Nursing a Broken Heart

Source: Property of Stormberry

Such a roller coaster of emotions in short two weeks. I feel now like I'll never take off again this bracelet, this one charm that represents him. I've been sad and crying and reliving time and again snipets of our last three meetings, but I'm still not strong enough to write them down in my journal, where the details of it all would be penned in with the blood of my spirit mingled into the ink flowing down the feeder and the nib of my pen.

The whole thing puzzles me greatly for I was already preparing to this. I knew the end was close, this cycle of our on-and-off acquaintance was reaching an end and a new era of long calm and emotional slumber was approaching. We can never stay together for too long, as if our emotions - whatever shape they take - could burn so hard they would easily engulf the world in flames. At least this time, the predominant sentiment was one of love, and not like in the past, where it was the blinding hate in my heart what had thrown the yellowish light upon our road.

We sink into the darkness and coolness of a world without each other. We have both done that in the past, with more or less success. I have a hard time letting go, and I can feel my bony, frozen fingers cracking, opening and trying to clutch into his strong wrist, for one last word. But my cold corpse is sinking deeper and deeper in to the underworld where I belong, where I am ruler,  undefeated and unchallenged. I have to let him go, I can't drag him down here, where I flourish and he withers, as much as I could not survive in his world.

Our last meeting was the longest and the most beautiful of them all. We talked long, shared our hearts, heard each other and held each other. Hugs flew freely each time they were needed, and smiles were free as well, marvelling in the miracle of having found each other. We talked economics and fell asleep like children, one next to the other, on a narrow bed, reading "The Return of Depression Economics" by Paul Krugman.

"Who else can I do this with?", he asked me, mirroring so perfectly what I myself was feeling.

No one else. That was the sad answer, wrapped in each other's arms, my head against his strong shoulder, in the dark, on the very night we knew we had finally ran out of time, and come the day, we will have to say good-bye.

We slept, but we didn't sleep together. Still in the morning we teased each other with that. "Hey, I can finally say we slept together". I laughed. "Watch out about that, child. You've slept with a witch".

Long hours rolled in bed, dreading getting up because they I would have to go home. Yet we've found the way to stretch those hours, steal one more, and one more until it was evident I had to pack up and leave. I had showed him my bow and my arrows, and had stringed it for him to see, to hold, to feel its power as its string is drawn against the nose and under the chin. We picked up dinner in my car, and he loved driving it. I told him their name and he not only accepted it, but gave it a petname of his own: "Nat".

He taught me to drink whiskey that night, and though I was still good enough to drive, he insisted I should stay. I didn't put much resistence either. I did want as many memories of us as I could collect.

We had lunch next day, driving his car, speeding some so that the rumble of the engine would crawl up my legs, and break on the reef of my upper lip. His car is a thing of beauty.

Those 22 hours were an intense experience, and he himself said a lifetime of closeness and friendship were crammed into them. A whole life was lived in them.

With love high in our hearts, we said good-bye, we let go. We walked away. And I've been crying since then.

Going Through Some Changes... Again

I knew it had been a long time since the last time I wrote, I just wasn't aware that it had passed such a long time! Which is bad, because if I think of all the penpals I've neglected, it means that I've become a legendary Bad Penpal. Of course I won't go here whining about how all of them took their time and effort to write to me, and what a meanie I am for not writing back to them, not letting them know how things are... please. Delays in replies are one of the many, many risks all penpals take when they step upon the path of Penpalhood. Plus, I send postcards here and there to let them know I'm alove, though not enough to sit down and write to them.

So, what has happened since I was here last? Well, I came back to Costa Rica, as you all know, since I was in Hungary for the holidays with the family. This trip offered me a unique chance to gain some perspective on a lot of things about life and life choices and got me thinking about the next steps I should take regarding my future. No, I did not came up with a plan for total world domination. Geez, I would never do that! Too many tasks, too much hassle and the responsability alone! No, no, no I don't want to build my very own Panem. No, the decisions and plans I came up with actually are falling more in the line of the expectations I had some six or seven years ago, concentrated mainly on procuring ease, leisure, fun, stability and professional growth - the way I understand it, of course, not the way the world understands it, which is wrong, by the way. Sorry world, I'm the one who's right, as always.

