To gain control of an important foreign asset, does China try to appease a foreign country by offering to establish its mainly symbolic company headquarters there? At least two recent cases raise this question.
Before Broadcom acquired the New York-based chipmaker, CA Technologies, suspicious Chinese connections of Broadcom's CEO, Hack Tan, helped prevent a takeover of major US chipmaker, Qualcomm. Besides becoming chummy with President Trump prior to the failed purchase of Qualcomm, Hack Tan had moved Broadcom's headquarters from Singapore to San Jose, California, close to Qualcomm's headquarters in San Diego, CA. (Caught up in tariff and trade adjustments between the U.S. and China, Qualcomm failed to receive approval from Chinese regulators for its acquisition of Dutch rival, the NXP semiconductor company, and terminated its two-year effort in July, 2018.)
Before its failed bid to acquire Portugal's largest utility company, state-owned China Three Gorges, which already owns a 23% share in EDP (Energias de Portugal), offered to keep EDP's headquarters in Lisbon.
Wednesday, July 25, 2018
Tuesday, July 24, 2018
How to React When You've Been Wronged
Colombia's new President, Ivan Duque, will come to office facing a population that suffered hundreds of thousands killed by rebels who now are allowed to hold public office under the terms of a 2016 peace accord. Instead, many of his wronged constituents want retribution for crimes against their families.
In The Monarchy of Fear, Martha C. Nussbaum writes about Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the valid anger he faced as a leader of once-enslaved African-Americas in the United States. She also sees anger growing among those whose standard of living is threatened by automation and outsourcing of jobs, while others thrive from globalization.
When President Obama was asked to deliver the Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture in South Africa this year, he too reflected on the way globalization and technology can benefit the rich and powerful while facilitating inequality. But he reminded his audience about how Mandela responded: 1) to his over 20 years of captivity under an apartheid structure that defined the artificial domination of whites over blacks by studying the thinking of his enemies, and 2) to his election as President of South Africa by abiding by the constitutional limit of his presidential term and by not favoring any group.
Obama acknowledged, IT IS HARD to engage with people who look different and hold different views from you. But you have to keep teaching that idea of engaging with different people to ourselves and our children, he said.
Each of us has to hold hard, as Nelson Mandela did, even while he was in prison, to the firm belief that being a human entitles each of us to a human inheritance. All people are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, Obama reminded his South African audience. What flows from that firm belief in the equality of rich and poor, woman and man, young and old, and every other human difference is Mandela's conclusion: "It's not justice if now you're on top, so I'm going to do the same thing that those folks were doing to me, and now I'm going to do it to you."
Nussbaum expresses the same idea. Saying something is wrong and should never happen again is valuable, but deciding to fix it by making the doer suffer is not helpful. Put another way, an African-American, speaking on a panel at a forum, observed it is more productive to go forward with an attitude based on the Civil Rights movement than an attitude derived from slavery.
Once you concentrate on your own value as a human being and that of all other humans and vow not to repeat past failures, there's hope for a better future.
In The Monarchy of Fear, Martha C. Nussbaum writes about Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the valid anger he faced as a leader of once-enslaved African-Americas in the United States. She also sees anger growing among those whose standard of living is threatened by automation and outsourcing of jobs, while others thrive from globalization.
When President Obama was asked to deliver the Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture in South Africa this year, he too reflected on the way globalization and technology can benefit the rich and powerful while facilitating inequality. But he reminded his audience about how Mandela responded: 1) to his over 20 years of captivity under an apartheid structure that defined the artificial domination of whites over blacks by studying the thinking of his enemies, and 2) to his election as President of South Africa by abiding by the constitutional limit of his presidential term and by not favoring any group.
Obama acknowledged, IT IS HARD to engage with people who look different and hold different views from you. But you have to keep teaching that idea of engaging with different people to ourselves and our children, he said.
Each of us has to hold hard, as Nelson Mandela did, even while he was in prison, to the firm belief that being a human entitles each of us to a human inheritance. All people are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, Obama reminded his South African audience. What flows from that firm belief in the equality of rich and poor, woman and man, young and old, and every other human difference is Mandela's conclusion: "It's not justice if now you're on top, so I'm going to do the same thing that those folks were doing to me, and now I'm going to do it to you."
Nussbaum expresses the same idea. Saying something is wrong and should never happen again is valuable, but deciding to fix it by making the doer suffer is not helpful. Put another way, an African-American, speaking on a panel at a forum, observed it is more productive to go forward with an attitude based on the Civil Rights movement than an attitude derived from slavery.
Once you concentrate on your own value as a human being and that of all other humans and vow not to repeat past failures, there's hope for a better future.
Friday, July 20, 2018
Weekend Retail Therapy
Shopping for new clothes on a weekend is a favorite pastime, even when it's not raining. Around the world, I see marketers adding new twists to what some call the "retail therapy" experience.
