Archive for Globalisation
August 11, 2009 at 9:18 am · Filed under Globalisation
I sure am glad Angela Merkel isn’t Russian. Up for re-election this month, Merkel chose to take time off for a walk through the Tyrol mountains. Heading back to nature is a popular choice for European leaders. In July Russia’s Vladimir Putin went horseback riding and swimming in Siberia. In case you weren’t sure of his viability as a Prime Ministerial candidate in the next election, he issued beefcake photos to showcase his…health.
Before his election, Barack Obama took to the ocean. Subsequent publication of photos swayed a few female (and gay) voters away from Hillary. Result? We’re certain he’s healthy.
So with the leaders of America and Russia as examples, we should have seen official photos to demonstrate Angela Merkel’s health. After all a bracing walk through the Tyrol mountains should have provided plenty of photo opportunities. Yet enter “Merkel Tyrol” into Google image search and you don’t get a photo of Angela and mountains.
Well, let me clarify…
At least we know she’s healthy!
August 6, 2009 at 3:42 pm · Filed under America, Globalisation, Australia
Australian city centres recorded a major jump in vacant office space. Seems those armies of unemployed people are no longer in suits and skirts - nor are they in offices.
I wrote back in May about the issue: Commercial Property: The Other Shoe to Drop. Today writing for “Primespace” in “The Australian” Turi Condon reports a 40% increase in vacant office space. Nationally vacant space went from 5.9% in January to 8.3% in July. And companies are still not done shedding staff.
(BTW, it feels prescient to have used the “other shoe” title - especially when The Economist writing this week uses the exact same analogy in a sub-head for a story on commercial property.)
Commerical rents have plummeted, with drops between 35% to 50% in Brisbane and Perth. Meanwhile new space is coming on the market. In the next 18 months 1.3 million square metres is due to come on market. That’s the equivalent of all the office space in Adelaide.
Prognosticators say commercial property will be in the doldrums for three years. (They also see a tall dark stranger coming into your life, but details will cost you extra.)
In Berlin there’s a novel way to cover over slumping demand. In Potsdamer Platz a half-built office complex is masked by a ten story facade with a picture of a building painted on it. Did you read that correctly? A ten story tall painting!
That’s as good as the service now on offer to Los Angeles suburbanites. If they tire of brown lawns in their housing complex - due to mortgagee reposessions - they can pay $600 to have the grass spray-painted green. Yes - spray paint. Not those fertilised seeds used to start lawns (those require water). This is a quick-fix gloss-over to make your neighbourhood “new car” clean.
So here’s my business idea. Let’s sell cut-outs of busy professionals who can be propped behind vacant desks. We can create tableaux of typical office situations - Fred from accounts checking football scores. Mary in HR talking on the phone (with bonus sound loop of endless chatter!). The logistics department gathered in the boss’ office to settle the Seattle issue. This way today’s office workers won’t feel so lonely in their empty offices.
Who knows - if productivity improves we might lose a model or two to upper management!
June 30, 2009 at 10:48 am · Filed under Globalisation
Mourning used to be conducted in private. When a loved one died we would retire to the inner most sanctum of our homes for private time with loved ones. When a hard of state or beloved icon died, we might gather at the church or cemetery to pay our respects. Then Diana died and our mourning turned public.
Today that most private of emotions – grief – is on display with vast public outpourings for Michael Jackson. Record stores have sold out of his music. Producers are rushing a new CD of unreleased music to capture what they call “grief momentum.” Jackson is projected to overtake Elvis’s US$50 million per year in royalties. He’ll be the most lucrative dead star in history.
I can’t help but feel a little odd about all this. It certainly isn’t the first time the public has turned to their wallets to assuage grief. I lived in Hong Kong when Gianni Versace was murdered. All stores around the world were closed, spare the one in Central, Hong Kong. Extra security guards were hired. Velvet ropes kept the crowds in queue. And before lunchtime the entire store was sold out.
I get a little awkward around all this. I am adept when consoling families. But how do you deal with the office receptionist who says she would have stayed home if she’d known Michael was dead? What do you say to the friend wearing a single glove?
Is “Beat It” too blunt?
June 23, 2009 at 9:47 am · Filed under Issues Management, Globalisation
The Twitter-verse is alive with postings from Iran. With global news agencies blocked from Tehran the world’s exposure to post-election chaos is delivered via Twitter and YouTube. These seem to be the only sites able to escape the tightest Internet filtering system in the world - built by Siemens and Nokia.
