Darjeeling - the place

I was talking (well, IMing) with a friend of mine tonight whose family is in the tea biz in India. He sent me these awesome pictures of the area around Darjeeling. I think I want to go.

And a vintage label of some tea that's produced there.

Do real men read?

I went to the Printer's Row Book Fair this afternoon, which is one of my favorite street fairs of the summer. It's always on the same weekend as the 57th Street Art Fair, which is one of my other favorites. (I'll go there tomorrow.)

The Book Fair has readings, used book stalls, obscure publishers, and apparently literacy groups, like Real Men Read. The only troubling thing was that there was no one there - not even a little stack of brochures. I was struck that it appeared that no real men were reading, or even talking about it.

This brings to mind for me the trouble that some of my clients face as well. If you claim to be doing good, but then don't do as well as other people expect you to, you get more criticized than if you'd never tried to do good in the first place. So, do I criticize Real Men Read for not showing up? Maybe they were out actually teaching reading this afternoon.

In my work, I help companies and commercial buildings become greener and the environmental watchdogs are ruthless when someone misses their targets, but are fairly quiet about companies that make no attempts to do the right thing. It hardly seems fair. My father, somewhat cynically, has been known to say "No good deed goes unpunished."

So, am I punishing Real Men Read by pointing out that they're MIA at the Book Fair? Or is it reasonable to hold people who have declared a goal to a higher standard?

Oil - Where does it come from? Where does it go?

Check out this fantastic map done by the FT. It shows big oil producers, consumers, reserves and the movement of trade.

Obama & Henry V

If you've been following the speeches of Barack Obama lately, talking about being on the cusp of history, see if you hear echoes of Shakespeare's Henry V St. Crispin's Day speech.

"This day is called the feast of Crispian:

He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,

Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,

And rouse him at the name of Crispian.

He that shall live this day, and see old age,

Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,

And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'

Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.

And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'

Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,

But he'll remember with advantages

What feats he did that day: then shall our names.

Familiar in his mouth as household words

Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,

Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,

Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.

This story shall the good man teach his son;

And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,

From this day to the ending of the world,

But we in it shall be remember'd;

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

For he to-day that sheds his blood with me

Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,

This day shall gentle his condition:

And gentlemen in England now a-bed

Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,

And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks

That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day"

Upside Down

From the International Herald Tribune today, a discussion of how the developing world is eating up the developed, with Mexican and Indian companies vying to buy American ones. We need to get used to not being on top....

For a while the world was flat. Now it's upside down.

To understand it, invert your thinking. See the developed world as depending on the developing world, rather than the other way round. Understand that two-thirds of global economic growth last year came from emerging countries, whose economies will expand about 6.7 percent in 2008, against 1.3 percent for the United States, Japan and Euro zone states.

The sharp rise in prices for energy, commodities, metals and minerals produced mainly in the developing world explains part of this shift. That has created the balance of payments surpluses fueling dollar-dripping sovereign wealth funds in countries like China. They amuse themselves picking up a stake in BP here, a chunk of Morgan Stanley there, and why not a sliver of Total.

We of the developed-world Paleolithic species are fair game for the upstarts now, our predator role exhausted. The U.S. and Europe may soon need all the charity they can get.

To place this inversion in focus, it helps to be in Brazil, where winter (so to speak) arrives with the Northern Hemisphere summer, and economic optimism, as exuberant as the vegetation, increases at the same brisk clip as U.S. foreclosures.

What is time?

Check out this documentary called What is Time, My Love? It is set in post-tsunami Sri Lanka with a bossa nova sound track. I haven't watched the whole thing yet, but click on the Watch link and the whole thing is there. It's about an hour long.

Innocence vs. Experience

In 1972, the King of Bhutan proposed the concept of Gross National Happiness as a measure to be maximized in his country, rather than, say, Gross Domestic Product or Per Capita Income.

Indeed, you could say that someone with extensive medical needs going through an expensive court case would contribute greatly to the GDP, but that person certainly is not high on the measure of Gross National Happiness. I've read studies that say that happiness is correlated with income up to a certain basic level, about $40K/family in the US. After that, happiness and income are not well correlated.