In a mall in Kazakhstan, shoppers find an indoor river, and they can ride an indoor monorail, just like the one at Disneyland. At the Mall of America in Minneapolis, there are carnival rides and an assortment of LEGOs kids and adults can use to build whatever they want.
Slip on a ZOZOSUIT from the Japanese retailer, ZOZO, and the stretchy black bodysuit, with the help of a mobile app, takes perfect measurements for a new outfit. In your own home, the 150 white dot sensors covering the suit enable a 3-D scan to make, for example, custom-fit jeans for online purchase at prices starting at $58. But It's only a matter of time before in store customers also might expect to use this innovation to insure a perfect fit that doesn't require additional tailoring.
UK retailer, ASOS, already entices customers with photographs and augmented reality (AR) showing how the same outfit looks on different body types.
Mall customers in Chinese In Time retail restrooms can use augmented reality mirrors to test makeup products before using a mobile code to purchase Lancome, Benefit, or Shu Uemura cosmetics from the vending machine next to them.
Brands have begun to bundle products with services. Adidas sneakers serve as metro passes in Berlin. Nike's NBA Jerseys connect wearers to digital content about their favorite teams and players. A Tuxe bodysuit comes with an offer for free online business and life coaching sessions.
At REI Co-op, customers know the clothing, footwear, and camping gear they purchase meet sustainable business practices.
Combat Flip Flops (combatfllipflops.com) converts objects used in warfare into flip flops and accessories. Melted unexploded ordinance (UXO) become jewelry.
Graphic T-shirts say a lot these days. Keep looking until you find the message that suits you to a "T."
In a mall in Kazakhstan, shoppers find an indoor river, and they can ride an indoor monorail, just like the one at Disneyland. At the Mall of America in Minneapolis, there are carnival rides and an assortment of LEGOs kids and adults can use to build whatever they want.
Slip on a ZOZOSUIT from the Japanese retailer, ZOZO, and the stretchy black bodysuit, with the help of a mobile app, takes perfect measurements for a new outfit. In your own home, the 150 white dot sensors covering the suit enable a 3-D scan to make, for example, custom-fit jeans for online purchase at prices starting at $58. But It's only a matter of time before in store customers also might expect to use this innovation to insure a perfect fit that doesn't require additional tailoring.
UK retailer, ASOS, already entices customers with photographs and augmented reality (AR) showing how the same outfit looks on different body types.
Mall customers in Chinese In Time retail restrooms can use augmented reality mirrors to test makeup products before using a mobile code to purchase Lancome, Benefit, or Shu Uemura cosmetics from the vending machine next to them.
Brands have begun to bundle products with services. Adidas sneakers serve as metro passes in Berlin. Nike's NBA Jerseys connect wearers to digital content about their favorite teams and players. A Tuxe bodysuit comes with an offer for free online business and life coaching sessions.
At REI Co-op, customers know the clothing, footwear, and camping gear they purchase meet sustainable business practices.
Combat Flip Flops (combatfllipflops.com) converts objects used in warfare into flip flops and accessories. Melted unexploded ordinance (UXO) become jewelry.
Graphic T-shirts say a lot these days. Keep looking until you find the message that suits you to a "T."
Sunday, July 15, 2018
Out-of-this-world App Helps Kids Behave
Shortly after reading about three factors that contribute to a kid's bad behavior, mentioned in The Good News About Bad Behavior by Katherine Reynolds Lewis, I learned about the Space Nation Navigator smartphone app. The book and app go together. Lewis claims a child's bad behavior is related to:
Space Nation participants enter a global competition to earn badges and prizes, including the grand prize: a trip for four to the moonlike scenery in Iceland, where Apollo astronauts trained. Eventually, the Space Nation Astronaut Program aims to launch one candidate into space every year.
For other space-related activities for kids, see the earlier post, "Space Explorers."
- less play time,
- more social media exposure,
- fewer confidence-boosting real world connections, including household chores.
Space Nation participants enter a global competition to earn badges and prizes, including the grand prize: a trip for four to the moonlike scenery in Iceland, where Apollo astronauts trained. Eventually, the Space Nation Astronaut Program aims to launch one candidate into space every year.
For other space-related activities for kids, see the earlier post, "Space Explorers."
Saturday, July 14, 2018
Freedom: Love It, Don't Leave It
A big balloon provided an unwelcoming greeting to President Trump in the UK, and comics mocked the politically-ambitions wife of a former Zimbabwe President. Such actions are reminders of the civil liberties others all over the world do not enjoy.