If ever there was a public relations nightmare for a company this has to be the daddy of them all.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Iran’s monitoring system is the most sophisticated in the world. It even exceeds the capabilities in China. And it was provided, in part, by European companies Siemens and Nokia:
“The monitoring capability was provided, at least in part, by a joint venture of Siemens AG, the German conglomerate, and NokiaCorp., the Finnish cellphone company, in the second half of 2008, Ben Roome, a spokesman for the joint venture, confirmed.” (Source: The Wall Street Journal)
To be fair the equipment and technology was developed to improve mobile telephone technology in a developing nation. Yet the sophistication of the filtering and blocking system exceeds that of any country in the world. Surely it would have been apparent, at installation, the capabilities could be used for political oppression especially as Iran remains an autocratic state.
I, for one, will be monitoring the response of Siemens and Nokia to these developments.
June 5, 2009 at 9:12 am · Filed under America, Globalisation
“I have come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the US and Muslims around the world.”
President Barak Hussein Obama in speech at Cairo University - June 2009
Yesterday in Cairo USA President Barack Hussein Obama gave a speech that redefines relations with the Muslim world. Carefully crafted over months - and with input from prominent US Muslims - the speech included a few historic firsts. It was the first time a US President mentioned the state of Palestine. He decried Israeli settlements and called for an end to construction. He reversed US policy developed under Bush that led to resentment and anger: “The cycle of suspicion and discord must end,” he said.
And in his speech Obama became the first US President to quote the Koran, then issued a greeting of peace: “As-salaam alaikum” (peace be with you). And while his speech was important for its location - Egypt is an important US ally - he rightly noted that there is a mosque in every state of the USA.
The speech was broadcast live across the Middle East on television, Internet and covered in numerous social media forums. Obama’s audience includes the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims, leaders of the Arab states, Israeli leaders and people and of course citizens of the United States.
Throughout his campaign Obama was praised for his loquaciousness. He’s a natural orator comfortable behind the lectern. Yet this speech blended brilliant phrases with far-reaching policy. It is a speech that will be studied for years to come.
And of course the critics will be dissecting every word and each nuance of delivery. Closer to the scene locals in Cairo already complained of the street closures and security precautions. One newspaper headline read, “Cairo Closed.”
June 3, 2009 at 3:44 pm · Filed under Globalisation, Australia
Remember Keanu Reeves in “The Matrix” and those great scenes where he dodged bullets? If I were any good on Adobe Photoshop I’d touch up this photo and put Kevin Rudd’s photo on the face of Keanu. Today Australia dodged a bigger, nastier bullet - recession.
Based on the volume of exports, Australia avoided recession. I know, I know - that’s unbelievable. In today’s global meltdown for Australia NOT to be in recession is a miracle.
But before we all race along George Street planting “High Fives” on fellow Australians, let’s pause and consider. Unemployment is up. Stores are shuttered. Confidence is shaky.
There used to be a non-alcoholic whisky called Claytons (”The drink you have when you’re not having a drink”). This may not be a recession in pure technical terms - but it’s a Claytons recession.
May 28, 2009 at 8:54 am · Filed under Issues Management, Globalisation, Public Relations
“Could I try the heart?” asked Canada’s Governor General, Michaelle Jean as she leaned over a dead seal. She was showing her support for the Inuit tradition of seal hunting in the face of an EU ban on seal products. While Inuit cull small numbers of seal using traditional methods, EU members object to the larger-scale killing by commercial hunters of thousands of seal pups.
So after eating some raw seal meat the Governor General tucked into a bite of raw heart. Her verdict? It tastes “like sushi.” She encouraged all Canadians to sample raw seal.
(Side question: Is this now a national duty or merely an invitation? Are Canadians obliged to eat raw seal much like Japanese school children being served whale meat in school canteens?)
During the peak of “Mad Cow” disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) brave British politicans were photographed…enjoying a barbequed steak! Nothing could hold these brave men back as they tucked into a prized British export. (”If it’s safe enough for me…”) Eventually England killed 4.4 million head of cattle.
Now Swine Flu is in the headlines. The misnomer is leading to bans on the export of pork. And while world health authorities have changed the name to “H1N1 Virus” it lacks the same pizzaz as “Swine Flu” especially to the readers of The Daily Telegraph.
Today’s cover features “the first family of swine flu” - now under quarantine to stop the spread of the disease (pictured below: John and Fiona Darcy with sons Jarryd and Nicholas - source: The Daily Telepgraph).
My question: Will they put some pork on their fork? Should Kevin Rudd stop by with a take-away serving of Pork Lo Mein?