On another angle, in the last 5 years or so, Bhutan has opened up to the outside world, allowing television, internet, and travel. I think we would at first assume that this would be a good thing. Greater access to knowledge, news, other ways of being and the global market. While GDP has increased with this openness, Gross National Happiness has decreased.

It brings to mind Blake's dichotomy of Innocence and Experience. Each have their pros and cons. Perhaps as a culture, as a country, Bhutan is making that transition from Innocence with its optimistic happiness to experience with its wisdom/sadness.

So, I have two questions:

1. Do you prefer innocence or experience?
2. Does more money make you happier?
   

Oysters & Oscar Wilde

I was in an oyster place the other day and saw this quote by Oscar Wilde:

The world was my oyster, but I used the wrong fork.

Thank Goodness

Einstein said,

Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school.

What a relief - I just thought I didn't know anything anymore.

Next time you're in Washington....

I was in Washington a few weeks ago and I found the most fantastic bookstore near my hotel in DuPont Circle. Kramerbooks & Afterwards Cafe is awesome. They have books you don't see other places. (I bought about a dozen even though I was going to have to haul them on the airplane.) I also had breakfast there the next day.

So, next time you're in DC, check it out. I highly recommend it.

Yep, $100+/barrel is here to stay

I wrote a post earlier in the month about $200/barrel oil. Here's an interesting piece on the Goldman Sachs analyst whose been at the forefront of these predictions. At the very end of the article there are some interesting quotes by oil companies about where they think oil prices will settle.
Shell: $35-$65/barrel
ConocoPhillips: $90/barrel
Chevron: says Shell's estimate is too low
ExxonMobile: no comment

What does everyone think? Will this stimulate innovation? Or bring the economy to a grinding halt?

'Super spike' oil analyst gains a lot of Wall Street cred

By Louise Story

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Arjun Murti remembers the pain of the oil shocks of the 1970s. But he is bracing for something far worse now: He foresees a "super spike" - a price surge that will soon drive crude oil to $200 a barrel.

Murti, who has a bit of a green streak, is not bothered much by the prospect of even higher oil prices, figuring that it might finally prompt the United States to become more energy efficient.

An analyst at Goldman Sachs, Murti has become the talk of the oil market by issuing one sensational forecast after another. A few years ago, rivals scoffed when he predicted that oil would breach $100 a barrel.

Few are laughing now. Oil shattered yet another record Wednesday, as the price of light sweet crude for July delivery rose above $132 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices are 99 percent higher than a year ago, according to Bloomberg News.

Murti, 39, argues that the world's seemingly unquenchable thirst for oil means prices will keep rising from here and stay above $100 into 2011. Others disagree, arguing that prices could abruptly tumble if speculators in the market rush for the exits.

But the grim calculus of Murti's prediction, issued in March and reconfirmed two weeks ago, is enough to give any American pause: At $200 a barrel for oil, gasoline could cost more than $6 a gallon, or about $1.60 a liter, in the United States. U.S. pump prices are now around $4 a gallon.

That would be fine with Murti, who owns two hybrid cars.

"I'm actually fairly anti-oil," said Murti, who grew up in New Jersey. "One of the biggest challenges our country faces is our addiction to oil."

Murti is hardly alone in predicting higher prices. T.Boone Pickens, the oilman turned corporate raider, said Tuesday that crude would hit $150 this year.

But many analysts are no longer so sure where oil is going, at least in the short term. Some say prices will fall as low as $70 a barrel by year-end, according to Thomson Financial.

...

Murti said he "applauds" investors for driving up oil prices, since that would spur investment in alternative sources of energy.

High prices, he said, "send a message to consumers that you should try your best to buy fuel-efficient cars or otherwise conserve on energy." Washington should create tax incentives to encourage people to buy hybrid cars and develop more nuclear energy, he said.

Of course, if lawmakers heed his advice, oil industry analysts like him might one day be a thing of the past. That is fine with Murti.

"The greatest thing in the world would be if in 15 years we no longer needed oil analysts," he said.

U.S. oil executives questioned

Executives with big oil companies on Wednesday gave a wide range of estimates when U.S. lawmakers asked them how high oil prices should be, Reuters reported from Washington.

