Some miscellaneous articles

May 27, 2010 by whit · Leave a Comment 

Feeling lazy today.  Sometimes the juices ain’t flowing.  In no particular order: MSNBC – Clinton says world must respond to N. Korea Financial Times – US warns over Beijing’s ‘assertiveness’ DER SPIEGEL  – Interview with Economist Nouriel Roubini: ‘We Will Have Even More Crises in the Future’ (hat tip Matt) Real Clear Politics – Depression [...]

Pain

May 17, 2010 by whit · Leave a Comment 

Helped some friends move this weekend.  I.  Hurt.  All.  Over. And by this weekend, I mean most all of it, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday morning.  Friday and Saturday were hot and humid, but Sunday was the gauntlet.  Day started early, hot and humid and ended in a cold rain at 1:00 AM Monday morning.  [...]

Blogging is hard work

May 16, 2010 by whit · Leave a Comment 

In less than a year I have gone from daily blogging to forcing myself to find something to write about once a week if that. Since my return from China two weeks ago, I have been working like crazy trying to bag all the new business raining down on PassageMaker, SafePassage and China Quality Focus.  [...]

Eduscam, part deux

April 8, 2010 by whit · Leave a Comment 

PassageMaker is privileged to host an intern from our alma mater, the University of South Carolina.  This intern just completed his first assignment, an excellent market study for one of our clients.  He looks like a keeper. This got me thinking about what a bargain USC was.  I got an MBA ten years ago for [...]

Is China the next bubble?

March 29, 2010 by whit · Leave a Comment 

In my post the other day,”Eduscam?“, I pointed to the entirely anecdotal experiences I had recently with our college educated youth who haven’t a moment’s work experience between them when they leave school.  I had one thought that I decided to save for today. Many young souls seem to want to be bankers or lawyers, [...]

“As Europe and Asia become ‘veritable old-age homes,’ the U.S. will enjoy the benefits of a growing population.”

March 24, 2010 by whit · 1 Comment 

Here is an interesting book review of Joel Kotkin’s new book, The Next Hundred Million, in the Wall Street Journal, entitled “The More the Better“, by Nick Schulz, which I will quote in full, since it is so short. A gloomy mood might seem to be justified at the moment. Unemployment is nearing 10%. We [...]

Child labor

March 2, 2010 by whit · 5 Comments 

I read with interest the recent articles (couple of them here and here) about Apple’s announcement that some of their suppliers had used child labor in the past. What I found most interesting was the “child” part – when I was 15 I would have slugged anyone who called me a child.  During the summer [...]

Arrogant Americans need not apply, the decline (?) of the West and what if the Chinese stop buying US paper?

February 24, 2010 by whit · Leave a Comment 

“The enemy always has problems of his own of which you are unaware.” – George C. Marshall Not that China is necessarily our enemy, but they are certainly a competitor, and I don’t normally borrow money from my competitors.  Some interesting articles covering all sides of the USA declining(?) debate and other silliness. America On [...]

Day 31 – 恭喜发财 – PassageMaker’s Chinese New Year party!

February 15, 2010 by whit · Leave a Comment 

恭喜发财, gōng xǐ fā cái, wishing you a prosperous new year! More articles and weird stuff: Toxic Linfen – regardless of Climategate, there is still room for commonsense pollution controls in developing nations Think You Know China? Eight Things Foreigners Get Wrong Interesting talk on Vested Outsourcing – not sure if I care for the [...]

4 PM on a Friday

December 16, 2009 by whit · Leave a Comment 

I come from the automotive world.  People who don’t understand the automotive industry can’t fathom how completely different it is from every other industry out there. The worst hour of the week in the automotive industry is 4:00 PM to 5:00 PM on a Friday.  It is that nightmarish 60 minutes when Murphy’s Law takes [...]

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