A New Sight

This is a short essay to express what was left before and never done at all.
There are certain circumstances that can drive your life toward a new beginning, they may be unexpected by nonetheless defining.
Sometimes you think that you wasted your life, not in a real way, but you see yourself in certain positions that make you think, have I done enough?
I felt exactly like that in recent weeks thinking that it may be too late for me to achieve what others already had. We don’t realize that this kind thinking is what makes as losers, its never too late unless you never start.
So I push myself to the limit, I decided to prepare myself for a GMAT test in one week, in the end the result mix, I got 450 which is barely above average, but in the process I learn two important lessons that where somehow late.
The first one is the most important in mi life so far, I can do whatever I want to, I just need to commit myself to it. Have you notice that people that want something usually achieve that?
And I don’t mean being successful in their lives, take little things like; if you want to go to a club on the weekend and some of your friends push to a club where he or she feels it’s the best, you end up going there. Same thing when you chose a restaurant, a movie, etc.
At work if someone really needs the salary and is on commission, I bet that he or she will work harder than someone that does not need it as much. Here all the stories about couples that marry and were poor at the beginning but with hard work achieve a lot today?
So in essence I notice that I was lazy because I wanted to, I didn’t push myself to the limit, I was letting my body and mind to die in the tumultuous thoughts of failure.
I barely slept at night, I studied as hard as I could for a week, after work I had long hours of mathematical problems and tedious reading. On top of that the primaries in the United States were so exited that I had to follow them up too.
My days started at 6am, some exercise then a shower and strait to work. After work I went home and until 1 am in the morning all I did was taking online GMAT courses. I learn everything from scratch. I got a decent score looking at the preparation that I had, but most important, I did what I had to do, I drove my body and mind to the limit, and I did not collapse. Now its almost midnight and I am still writing; it was worth it.
Did you get the lesson?
Most of the people in the world are average, their lack of interest in anything is what makes them less competitive, no less intelligent. What I realize is that my appetite for knowledge have to go somewhere, it need to be canalize into something that experts the merit of the words, so I open this blog.
The first step is to see how hard you can be with yourself, so then you know how far you can get in a determinate time. I am proud of what I did, now I know where my limits are, so I can set a future, its not too late.
The second lesson is that you need to know how smart you are. I read as much as I can about things that interest me. Gladly I love geopolitics, economics, American politics, and international affairs. I had some projects that I will describe later when they are done (so no one still my ideas) that I am taking as a serious matter. So they are not just good ideas, but realities.
I did not get the score that I wanted, I could not go to the University that I wanted, but the most important thing is that I knew what happened. My score reflected not my stupidity but my ignorance. I knew I could have done better, much better. So I decided to prepare myself to another test, this time with months and not days, so I could prove that I am smart.
So knowing how smart you are its key. At first I was driven down, I felt melancholic and my future didn’t look so bright. Then I thought how thing eventually ended. I took studies seriously, I never did that before, I have a 4.0 GPA but because I have an extraordinary memory and I love to read, otherwise, I was an average student. I ended up with one of the highest scores of my promotion.
Anyways, I committed myself to a purpose and I worked really hard for it. The outcome was not what I wanted, not at all. Now what I am doing is pushing myself in the same way expecting long term results of a better preparation.
I write for a blog now, that concentrates in economics, some American politics and foreign affairs, so I cant afford to place things that are not accurate, I do have to research about some subjects and of course significantly improve my writing. Another thing that I got from my preparation for GMAT was the use of complicated words that better describe what is in my head.
I am placing this so you know if someone that is truly committed to a cause can achieve it. if as Chirs Rock said once “a B student happens to be the president…” the rest of us can do much better.
Now what are you capable of doing, try your best and even if you fail as I did, try harder and dream bigger. I did not get into the University of Ottawa, but I will get into Columbia, in the end it was always my dream. So by 2009 I will be there and you will se the prove that all that you need is that moment where you see with clarity your future. So when they ask you where you see yourself in the next five or ten years, now that its up to you to envision your life and drive it there.

PS: its a draft.

