Industrial Clusters, drivers of growth

WALL STREET
Cluster nature: Financial
Cluster units: Investment Banks, Hedge Funds, Insurers, FED, Corporate Lawyers etc…
Ideology -> Greed is good

SILICON VALLEY
Cluster Nature: Tech
Cluster Units: Chip Makers, Tech Giants, Start ups, Venture Capitalists
Ideology: Creating the next killer application

HELMAND PROVICE AFPACK BORDER
Cluster Nature: Terrorism
Cluster Units: madrahsas, bomb makers, ammunition suppliers, propaganda artists, logistical planners
Ideology: Islamic Jihad

–

Industrial cluster -> sophisticated network of units streamlined for the scaling and deployment of a certain nature of services/products (whether financial, technical or terrorist).

US/UK national security policy to disrupt and permanently change the dynamics of the AFPAK mountainous region so that it is no longer susceptible to hosting terrorist clusters.

Why do we have the seasons?

Because the earth rotates about an axis that is tilted at 23.5 degrees.
Why does the earth’s axis tilt this way? Because we have a relatively large moon (1/10 size of earth) and the gravitational lock between the bodies holds the axis in place.
Mars e.g. which has two very small moons has dramatically unstable axis and so the weather on mars is very unstable.

Derrived from this lecture.

Political Correctness v. Parochial NeoCons

Are all cultures really the same?

How about the culture that grew up in Greeece/Rome, enriched by Jerusalem, modified in the Medieval peroid enriched again in the Renaisance, Reformation, Counter Refeormation and Enlightenment, and arrived to the shores of America with the Fouding Fathers, that  gave us:

-Private Property
-Right to Dissent
-Free Markets
-Freedom of the individual
-Rationalism
-Secularism
-Balance of power
-Constitutional control over the miliatary

is all thanks to white men…

… argued by Victor Davis Hanson in this lecture

Solution to poverty in africa…

… is to build there another Hong Kong (as the British did in the 19th century). A dense urban area oriented for business and innovation.
- Stanford Econ Professor, Paul Romer in his lecture.

Everyone is an entrepreneur

1. Run your own affairs
2. Run your household affairs

Set up systems/routines/habbits and account -> get a grip of your life.

And for Gas…

Introducing the Nabucco pipeline…

Fiscal Responsibility

How easy will it be for the US/UK to change course by reforming state entitlement programs to assume a more fiscally sustainable trajectory for government?
Is Gordy’s refusal to publicly acknowledge this and lambast the Tories for their whole scale approach to government cuts (’the 10% cuts’) making it more difficult to sell state entitlement reform to the public?
California’s current  debt problems and inability to get the electorate on board with its cost cutting programs illustrates what might lie ahead.
Or will the change of course only happen on hitting the wall? -> straight default/higher taxes crippling economy -> default

Can’t rely on those Ukranians

Introducing the Nordstream pipeline. It will allow Germany to directly tap Russian oil. Currently on the EU agenda.

There’s no Shortcut to Happiness

“Indeed, one could make a class for buying German assets whichever way the global economy goes. If it rebounds, then German manufacturers will benefit []. And if we are heading for financial breakdown, then one would much rather own German government bonds than those of America or much of the rest of Europe.”
- Buttonwood

Germany’s export led economy has suffered due to the decline in global demand. Germay’s manufacturing may rampantly pick up once the demand picks up again as its production warehouses are currently sitting largely  empty (destocked).
Unlike US/UK, Germany has not ramped up its total debt and so it should be able to better handle payments.

Gordy hits his stride

“[thanks to Twitter and co.] You cannot have Rwanda again because information would come out far more quickly about what is actually going on and the public opinion would grow to the point where action would need to be taken.”
- Gordon speaking to the Observer/Guardian

On a similar note:

“Probably the single most important thing the US state department has done for Iran recently was to contact Twitter over the weekend, to urge it to delay a planned upgrade that could have taken down service to Iranians for some crucial hours of people power ­protest. Welcome to the new politics of the 21st century.”
- Timothy Garton-Ash on CiF