Showing posts with label China. Show all posts
Showing posts with label China. Show all posts
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Rotten Apples - A Personal History Of The Computer Industry And The Myth Behind Apple Computer's "Hip-ness"
Prophet Synthesizers... Edgar Winters played one on the seminal rock-synth tune 'Frankenstein'... was operating out of a converted bungalow on Ocean Street and Broadway. Mountain Computer and Sirius/Victor in Scotts Valley... some smaller... almost no one may know of them anymore.
What they were doing was called 'decompression'.
Work hard... Play hard. Try to keep SOME brain cells intact.
Those days are long long over.
The 'money-men' inexorably moved in.
The innovators moved on.
That's why they're innovators.
It's not about the money.
It can't be.
The two mindsets are mutually opposed and eternally repellent of each other (actually, the money end of the human equation is parasitic... could not exist without the innovators, meaning the innovators are under constant pressure to resist.), as the North end of a magnet repels the South end of another.
Money is needed to develop complex ideas, products, and bring them to fruition, yet money interferes with the creative flow in some base archetypal way.
Child labor would be one of those 'ways'
Apple admits using child labour in ChinaTrust me... There ain't no "T-shirts and Tennis Sneakers" surfer dudes and dudettes up in Apple's Cupertino offices, and there haven't been any for a long long time.
Apple has admitted that child labour was used at the Chinese factories that build its computers, iPods and mobile phones.
By Malcolm Moore in Shanghai
27 Feb 2010
But the myth of some long-lost Apple 'hipness' lives on.
Legends in their own minds... with HUGE advertising budgets in place to remind YOUR mind of those mythical times when the people running the show in the computer industry were creative in ways other than 'creative marketing strategy'.
As the local surfers like Tapu (the Hawaiian who ran a morning-only omelet-exclusive breakfast joint, he who swallowed fire, literally, in the restaurant for customers when he felt like it, and was liable to be closed anytime the surf was up) and the "Night Fighters" (of Pleasure Point) down at the finer surfing spots around here might have said to the turistas, as a mildly disrespectful reminder that they were considered clueless: "Pack your trash"That's what Apple needs to do. Pack it, and move it on down the road to someplace where they tolerate slave labor. Because I for one do NOT believe the word of these greedheads, now pervasive in an industry once dominated by people who did it for the love of it, NOT the money in it, that they WILL police their overseas vendors effectively a day longer than they have to.
Peace, Out.
Friday, February 26, 2010
BOY Are They Going To Be Mad When They Find Out They Can't Have All The "Stuff"! Narrowing The Gap Between The Rich and Poor In China
WORLD NEWS: "China's Efforts Narrow Gap Between the Rich and Poor," by Andrew Batson, Wall Street Journal, 3 February 2010.Good chart on income inequality in select countries (Gini index):
(In his commentary about it, Barnett is just plain wrong assuming this is good for the other nations and especially the planet due to rising affluence.)
Just wait till the same per-capita percentage of the Chinese population can afford to buy cars and drive them like Americans do.
According to numbers published in Harpers Magazine a number of years back, if the per-capita hypotheses held true, at that time, the global supply of oil would have lasted FIVE DAYS. It's probably a shorter period of time now that the major oil companies have all dramatically re-calculated their reserves downward and they still can't replace current usage with oil-being-pumped-at-the-wellhead.
Further, according to a BBC interview with the Chinese transportation minister a few years ago, that percentage should be reached by 2040 (using simple math).
Just wait till those billions of Chinese citizens find out they've been sold a 'bill of goods' (all the Western trappings of so-called 'civilization') they will never be able to attain.
BOY! Are They going to be mad!.
.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
PetroChina about to buy McDermott International, a Panama “based” corporate tax-avoider and the US Navy’s sole source for nuclear fuel
Mind you, this article was published April 20, 2009... Over a month ago, and not a word from the MSM, or anyone else, about the outcome of the deal.
McDermott International also manages the National Strategic Petroleum Reserve
If the rumors are true, PetroChina, a Chinese “Government Controlled Entity” (pdf), is on the verge of buying McDermott International, a company that, as I understand things, is the U.S. Navy’s sole provider of nuclear fuel and nuclear fuel assemblies. McDermott, a Panama “based” corporate tax-avoider, also manages the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve. (along with a lot of other critical national defense infrastructure. Take a look.)This rumored buy-out comes at a very interesting time. First, McDermott subsidiary Babcock and Wilcox bought out NFS (a competing nuclear fuel provider for the Navy) in January of this year.
(NFS was a troubled company that the Springboard covered previously–here, here and here.)
Second, the 2007 National Defense Authorization act, thanks to Representative Gene Taylor (D-MS), mandates that all future big Navy ships employ nuclear propulsion. But, now that we’re locked in and want high-energy/big power generation capabilities, where will the fuel come from? And at what price?Third, what better way to transform the Chinese Navy’s expected “carrier-building” announcement into a great-power referendum?
Rather than a simple, “hey, we’re building our first carrier, whee!” the announcement becomes, “Not only are we building carriers, we now own the means to build…nuclear supercarriers.”
Fourth, given that the purchase may be announced as early as Monday morning, this buy-out of a critical piece of the U.S. Defense Industrial Base risks putting an undeniably sharp edge on China’s upcoming naval celebration.
In the event the rumor is real, and the sale is announced tomorrow (or later this week), as the USS Fitzgerald (DDG-62) arrives for China’s Naval Review and CNO Roughead begins his effort to positively engage China, this takeover offers a humbling example of how financial power can trump even the largest of navies. If true, this is an old-fashioned big-power nose-tweaking, pure and simple.To be frank, if this buy-out happens during China Naval Review, we, the United States, will have lost face throughout China and, well, pretty much the rest of Asia.