North Korea and China deprive religious and free-thinking citizens in re-education camps. Beijing released Liu Xia, the widow of deceased Nobel peace poetry laureate, Liu Xiaobo, from house arrest on July 10, 2018. She was allowed to leave for exile in Germany, possibly to court good relations with a U.S. ally President Trump recently offended at a NATO summit. But back in Beijing, Chinese authorities stand ready to arrest Liu's younger brother, Liu Hui, if Liu Xia makes any statements China considers objectionable.
Beijing was concerned when Edward Leung, a Hong Kong proponent of independence from China, received 15% of the vote for a seat in the former British island's Legislative Council. Shortly after Leung received this minor vote of confidence, he was involved in what turned into a riot in 2016. Two years later, on June 11, 2018, he received a six-year sentence for his involvement in the uprising.
Charged with subversion, China sentenced Qin Yongmin, to a 13-year prison term on July 11, 2018. He also had been jailed earlier for his pro-democracy demands. Along with political prisoners, China continues to detain lawyers and other activists who dare to use Chinese laws to prevent abuses of power by government officials.
In Russia, Oleg Navalny still languishes in a penal colony for his association with the anti-corruption rallies of his brother, Alexei, who himself was re-arrested in September, 2018 two minutes after serving a 30-day jail sentence. Ukrainian film director, Oleg Sentsov, is starving on a hunger strike while serving a 20-year sentence in Siberia. His crime, objecting to Vladimir Putin's 2014 annexation of Crimea, an action for which Russia is being sanctioned.
North Korea and China deprive religious and free-thinking citizens in re-education camps. Beijing released Liu Xia, the widow of deceased Nobel peace poetry laureate, Liu Xiaobo, from house arrest on July 10, 2018. She was allowed to leave for exile in Germany, possibly to court good relations with a U.S. ally President Trump recently offended at a NATO summit. But back in Beijing, Chinese authorities stand ready to arrest Liu's younger brother, Liu Hui, if Liu Xia makes any statements China considers objectionable.
Beijing was concerned when Edward Leung, a Hong Kong proponent of independence from China, received 15% of the vote for a seat in the former British island's Legislative Council. Shortly after Leung received this minor vote of confidence, he was involved in what turned into a riot in 2016. Two years later, on June 11, 2018, he received a six-year sentence for his involvement in the uprising.
Charged with subversion, China sentenced Qin Yongmin, to a 13-year prison term on July 11, 2018. He also had been jailed earlier for his pro-democracy demands. Along with political prisoners, China continues to detain lawyers and other activists who dare to use Chinese laws to prevent abuses of power by government officials.
In Russia, Oleg Navalny still languishes in a penal colony for his association with the anti-corruption rallies of his brother, Alexei, who himself was re-arrested in September, 2018 two minutes after serving a 30-day jail sentence. Ukrainian film director, Oleg Sentsov, is starving on a hunger strike while serving a 20-year sentence in Siberia. His crime, objecting to Vladimir Putin's 2014 annexation of Crimea, an action for which Russia is being sanctioned.
Saturday, July 7, 2018
What Happens When the World's Children Leave Home?
In the news lately, I've been struck by the growing number of children who are with parents fleeing their home countries, who wish they could escape their home countries, who attend schools in a different country, or who just seek foreign adventures.
Brazil's super model, Gisele Bundchen, left her country and married the U.S. New England Patriots quarterback, Tom Brady. Nowadays, nearly two-thirds of those in Brazil's 16-34 year old age population also want to leave the country, even if they aren't leaving to marry a foreign celebrity. Their motivation: escape from a slumping economy, from corruption, and from a lack of police security.
In the recent migration from Mexico and Central America, parents brought as many as 3000 children to the United States also to escape violence, gangs, and rape and to find economic opportunities.
Children among the six million refugees fleeing Syria try to escape the bombs, poisoned gas, and starvation inflicted on their families by the dictator, Bashar al-Assad.
Children also are among the Muslim Rohingya refugees who have fled from Myanmar to Bangladesh to avoid violence in their home country or from Yemen to get away from air attacks.
In Nigeria, terrorists chase women and children from their villages to rape and attack them with knives.
Latest numbers show more than 600,000 students left China last year to study in the West. Many were avoiding, not violence, but the gaokao, a test that values memorization and determines who enters China's top universities.
Was it a youthful quest for adventure that caused 12 Thai boys and their soccer coach to ignore flood warnings and endanger their lives and those of their potential rescuers when they became trapped in a cave between Thailand and Myanmar? One of the boys showed he was a good student when he understood a British rescuer's question about how many were trapped and responded, "13," in English. Two were the first to make it out undertaking a dangerous, submerged two-mile route.
Displaced populations pose a host of problems.They might indicate destabilization in the countries they are fleeing, and they place a burden on the services provided by host countries. Unless new arrivals are accepted and integrated into the host country's population, rising nationalism leads to protests against the government and the immigrants, especially if refugees look different, profess a different religion, and have a different ethnic heritage.
