Category: economics

pedal 1 hour, electricity for 24 hours

On By Rick McIn cycling, economics, ethics, health & fitness, product endorsements, things getting betterLeave a comment

Pollution free energy. 🙂

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Manoj_Bhargava,_Founder,_5-hour_ENERGY
Billions in Change is a movement to save the world by creating and implementing solutions to the most basic global problems – water, energy and health. Doing so will raise billions of people out of poverty and improve the lives of everyone – rich and poor.

That’s the mission of founder philanthropist Manoj Bhargava, born in India, educated in the U.S.

Bhargava has committed to giving away 99% of his $4 billion dollar net worth and signed the well-known Giving Pledge in 2012.

Thanks to Doug Davis for the link.

homeless in Seattle

On By Rick McIn economics, GOP USA, government, travelLeave a comment

I unexpectedly found myself in transit in downtown Seattle. I stayed at City Hostel since the Green Tortoise was full.

Caught the @QuickShuttle bus to Vancouver, Canada. Not the cheapest option at US$43 one way. But more convenient. Free WiFi. Good service. I’d take it again.

Late Friday night and early Saturday morning I wandered the streets. It’s appealingly unrefined for a major city. Homeless, intoxicated and deranged citizens are everywhere. One decided to punch me with his garbage bag of old clothes. He does that to everyone, I assume. I didn’t take it personally. 🙂

There are missions and homeless shelters. People still on the street don’t like the rules.

homeless in Seattle

more homeless in Seattle photos

documentary – Bikes vs Cars

On By Rick McIn cycling, economics, governmentLeave a comment

Traffic congestion worldwide must be getting worse.

Istanbul, Mexico City and Rio are three of the most congested.

I don’t own a car. Love public transport. And cycle commute as much as I can.

Sadly, our world promotes motor vehicles. Not bicycles. 😦

Bikes vs Cars depicts a global crisis that we all deep down know we need to talk about: climate, earth’s resources, cities where the entire surface is consumed by the car. An ever-growing, dirty, noisy traffic chaos.

The bike is a great tool for change, but the powerful interests who gain from the private car invest billions each year on lobbying and advertising to protect their business. In the film we meet activists and thinkers who are fighting for better cities, who refuse to stop riding despite the increasing number killed in traffic.

Click PLAY or watch it on Vimeo.

Former Toronto mayor / crackhead Rob Ford is one of the bad guys. 😦

(via Treehugger)

The Big Short

On By Rick McIn economics, moviesLeave a comment

The Big Short is a 2015 American biographical comedy-drama film …

It is based on the 2010 book of the same name by Michael Lewis, about the financial crisis of 2007–2008 …

The film stars Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, and Brad Pitt. …

… On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 87%, based on 163 reviews …

The New York Times‘s “UpShot” series stated The Big Short offered the “strongest film explanation of the global financial crisis.” …

I’d agree. This film is entertaining. And it also provided me with the clearest insight yet as to the insanity of the American banks bringing down the world economy. If I’d lost money in that debacle, I’d be plenty pissed off. 😦

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

all that Christmas crap …

On By Rick McIn economics, ethics, philosophyLeave a comment

😦 … What are you going to do with it? 😦

Pope Francis led the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics into Christmas on Thursday, urging those “intoxicated” by possessions and superficial appearances to return to the essential values of life.

Pope on Christmas Eve urges return to essential values

My own philosophy is Voluntary Simplicity

Every increased possession loads us with a new weariness.
– John Ruskin

Click PLAY or watch comedian Ben Champion on Vimeo.

(via Treehugger)

I agree with Trump … on one thing

On By Rick McIn economics, ethics, government, things getting worse1 Comment

With his random, jumbled blurting … it was going to happen sooner or later.

… “We’ve spent $4 trillion trying to topple various people that, frankly, if they were there and if we could have spent that $4 trillion in the United States to fix our roads, our bridges, and all of the other problems — our airports and all the other problems we have — we would have been a lot better off, I can tell you that right now.