At a hearing on oil prices before the Senate Judiciary Committee, John Hofmeister, president of Shell Oil Co., the U.S. arm of Royal Dutch Shell, said that his company could be successful with oil prices at $35 to $65 a barrel, well below the record U.S. crude oil futures price of $132.73 a barrel reached Wednesday.

"I think in a range - somewhere between $35 and $65 a barrel - is what has been consistent in our ability to run a successful company," Hofmeister said.

Executives with Chevron and ConocoPhillips disagreed.

"I believe that the incremental cost of supplies is something above $90 a barrel," said John Lowe, executive vice president of ConocoPhillips.

Peter Robertson, vice chairman of Chevron, also said that Hofmeister's price range was too low to allow companies to break even.

J.Stephen Simon, a senior vice president of Exxon Mobil, declined to give a price estimate.

Global Warming: Bush Impersonation

This is awesome!

Photography Blog

Here is a cool blog on contemporary photography, which I wanted to share. Scroll down, it's interesting stuff. The May 1st posting is about photography on subways. From the time I used to ride the CTA red line and brown line from the Wrigleyville to downtown for work, I've wanted to take pictures of people's hands on the train. When you're lucky enough to get a seat, you're just at eye level with the hands of the people around you holding on the posts. I've never quite figured out how to do that discretely, or to do it in such a way that people didn't think I was just trying to steal their rings.

http://pictureyear.blogspot.com/

Thoughts in the Days of an Economist

A friend of mine, studying economics, has started a blog: http://somthum.blogspot.com/

She likes to refer to Thomas Friedman, as I do, but you'll also discover that she is in love with Ira Glass. (tee hee).

Generational Views of Vietnam

There's a special section on Vietnam in last week's Economist, which made me think about the time I visited there in the summer of 2000. I was traveling with my mother and Vietnam was our last stop during a 3 week trip that focused on China. In China, neither of us had expectations of what we were going to see, and we were both delighted. Vietnam was another story.

Of course I know from textbooks and TV specials and a general knowledge of history about the Vietnam war, but I was too young to know the emotional, political and cultural turmoil that it engendered. My most immediate sources on Vietnam were friends who had gone backpacking there after college in the mid 1990s.

On the other hand, as we were driven from the airport in Ho Chi Minh City to our hotel, the guide casually pointed out the old American Embassy. My mother immediately recalled news footage of people clinging to that last helicopter leaving the embassy roof, knowing that anyone left behind certainly was in terrible peril of death or awful re-education. As we drove into Ho Chi Minh City, I was excited to see a new place and she felt deep shame/guilt about how the US had failed to protect the South Vietnamese who had worked with/fought with the US. Those few days in Vietnam were difficult for her in a way that surprised me. I had never heard her talk about the subject and she was not a hippy or a war protester, but clearly she had very deeply held feelings, which were so different from my own because of our different generations.

Cats & Democrats

I'm not exactly sure it will work out this way, but it's funny. On the infighting in the Democratic Party by Lionel VanDeerlin :

"Oh yes, and anyone who fears that the Democratic nomination fight still under way will help re-elect Republicans should be reminded about cats. We're often under the impression cats are fighting, but next thing you know there are more cats."

Oracle Bones

I've just finished reading Oracle Bones by Peter Hessler, which traces his explorations of, yes, oracle bones, the politics of Chinese characters, the tribulations of Uighur asylum seekers in the US after September 11th, and the demise of traditional neighborhoods in Beijing.

It's a fabulous read. It makes me want to spend time in China, but even more, it makes me want to spend time writing about interesting things. I highly recommend it.

Lifting an 18 cent tax for 3 months is an Energy Policy?

To lift a quote from the article below: "Peter Schwartz of Global Business Network describes ... the true American energy policy today: "Maximize demand, minimize supply and buy the rest from the people who hate us the most.""

I wish I'd written this article. It pretty much says what I was thinking. When Obama was getting pressure to also lift the gas tax for the summer, he made the point that this would save the average person $30, and take away valuable funding for transportation infrastructure.

The energy to be serious, from The International Herald Tribune

By Thomas L. Friedman

Friday, May 2, 2008

It is great to see that we Americans finally have some national unity on energy policy. Unfortunately, the unifying idea is so ridiculous, so unworthy of the people aspiring to lead the United States, it takes your breath away.