Nuns who work with refugees in the U.S. expect to see victims of violence and those who have suffered the trauma of long journeys, often on foot, who need counseling. Some new arrivals are afraid to go out alone because they are not used to being able to trust anyone. They are amazed when they receive donations of clothing, toys, diapers, and even furniture, such as cribs, from strangers.
Shelters know they need to provide legal services for asylum seekers and bond for detained refugees navigating foreign court systems, where their next court dates might be three years away. When cases are not settled in 180 days in the U.S., attorneys know immigrants are entitled to work permits that enable them to find jobs to support themselves and their families. Asylum used to be granted in the U.S., if someone were escaping domestic or gang violence, but only persecution because of race, religion, political opinion, nationality, or membership in certain groups applies now.
Besides legal aid, families need help learning the local language. Nuns in a U.S. shelter try to make a new language fun by letting children write English words with their fingers in shaving cream. Then, there is the help needed to enroll children in schools, to apply for health services, and to become a member of a religious congregation.
In shelters, nuns see people begin to develop confidence about living among those who speak different languages and have different cultural practices. I remember reading about displaced families from Syria who left where they had been settled in rural Baltic States that provided creature comforts to slip into Germany, where they could join the others who had been settled there and shared their Muslim Arabic culture.
Practices that would seem OK in a home country might be objectionable in a host country. Smoking, spitting, stealing, and getting drunk can fall into that category. Players who join teams from other countries often need to be schooled in the ways of their new countries. For example, women in the U.S. object when Latin baseball players yell, "Hey, chickee babie."
Brazil's super model, Gisele Bundchen, left her country and married the U.S. New England Patriots quarterback, Tom Brady. Nowadays, nearly two-thirds of those in Brazil's 16-34 year old age population also want to leave the country, even if they aren't leaving to marry a foreign celebrity. Their motivation: escape from a slumping economy, from corruption, and from a lack of police security.
In the recent migration from Mexico and Central America, parents brought as many as 3000 children to the United States also to escape violence, gangs, and rape and to find economic opportunities.
Children among the six million refugees fleeing Syria try to escape the bombs, poisoned gas, and starvation inflicted on their families by the dictator, Bashar al-Assad.
Children also are among the Muslim Rohingya refugees who have fled from Myanmar to Bangladesh to avoid violence in their home country or from Yemen to get away from air attacks.
In Nigeria, terrorists chase women and children from their villages to rape and attack them with knives.
Latest numbers show more than 600,000 students left China last year to study in the West. Many were avoiding, not violence, but the gaokao, a test that values memorization and determines who enters China's top universities.
Was it a youthful quest for adventure that caused 12 Thai boys and their soccer coach to ignore flood warnings and endanger their lives and those of their potential rescuers when they became trapped in a cave between Thailand and Myanmar? One of the boys showed he was a good student when he understood a British rescuer's question about how many were trapped and responded, "13," in English. Two were the first to make it out undertaking a dangerous, submerged two-mile route.
Displaced populations pose a host of problems.They might indicate destabilization in the countries they are fleeing, and they place a burden on the services provided by host countries. Unless new arrivals are accepted and integrated into the host country's population, rising nationalism leads to protests against the government and the immigrants, especially if refugees look different, profess a different religion, and have a different ethnic heritage.
Nuns who work with refugees in the U.S. expect to see victims of violence and those who have suffered the trauma of long journeys, often on foot, who need counseling. Some new arrivals are afraid to go out alone because they are not used to being able to trust anyone. They are amazed when they receive donations of clothing, toys, diapers, and even furniture, such as cribs, from strangers.
Shelters know they need to provide legal services for asylum seekers and bond for detained refugees navigating foreign court systems, where their next court dates might be three years away. When cases are not settled in 180 days in the U.S., attorneys know immigrants are entitled to work permits that enable them to find jobs to support themselves and their families. Asylum used to be granted in the U.S., if someone were escaping domestic or gang violence, but only persecution because of race, religion, political opinion, nationality, or membership in certain groups applies now.
Besides legal aid, families need help learning the local language. Nuns in a U.S. shelter try to make a new language fun by letting children write English words with their fingers in shaving cream. Then, there is the help needed to enroll children in schools, to apply for health services, and to become a member of a religious congregation.
In shelters, nuns see people begin to develop confidence about living among those who speak different languages and have different cultural practices. I remember reading about displaced families from Syria who left where they had been settled in rural Baltic States that provided creature comforts to slip into Germany, where they could join the others who had been settled there and shared their Muslim Arabic culture.
Practices that would seem OK in a home country might be objectionable in a host country. Smoking, spitting, stealing, and getting drunk can fall into that category. Players who join teams from other countries often need to be schooled in the ways of their new countries. For example, women in the U.S. object when Latin baseball players yell, "Hey, chickee babie."
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