitute.

"This was not how it was supposed to be. A unified takeover code covering all members of the EU was meant to ease cross-border acquisitions and help the rationalisation of many of Europe's fragmented industries. Frits Bolkestein fought valiantly during his tenure as the EU's internal market commissioner to pass legislation that would enshrine such a code and prevent management from entrenching itself with measures to deter takeovers. But this effort was undermined by German members of the European parliament, eager to sustain Lower Saxony's obtuse law protecting Volkswagen from a takeover. The scheme eventually adopted by the EU last year is a toothless hodgepodge, which allows countries to determine individually if anti-takeover measures can be applied locally. In a fitting adieu, Mr Bolkestein convinced the European Commission to take Germany to the European Court of Justice over the "Volkswagen law".

That's the EU at present, spinning out toothless hodgepodges to try and cover up the fact that in reality the EU is stalling out. Rather than taking this on forthrightly, trying to cover up the loss of momentum.

"There have been numerous attempts by individual European states to thwart takeovers over the past 10 years. One wonders if the EU's statesmen have ever read the relevant article of the Treaty of Rome that lays out the need for open competition. The French, for example, continue to want to create "national champions". When Aventis, the Franco-German pharmaceuticals group, last year received a bid from France's Sanofi-Synthélabo, the French finance ministry did everything in its power to dissuade Novartis of Switzerland from counter-bidding. Anyone bidding for a French company must obtain the ministry's blessing; the result is usually a contrived solution franco-française. So much for a free market. "

Indeed, so much for even the common market.

In Austria, meanwhile, the government hastily enacted a special interest bill to prevent a takeover of VA Technologie, the engineering group, by a foreign bidder, after rumours surfaced last September. The bidder - Siemens of Germany - promised not to pursue the bid against political opposition. Its interest was later rekindled and a formal offer accepted, but the initial protectionist sentiment almost scuttled a valuable merger transaction.

Everywhere one looks in the EU, except for the UK, there seems to be no concern for shareholders or for what is best for the European economy, only for what serves parochial interests. The only recourse is to the European Court, which has in the past struck down such measures as "golden shares" and over-arching anti-takeover laws. But the wheels of justice grind slowly.

Only what serves parochial (short term) interests.

And one talks of further integration, sustaining momentum?

Whistling in the dark I say.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 06:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Welcome to a world of Junk

Yup, finally happened.

GM is junk.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=530&e=3&u=/ap/20050505/ap_on_bi_st_ma_re/wall_street

Financially speaking that is.

Ford as well.

Should imagine a big downdraft there, institutionals shedding.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 06:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

FT: Interesting but flawed arty on Arab Americans

Culture is not the culprit in Arab poverty
By Moises Naim
Published: May 3 2005 20:22 | Last updated: May 3 2005 20:22
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/fdfef900-bbfe-11d9-817e-00000e2511c8.html

A strangely wrong headed if interesting commentary from earlier this week.

People of Arab descent living in the US are better educated and wealthier than the average American of non-Arab descent. That is one surprising conclusion drawn from data collected by the US Census Bureau in 2000. The census also found that Arab Americans are better educated and wealthier than Americans in general.

Not having the data on hand (yes I know there is a website, but I have other things to do other than dig through), I have to ask - just how is Arab identified?

Arab American may well may a Lebanese Xian family resident for 2,3 or even 4 generations (although one would guess that only those in the past 2 would self-id as Arab - in the aggregate).

Whereas 24 per cent of all Americans hold college degrees, 41 per cent of Arab-Americans are college graduates. The median annual income of an Arab-American family living in the US is $52,300 - 4.6 per cent higher than the figure for all other American families. More than half of such families own their home. Forty-two per cent of people of Arab descent in the US work as managers or professionals, while the overall average is 34 per cent.

Interesting figures. Encouraging I suppose.

But what does this say, in reality? Does it really say anything substantive about immigrants? Above all in the sense implied in this next paragraph:
That immigrants generally do better than their compatriots back home is no surprise. What is far less common is for immigrants to out-perform the average population of their adopted home. This should prompt debates on issues such as the notion that cultural factors lie behind the Middle East's widespread poverty. Cultural explanations for why some succeed when others fail have a long history. From the argument that the "Protestant work ethic" was more compatible with capitalism than other religions to the idea that "Asian values" drove east Asia's economic miracle, the "culture" factor has been a common explanation for economic success or failure.
Frankly, I find it somewhat bizarre to try to pose the success of multi-generations of Arab Americans in the United States as a refutation that cultural issues are important in explaining MENA economic issues. It is self evident that they are. Of course, I suspect he really wanted to say "immutable, unchangeable" cultural factors. In that case.... well nothing is unchangeable, ex death I suppose, but it sure isn't easy.

Of course, a rather unforgiving and unstable natural environment doesn't help, and in fact I would say reinforces many of the "bads" in MENA societies.

The Middle East's poor economic and social performance today has also prompted some to argue there is a malignancy in the prevailing culture.

Well, there is.

Of course, again, I think he really is talking about the quasi-racist Islamophobic bigots who would claim this is inherent to the region, etc., rather than the product of a specific confluence of present factors and historical experience - and natural environment constriants.

Such views are fuelled by the inexcusably poor performance of Arab nations. In the last two decades, no region besides sub-Saharan Africa has seen income per person grow as slowly as the Middle East. At the current rate, it will take the average Arab living there 140 years to double his or her income. Asians, Europeans and North Americans are expected to double their incomes in the next 10 years. The total economic output - including oil - of all Arab countries is less than that of Spain, and the Middle East's unemployment rates are the highest in the developing world while its literacy rates rank near the bottom.

Eh..... yes, but a note of caution - one of the issues that I think clouds thinking on reform in the MENA region is that... well, it really isn't a socio-economic unit. Rather like generalzing about Europe West of the Urals. Generalizations are useful and necessary, but one would rightly object about airy pan-European generalizations as usually not very useful, esp if talking about current political and socio-economic trends. Sub regions, West. Europe, Med. Europe etc. make more sense.

Same for the "Arab World." Maghreb is rather different than Machreq and within Machreq you really have Egypt, Sham, and Gulf. (and the two oft forgotten appendages, Oman and Yemen, but who cares about them?)

But if cultural impediments are behind the Arab world's disappointing performance, what explains the success of people of Arab descent in America?

Ah.... liberation from that overarching culture?

Perhaps not, but really, this is a weak argument.

One common perception is that Arabs who come to the US come from the wealthier Arab countries and are already better off.

Eh, really? Well, that's just wrong headed, but again note he's conflating in my opinion Arab Americans in the census as being the same as Arab immigrants. I rather suspect that this is not a good identity.

Another answer, of course, is that the US offers them better opportunities and institutions. Arabs in the US have ample opportunities to prosper and can rely on institutions to protect their civil and economic rights to do so.

Given my experience, on the ground, and hearing daily the gnashing of teeth of frustrated people here, I have one word:
BINGO.

It is tempting to dismiss the achievements of Arab-Americans by pointing out that people who emigrate tend to be younger, more ambitious and entrepreneurial. In this view, the Arab-Americans doing so well in the US would have made it anywhere.

Again, see the standing objection.

Sadly, that is not true. Otherwise, why are Arab immigran