Hillary Clinton has decided to line up with John McCain in pushing to suspend the federal excise tax on gasoline, 18.4 cents a gallon, for this summer's travel season. This is not an energy policy. This is money laundering: We Americans borrow money from China and ship it to Saudi Arabia and take a little cut for ourselves as it goes through our gas tanks. What a way to build the country.

When the summer is over, we will have increased our debt to China, increased our transfer of wealth to Saudi Arabia and increased our contribution to global warming for our kids to inherit.

No, no, no, we'll just get the money by taxing Big Oil, says Clinton. Even if you could do that, what a terrible way to spend precious tax dollars - burning it up on the way to the beach rather than on innovation?

The McCain-Clinton gas holiday proposal is a perfect example of what energy expert Peter Schwartz of Global Business Network describes as the true American energy policy today: "Maximize demand, minimize supply and buy the rest from the people who hate us the most."

Good for Barack Obama for resisting this shameful pandering.

But here's what's scary: America's problem is so much worse than you think. We have no energy strategy. If you are going to use tax policy to shape energy strategy then you would want to raise taxes on the things you want to discourage - gasoline consumption and gas-guzzling cars - and you would want to lower taxes on the things you want to encourage - new, renewable energy technologies. We are doing just the opposite.

Are you sitting down?

Few people know it, but for almost a year now, Congress has been bickering over whether and how to renew the investment tax credit to stimulate investment in solar energy and the production tax credit to encourage investment in wind energy. The bickering has been so poisonous that when Congress passed the 2007 energy bill last December, it failed to extend any stimulus for wind and solar energy production. Oil and gas kept all their credits, but those for wind and solar have been left to expire this December. I am not making this up.

At a time when we should be throwing everything into clean power innovation, we are squabbling over pennies.

These credits are critical because they ensure that if oil prices slip back down again - which often happens - investments in wind and solar would still be profitable. That's how you launch a new energy technology and help it achieve scale, so it can compete without subsidies.

The Democrats wanted the wind and solar credits to be paid for by taking away tax credits from the oil industry. President George W. Bush said he would veto that. Neither side would back down, and Bush - showing not one iota of leadership - refused to get all the adults together in a room and work out a compromise. Stalemate. Meanwhile, Germany has a 20-year solar incentive program; Japan 12 years. Ours, at best, run two years.

"It's a disaster," says Michael Polsky, founder of Invenergy, one of the biggest wind-power developers in America. "Wind is a very capital-intensive industry, and financial institutions are not ready to take 'congressional risk.' They say if you don't get the [production tax credit] we will not lend you the money to buy more turbines and build projects."

It is also alarming, says Rhone Resch, the president of the Solar Energy Industries Association, that the U.S. has reached a point "where the priorities of Congress could become so distorted by politics" that it would turn its back on the next great global industry - clean power - "but that's exactly what is happening." If the wind and solar credits expire, said Resch, the impact in just 2009 would be more than 100,000 jobs either lost or not created in these industries, and $20-billion worth of investments that won't be made.

While all the presidential candidates were railing about lost manufacturing jobs in Ohio, no one noticed that America's premier solar company, First Solar, from Toledo, Ohio, was opening its newest factory in the former East Germany - 540 high-paying engineering jobs - because Germany has created a booming solar market and America has not.

In 1997, said Resch, America was the leader in solar energy technology, with 40 percent of global solar production. "Last year, we were less than 8 percent, and even most of that was manufacturing for overseas markets."

The McCain-Clinton proposal is a reminder to me that the biggest energy crisis we have in our country today is the energy to be serious - the energy to do big things in a sustained, focused and intelligent way. We are in the midst of a national political brownout.

Font troubles

I don't mean to be screaming in the posting below, but I can't get the fonts to behave. Apologies.

Oil at $200/barrel means Gas at $10/gal

I remember a few years ago Goldman Sachs published a study discussing oil at $100/barrel and it seemed impossible. Now we've blown right past that and are at $120/barrel. If they're talking about $200/barrel now, we'd best be warned.

What changes would you make if gas cost $10/gallon? Would you take public transportation more? Would you move closer to the train station? Would you stop taking road trips? I'd love to hear.

Think gas is pricey now -- how about oil at $200 a barrel?