May 20, 2009 at 9:16 am · Filed under America, Globalisation, Australia
Companies are shedding jobs quicker than kilos on “The Biggest Loser“. Former fatties are now “right sized” and “down sized” and better able to handle the economy. Meanwhile the “right sized” are filling unemployment lines and leading to record high unemployment in most OECD nations. (Australia, for some odd reason, is defying the trend and last month announced a decline in unemployment - Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! Oy! Oy! Oy!)
In the USA alone, each month a half million jobs are lost, according to The Guardian:
“The unemployment rate in the United States has hit a 26-year high after another half a million jobs were lost last month.
“The labor department said the jobless rate jumped to 8.9% in April from 8.5% the previous month, marking the highest level since September 1983. US employers cut 539,000 jobs in April, the smallest number since October.”
Source: guardian.co.uk, Friday 8 May 2009
To date the Global Financial Crisis emanated from falling residential housing prices leading to a drop in consumer confidence, leading to less spending, leading to banks writing off loans…leading to today’s catastrophic mess.
But the bad news it’s only going to get worse.
The employers that are now thinner, leaner and meaner are locked into long term rental agreements for commercial property. This means the major cities will soon have a glut on their hands. And when owners find it impossible to fil buildings - at the right price - they’ll start defaulting on commercial mortgages. Prices for commercial property are bound to fall due to a steep fall in demand. Yet due to the long-term nature of most commercial rental agreements, we’re unlikely to see the full effect for another year.
Until then demand for new commercial premises has fallen - so building has stopped.
And did we mention the banks now holding mortgages that may not be repaid? In the USA attention has been focused on the larger banks - Citibank and BankofAmerica come to mind. According to “The Wall Street Journal“ more than US$100 billion is likely to be lost across all banks in commercial property next year:
“Commercial real-estate loans could generate losses of $100 billion by the end of next year at more than 900 small and midsize U.S. banks if the economy’s woes deepen, according to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal.” (see full story on-line)
We’ll need new terms in a post-crisis world. Safe as banks? Nope. Good as bricks and mortar? No longer. Maybe mattress sales are on the upswing - especially as we can’t get coffee in tins any more to bury in the back yard.
April 28, 2009 at 8:34 am · Filed under Globalisation
The financial markets caught the swine flu yesterday.
The outbreak in Mexico has spread to America, Canada and New Zealand. Australian authorities are trying to contact 300 people who shared an Air New Zealand flight to Australia (via New Zealand) with infected passengers.
Financial markets - already unstable - sold down heavily in transport and aviation stocks. China has placed a ban on all pork products from the USA and Mexico (despite the fact cooked pork products contain no traces of flu). American authorities have placed an alert recommending against travel to Mexico.
To date the “global pandemic” hasn’t taken an enormous toll (in actual numbers, versus the gargantuan toll one death takes on a family). Yet the biggest casualty may prove economic. They say those most at risk in flu season are the frail. Global financial markets couldn’t be weaker. Add to that calls to slap in place some protectionist measures and you may find swine flu taking a disproportionate bite out of the economy.
It is my fervent hope the flu is contained before taking a high toll in lives. It is my great hope, also, that swine flu doesn’t further infect the already sick financial markets. The patient may not survive a relapse.
April 27, 2009 at 9:20 am · Filed under America, Globalisation
The US auto industry has yet to recover - and this week manufacturer Chrysler is expected to announce Chapter 11 bankruptcy. General Motors isn’t far behind. Both companies benefited from substantial government loans. Only Ford Motor Company continued its drive without assistance.
Ford is not out of the woods. Last week the company announced a quarterly loss of US$1.4 billion. Despite the loss it is a better result than anticipated - and exceeds the previous quarter loss of US$24.8 billion.
GM and Chrysler have taken government money to supplement their own losses. The taxpayer loans have kept the factories open and paid for daily expenses. While Ford has been losing money, it’s earlier actions and savings mean it’s in the best shape to continue - without assistance.
At first I thought Ford’s refusal to accept government money would put it at a disadvantage. Why stand stoic when the handouts are thick and fast? Yet today Matthew Dolan of “The Wall Street Journal” tells that acceptance would have diluted the Ford family shareownings and jeapordised CEO Alan Mulally’s turnaround efforts. Ford remains the only US manufacturer not reliant on government handouts.
And in case US consumers didn’t realise this, Ford’s now using it to their competitive advantage by targeting Chrysler and GM customers. Who wants to buy a car from a bankrupt company? What if the dealer goes under? What does that mean for service - or resale value? Ford has ads saying its dealers are looking “forward to serving you for many years to come.”
Ford’s decision to turn away subsidies may prove to be its wisest decision in years. Just ask all the former GM and Chrysler customers now driving Fords.
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