We have done a tremendous disservice not only to the Middle East — we’ve done a tremendous disservice to humanity. The people that have been killed, the people that have been wiped away — and for what? It’s not like we had victory. It’s a mess. The Middle East is totally destabilized, a total and complete mess. I wish we had the 4 trillion dollars or 5 trillion dollars. I wish it were spent right here in the United States …

VOX

Trump

Still. This idiot has to quit the race soon. He’s bad for America. Bad for the world.

expats working in the Gulf

On By Rick McIn economics, ethics, government, IslamLeave a comment

Palm trees, Vegas-style clubs, tax-free salaries, perfectly manicured promenades. Something about Dubai, the most famous of the seven kingdoms that make up the United Arab Emirates, makes living in the desert seem exotic and luxurious. …

About 80% of Dubai’s 2 million or so residents are foreigners …

Even though salaries are comparable with their European and North American counterparts, you won’t pay income taxes, which means you’ll be earning about 40% more. …

BBC

The expats I know in Riyadh and Doha are happy with conditions, overall. Our Gymnasium caretaker in Riyadh is now home in India for a 2 month holiday, for example. He has no plans to leave Saudi.

Doha, Qatar
Doha, Qatar

Here’s the other side of the story. 😦 The horror stories are mostly low paid construction workers.

Qatar’s failure to enact meaningful reforms for its kafala (sponsorship) system leaves hundreds of thousands of low-paid migrant workers at serious risk of forced labor and other abuses. Reforms announced on October 27, 2015, still require low-paid migrant workers to get their employer’s permission to change jobs or to leave the country, a system that that prevents workers from leaving abusive employers.

The new sponsorship law, law no. 21 of 2015, refers to “recruiters” instead of “sponsors” but it leaves the fundamentally exploitative characteristics of the kafala system in place. …

Human Rights Watch

Dubai

The side of Dubai that they DON’T want tourists to see: Photos show desperate conditions endured by migrant labourers forced to work in 50C heat for a pittance

related:

• Have 1,200 World Cup workers really died in Qatar?

• FactCheck: how many migrant workers are dying in Qatar?

Bill Gates – Cheap, Clean Energy

On By Rick McIn climate change, economics, ethics, governmentLeave a comment

I’m in Paris today with several world leaders for a big announcement on energy and climate change. It is deeply moving to be in this city just two weeks after the horrific attacks here, and I am inspired by the way the French people have persevered in such a difficult time.

Two related initiatives are being announced at today’s event. One is Mission Innovation, a commitment by more than ten countries to invest more in research on clean energy. The other is theBreakthrough Energy Coalition, a global group of private investors who will support companies that are taking innovative clean-energy ideas out of the lab and into the marketplace. Our primary goal with the Coalition is as much to accelerate progress on clean energy as it is to make a profit.

Here’s the thinking behind these two efforts. …

A Big Win for Cheap, Clean Energy

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

on American poverty

On By Rick McIn Apple, economics, education, ethics, governmentLeave a comment

In his book on the American South, Theroux is very critical of the Clinton foundation. Bill Clinton is from Arkansas. Yet seems to have done very little as a philanthropist to help his home State. Some people in the American south live in worse poverty than some in Africa.

PAUL THEROUX:

… China has been enriched by American-supplied jobs, making most of the destined-for-the-dump merchandise you find on store shelves all over America, every piece of plastic you can name, as well as Apple products, Barbie dolls or Nike LeBron basketball shoes retailed in the United States for up to $320 a pair. …

… if there was one experience of the Deep South that stayed with me it was the sight of shutdown factories and towns with their hearts torn out of them, and few jobs. There are outsourcing stories all over America, but the effects are stark in the Deep South. …

When Mr. Cook of Apple said he was going to hand over his entire fortune to charity, he was greatly praised by most people, but not by me. It so happened that at that time I was traveling up and down Tim Cook’s home state of Alabama, and all I saw were desolate towns and hollowed-out economies, where jobs had been lost to outsourcing, and education had been defunded by shortsighted politicians. …

Some companies have brought manufacturing jobs back to the United States, a move called “reshoring,” but so far this is little more than a gesture. It seems obvious that executives of American companies should invest in the Deep South as they did in China. …

The Hypocrisy of ‘Helping’ the Poor

Deep-South-Four-Seasons-on-Back-Roads-copy-350x252

California has a poverty rate of 23.8%, the highest of any state in the country …

The US Census declared that in 2010 15.1% of the general population lived in poverty:

9.9% of all white persons
12.1% of all Asian persons
26.6% of all Hispanic persons (of any race)
28.4% of all black persons.

wikipedia

If you are in the poverty demographic, you should certainly campaign against the Republican Party. Those people (in general) try to move as many dollars from the poor to the rich. 😦

American companies will eventually reshore factories. When it’s financially advantageous. That could be soon.

Apple – the most profitable company in the world – has made some attempts. Those have been problematic, so far.