A Lost Country

Its hard to tell if I am wrong or the rest of the world is. But for me the future must have a different taste that makes it unique, at least for the ones that can enjoy it.

Sure this sound selfish, but with climate change, the lack of security, the fall of the United States and the rice of a undemocratic China, things look pretty ugly in the future.

I always admire that no matter how bad things can get in the United States, justice has a way to find the right punishment for the criminals and the liberty to express what you think is respected.

But with America falling into a deep recession it letting China, who does not by any mean let freedom expands, take the lead internationally. Europe on the other hand its so scare of offending anyone that deludes its ability and power to it can please them all.
That where a small country has the opportunity to rise. Not in the conventional terms, but in modern ones. Let me explain what I am thinking.

I always hated the short minded people that surround me, people that think are clever because their job is done well, that they think are smart because the y know a little about something, or because they like “good books” and “cult” movies.

My edge is this; someone who would understands the future and what may come with it, creating the perfect paradise where the rich and powerful could enjoy their vacations, or their lives without any of the current worries of the international world. And of course, beneficing the people of that country in which everyone would like to live.

It does take a complicated approach and some moral objections to it, but the main idea is for this small country to create the perfect environment in which it could succeed in the future and also setting the basis for a influx of international capital that will keep it save from harm.

This country shall not take an army for granted, nor it will try to expand military, or fight its neighbors, it must be a place where safety will be part of its foundations. It must be the place where everyone in the world wants to be.

Such a model will be something like what Abu Dhabi wants for the future of its country. If the United Arab Emirates its pushing toward the future by expending millions of dollars in developing new sources of energy, why cannot some other country, in this case this small country, take it a step forward.

Here is a brief idea of what the world would look like in the near future (part of another column):
The scarcity of water will drive millions of people to the following problems: first- they will find that they current way of living will be alter significantly while their quality of life spins down. Second- they will see how food and other water use intensive activities fall apart as the scarcity if this vital liquid evaporates in the air. Fish and other scarce resources will drive the world into a freak control of my water territories fight. This just after the price of oil picks to new highs. On top of things the extreme pollution of the environment will transform entire metropolis into dead zones where you can barely live. War will multiple in places like Africa where at the current rate, genocide will get another meaning. As this was not enough, big corporations will put their money and industries where cheap labor is available and poor requirements are enforced.
This brings me to a so call “green paradise” where the above wont happen or it will be minimize as much as possible.

Let me talk about the details in the near future, for now I will explain to you the main idea and then in subsequent columns I will go into how it works.

What I dream of is a place that would run on renewable energy, that wont depend on oil, that wont have any big polluting industries, that have enough water reserves, if global warming melts the ice, then this country needs access to the sea and must have desalination plants. It need vast natural recourses and of course it needs to be in a save part of the world.

This country will be a new Swiss model, much more incline toward the future, much lest dependable on secret foreign capital, and much more enjoyable.

They key is to develop a nation that thinks about becoming the capital of the world, with all the developing, ideas, resources, money, human capital, natural resources, green energy, conservation and freedom being part of its central nerve.

Big industries like Microsoft will place their headquarters in this place, companies like Texas Instruments will bring their energy conservation factories, big world players like Saudi Arabia will take their luxurious hotels to this country´s beaches. International financial institutions like Citygroup will make this the new financial capital. This will be a place where you can trade your stock over twenty over hours a day continuously, where you can price oil and gold, where you can expect to do a public offering and rise millions of dollars for your company. You wont make any toys in this country, and agriculture will be only a matter of national strategy. No industries that pollute will be allow, logging, oil exploration, river contamination, air pollution, water poisoning, overfishing won be a problem in this place.

Google will develop its new cut edge operating system here, companies like Shell will test their new green technology. Nokia, Motorola and other will recycle and reuse the old cellular phones as the same time as they develop the latest model way ahead of the Japanese.

Keep dreaming in this; where Amazon could place its headquarters in this country while it manages their entire operations all over the world. A new United Nations may be built, international conferences on energy conservation, on palling the consequences of global warming will be held. GlaxoSmithKline may have the newest laboratory where they test cures for Cancer and AIDS.