To China’s credit, this financial maneuver is a fascinating geopolitical endeavor that speaks far louder than any conciliatory language the world is likely to hear during China’s Naval Review.
Finally, China’s economic jockeying comes at a time when the Obama Administration is still racing to reset national security policy. There’s a heck of a lot going on, and it all gives SECDEF Gates’ recent comments regarding America’s ability to confront modern-day economic warfare a particular poignancy.
To Gates, a recent wargame was, according to insidedefense.com (subscription):
“…an eye-opening experience and it also reflected some shortcomings in the ability and willingness of different parts of the government to share information openly…”Amen. Look, has anyone–besides the little ‘ole Springboard–who, I might add, has been hollering about this for a long time–gamed this? Where’s the policy discussion? Why no public or market preparation?
What, pray tell, is the implication of China’s aggressive business play, and, if this takeover does happen, what are our options?
Article Source, US Naval Institute
More @ Springbored's Springboard
Friday, May 29, 2009
The Real War "Game", Pipelineistan poker - It all comes down to the top two global players - Pepe Escobar, Asia Times
Tomgram: Pepe Escobar, Pipelineistan Goes Af-Pak
Back in March, Pepe Escobar, that itchy, edgy global reporter for one of my favorite on-line publications, Asia Times, began laying out the great, ongoing energy struggle across Eurasia, or what he likes to call Pipelinestan for its web of oil and natural gas pipelines. In his first report, he dealt with the embattled energy corridor (and a key pipeline) that runs from the Caspian Sea to Europe through Georgia and Turkey -- and the Great Game of business, diplomacy, and proxy war between Russia and the U.S. that has gone with it. Now, in the second of what will be periodic "postcards" from the energy heartlands of the planet, he plunges eastward into tumultuous Central and South Asia and the great devolving battleground that, in Washington, now goes by the neologism of Af-Pak (for the Afghanistan-Pakistan theater of operations). There, the skies are filled with planes and unmanned aerial drones, and civilians as well as combatants die every day in increasing numbers as ever more frequent attacks and expanding conflicts make daily headlines, while, in Afghanistan, Washington continues to build new military bases and ready itself to send in reinforcements.
Those are, of course, the front-page stories. Energy, especially in the form of oil and natural gas, fuels everything from civilization to its various discontents and means of destruction, and yet it remains largely on the business pages of our papers. Even in a time of relatively depressed oil and gas prices, energy runs like an undercurrent just beneath global headlines. Under the carnage of war, that is, courses what Escobar likes to call the Liquid War, and just how the energy flows and through which territories controlled by whom does turn out to make -- quite literally -- a world of difference, even if that isn't what captures our attention most of the time.
Today, let Escobar, whose latest book is Obama Does Globalistan, take you deep into the "New Great Game" that will determine the shape of our future planet. Tom
Blue Gold, Turkmen Bashes, and Asian Grids
Pipelineistan in Conflict
By Pepe Escobar
As Barack Obama heads into his second hundred days in office, let's head for the big picture ourselves, the ultimate global plot line, the tumultuous rush towards a new, polycentric world order. In its first hundred days, the Obama presidency introduced us to a brand new acronym, OCO for Overseas Contingency Operations, formerly known as GWOT (as in Global War on Terror). Use either name, or anything else you want, and what you're really talking about is what's happening on the immense energy battlefield that extends from Iran to the Pacific Ocean. It's there that the Liquid War for the control of Eurasia takes place.
Yep, it all comes down to black gold and "blue gold" (natural gas), hydrocarbon wealth beyond compare, and so it's time to trek back to that ever-flowing wonderland -- Pipelineistan. It's time to dust off the acronyms, especially the SCO or Shanghai Cooperative Organization, the Asian response to NATO, and learn a few new ones like IPI and TAPI. Above all, it's time to check out the most recent moves on the giant chessboard of Eurasia, where Washington wants to be a crucial, if not dominant, player.
We've already seen Pipelineistan wars in Kosovo and Georgia, and we've followed Washington's favorite pipeline, the BTC, which was supposed to tilt the flow of energy westward, sending oil coursing past both Iran and Russia. Things didn't quite turn out that way, but we've got to move on, the New Great Game never stops.
Now, it's time to grasp just what the Asian Energy Security Grid is all about, visit a surreal natural gas republic, and understand why that Grid is so deeply implicated in the Af-Pak war....
In Full @ TomDispatch
Travus T.Hipp @ Cabale News Service also has a few commentaries committed to audio at Archive.org on the topic:
[November 03 2009] Travus T. Hipp Morning News & Commentary: Facing Up To Reality In Central Asia - The West Is Losing The AfPakistan War... And Losing Badly [Here]
[August 04 2005] Travus T. Hipp Morning News & Commentary: A Laymans Guide to the 'Stans: Chapter 1 - 'Themistan' [Here]
[August 01 2005] Travus T. Hipp Morning News & Commentary: The 'Stans: Quietly, we are a very big part of it as Uzbekistan drops out of 'The Great American Alliance' [Here]
[March 24 2005] Travus T. Hipp Morning News & Commentary: The 'Stans & The U.S. Military Presence In Central Asia [Here]
Tags:
Af-Pak,
Afghanistan,
Caspian,
China,
Energy Economics,
Energy Security,
GWOT,
NATO,
Natural Gas,
Oil,
Pepe Escobar,
Pipelineistan,
Russia,
SCO,
Turkey,
Turkmenistan,
US Foreign Policy
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