April 27, 2008

BY ASSOCIATED PRESS

HOUSTON -- Oil's meteoric rise to near $120 a barrel looks like more than just another economic bubble -- growing demand and tighter supplies are likely to keep prices high. Some analysts say even $200 a barrel would not be out of the question.

The latest price surge -- pushing crude to record heights in recent weeks, and to nearly double its level a year ago -- has some components of a classic price bubble, but growing worldwide thirst for crude -- in large part from rapidly developing China and India -- means consumers likely won't get any relief.

Americans who hoped to ride out temporarily high prices by carpooling or driving less may have to make those habits permanent. Retail gas prices, which at times rise in tandem with crude oil, are in record territory near $3.60 a gallon.

Many observers blame speculators for bidding up the price as a hedge against inflation and as protection from the sinking U.S. dollar.

Widely watched oil price prognosticator Goldman Sachs has said oil could average $110 a barrel by 2010, up from a previous forecast of $80, and that a spike as high as $200 a barrel is possible in case of a major supply disruption.

The beauty of Onomatopoeia

Today's Picture of the Day from National Geographic of two macaws (see below) made me think of words that sound like what they are: Onomatopoetic.

In Brazil, the name for Macaw is Arrara, because of their call.

The Return of the Clothesline

I remember as a child that my mother hung clothes out to dry outside. I remember how wonderful the sheets and towels smelled, and I noticed when we moved to the States from Switzerland, that I never saw another house with a clothes line.

I guess it wasn't illegal, but apparently in some places it is. Now, there's a movement to get those laws reversed. For example, the Province of Ontario is looking to overturn every such law in the province, on the grounds that drying your clothes outside is the environmentally sound thing to do.

Indeed, an electric clothes dryer uses about 6% of household energy, the same as a refrigerator, even though it's used much less.

And the movement is taking hold - in the UK last year, at one retailer sales of clotheslines were up 150% and clothespins were up 1000%.

So, people, hang your clothes out on the line. Not only will they smell better, but it's better for the planet.

All the news that's fit to print - from Cyprus

The tale of the expat and the copycat
By Marianna Pissa

AIRPORT staff in Paphos were left red faced last week after a copycat was unmasked by a British passenger.

The British resident of Cyprus was waiting for his luggage and his cat on his return from the UK, a local newspaper reported. After waiting for a long time, he finally received his suitcases, but there was no sign of his cat. Eventually, airport employees approached the man with smiles on their faces carrying his special pet carrier, with a very lively cat inside.

But as soon as the man saw the cat, he said it was not his. The airport staff insisted that the cat was in the cage and consequently had to be his, even pointing to the animal’s ID collar.

They continued to insist until the British expat said: "This is not my cat gentlemen, because the one that I brought from London was dead."

Dumbfounded, the airport employees could not believe what they heard.

The man had gone to London on holiday and took his (live) cat with him. There, however, the cat fell ill and died, and the man wanted to bring it back to Cyprus to bury it in his garden.

As it later emerged, when the cage with the dead cat reached the Paphos airport, an employee saw the dead cat and immediately alerted his colleagues, wondering what they should do in case they were blamed for the incident.

They decided to take a stray cat from outside the airport that resembled the dead cat in colour and face. After a feline chase in the grounds of the airport and after some intense washing and grooming, they put the collar of the dead cat on the copy cat, put it in the cage and sent the cage out for the owner to receive it.

It is not known whether the Briton decided to adopt the stray.

Food Riots & Climate Change

So, what are we to do? In many parts of the world, including the US, land is being diverted from food crops to energy crops - corn into ethanol in the US, sugar into ethanol in Brazil, palm oil into biodiesel in SE Asia. We're bring down rain forest to plant energy crops that ultimately increases food prices and decreases biodiversity so that we can drive big cars.

Washington has refused to increase CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) Standards for years, allowing US auto manufacturers to continue producing gas guzzlers. For this, we are getting food riots in Thailand, Italy, the Philippines, Haiti, Uzbekistan, and many more.

Chitty Chitty Bond Bond?

Here's a piece of trivia for you:
Ian Fleming, best known as the creator of James Bond, was also the author of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

Who would have guessed?

By the way, it's the hundredth anniversary of his birth this month.