This country does exist, but has none of this industries, nor the human willing to transform itself into this “green paradise”. As I said before, I will go into details so you see that this may be possible, sure maybe Abu Dhabi gets there first, but they idea is worth exposing.

I apologize for any mistakes that have not been corrected, I posted this way too late, I promise I will go over this and rectify if necessary.

Did Bernanke Fail?

Did Bernanke not see all the signs out there that told us that the market bubble that was created was ready to burst?

Did he not see that the complex mortgage market was giving people the chance to get excessive loans that in normal conditions they couldn’t afford to pay?

Did Bernanke not see that the ballooning deficit was a destructive threat to the long term health of the American economy?

The Chairman of the Fed failed to see all this problems, or maybe he saw them but did not addressed them properly. In either way he is the one to blame for the upcoming recession.

Confidence is the key to any high profile job, when if you make a statement you reassure the market and the general public that you are in charge, that you know what to do, that you are a leader. But if your statement does not give confidence, then your are not suited for the job.

How the ballooning deficit gets any better with a 150 billion dollars more in debt?

When tax cuts were implemented Bush told us that they would had helped the economy to get stronger, they would had helped to get more jobs, they would had put billions in people´s hands. But now that we see that neither of those things happened, and more so, that were are falling into a recession. What is the idea of making those tax cut permanent? Does Greenspan knows about this?

Lets say that Bernanke is not the one to blame for this crisis, in a hypothetical case lets say that he was never in favor of letting the market fix itself, he never agreed with Greenspan on keeping interest rate low, which brought us to this problem. Then to whom should we turn our frustration against?

Lets talk about the big picture, as any good economist would know, you must seek a long term benefit over the short term one. With the upcoming elections and with the economy in bad shape any lack of effort by the Fed could lead to a disaster outcome against the Republican party, since Bernanke was Bush´s choice for replacing Greenspan.

This means that the Fed could act as if wanted or supported any measure that keeps the economy from falling apart until the elections are over, risking a long term commitment to do the right thing.

Lowering interest rates now that the dollar is on a stunning decline is reckless, this means that people will seek to change their holdings in dollars to a more secure currency such a the euro, furthering lowering the exchange rate between the dollar and any major currency in the world.

So what if instead of lowering the interest rates by 0,75 percentage points, Bernanke would of reassured the market that a further decline of the dollar, the huge deficit and the looming inflation were a bigger risk than the current recession.

In that way we would have known that he is truly committed to a long term recovery of the economy. But since he didn’t we know what Bernanke´s truly motives are: keeping the economy alive by any means possible, not taking into account what terrible damage it posses to the long term health of America.

With interest rates down and tax cuts, or rebates, or any other mean of placing money into people´s hands, Congress, Bush and Bernanke are doing the only thing that they could have done to damage America and therefore the world, subsequently we will have this short term measures that disperse the hopes of getting out of the economic slowdown.

People lost their confidence in the green buck; when people don’t want to sell things to you, you are in big trouble, when people don’t want to do business with you, you are also in big trouble. So now you have one of the worst measures in recent history, as if the government couldn’t do any more wrong, having a weak dollar is reviving the notion that America has lost its place as the undisputable leader in the world.

But it is easy to criticize Bernanke when we all pretty much know what the outcome of the current situation will be. So I should take also the risk of being right or wrong on how the economy and the world will be in the following months, so in any case I will be proud of making the correct judgment as any competent economist will do, or I will fall into my own words being wrong.

But for now I will keep it short. I will say that the economy will fall into a recession, the dollar will fall even further, more and more foreign countries or foreign investors will jump in and buy more and more American holdings. The unemployment rate will grow, the housing market will get worst, the 150 billion wont do any good to the economy, and neither Congress, Bush or Bernanke could save the debacle before 2008 ends.

Its all about being negative, but in my next column I will talk about the steps that could be taken in order to improve the long term performance of the economy and the only way in which America could regain its position as the undisputable world leader.