One of the most important lessons I re-learned was that Integrity should always be above everything. Altruism is overrated, and sometimes you have to stop being good, stop being understanding and stop trying to help others out of the fucking shithole they dig themselves into. I learned that, as ugly as it soulds, Altruism isn't in my nature and shouldn't be in my nature. I'm just too good at what I do and at what I can achieve to afford any altruism. You see, when you are good or you are doing well - be it in life, at school, at work, or whatever project you are in - it may happen that people who are doing less than well ask for your help or start relying on you to get their own load on. Sometimes then, these people - counting on your help or support - start taking more than what they can affort and keep piling on your "because you can help them". Perhaps you helped them but where also expecting to get on with your own program, your own projects, and that stops happening out of the blue because these other people are stopping you from moving forward. I know a penpal of mine with whom this happens more often than not. Well, believe it or not, this happened to me too. Yep, world known Wicked Witch Me. And believe it or not, I actually was wondering whether I should continue helping them in any capacity or leave them in the crap. Honestly, I wished to leave them in the crap, just drop the weight off my shoulders and look at them and tell them: "You wanted this, now you have to shoulder it. I have my own life to live and my is way to amazing to miss out of it". My life is amazing, actually, and I would hate missing a single minute out of it. As usually, I ran a Consulting with some of my friends, just to make sure I was covering all of my basis, getting other P.O.V.s, and then reached a decision: it's time to dig myself out of the situation.

And this is how change begins.

After pretty much a year working at the Legal Department of my company as an Economical Adviser, I've realized that this position doesn't really fulfill my needs. Yes, it is exciting, I love my cubicle in the Central Building overlooking the city, with my ceiling-to-floor windows, kind coworkers (even though they are weird, too "Christians" to my liking, quite close minded, give much to appearances, and tend to be back stabbing, attention whores and their shabbiness in certain aspects that mean a lot to me is getting to my nerves [like why can't they drop the flourish-peppered language when their grammar and spelling SUCKS big time]), and some parts of the job are truly fabulous, BUT there's no maths involved, and after a year, I realized that I'm still a Finance-girl at heart, my mind goes that way, and it's disgusting to try and make me think like a lawyer when that's not what I learned, that's not what I should be doing (understand this: one thing is to learn the laws and how they work, and yet another to give an opinion as if I were a lawyer. I can understand the law and see that as my frame and make my economical analysis considering that scenario, and yet another is to see an economical scenario and give my opinoin about which laws apply and how should a lawsuit be issued. I am not entitled to do so. By Law.), nor is what I want to do. I am an Economist, and that's what I love being, what I love doing and what I want to continue doing.

Las year, when I moved to the area, everything was about getting settled. Things were strange to me but I thought that with time I would settle into them, find my niche in things and be happy. However this year, as my perspective changed, I realized that I was fooling myself. Just because I'm friends with my boss and I love the location of my office, it doesn't mean that what I'm doing is satisfying. I actually felt my brain shrink due to the lack of mathematical thinking. It hit me as a bucket of cold ice to realize that the only type of maths and Excel sheet working I was doing was for my Accounting homework. In the few price-related cases I received, I realized that I was trying to do the analysis of the calculations, the cost construction evaluation, not reviewing whether these were legally regulated or non-regulated services. More than once I was scolded for "butting into stuff that don't belong to us", namely the financial analysis, so in the end I didn't quite understand what they wanted me to do with these documents that a lawyer couldn't do. Yes, it's most upsetting. The style is also completely different, though that's a mostly management question (at one point I was actually asked to say the least possible. It seems I make too many observations for the liking of the others. In plain English, I was asked to do a more shallow work, instead of my bone-cutting disecting style of analysis).

On the other hand, ever since I moved to Legal, my old boss - whom I love to madness, as you all know - has been asking me to go back to him, now that he's in the Financial Management Area. Also, from the same Area but in different departments, people has been asking me to join them. What can I say? People, whatever you go and whatever you do DO ALWAYS A GOOD JOB, BECAUSE PEOPLE WILL ALWAYS NOTICE IT! Never, never let anyone - no boss, no directive, not anyone - drag you into doing a lesser job. Even if you have to swipe the floor, do the best floor swiping you are capable of. That's why I get the requests, that's why departments want me with them, that's why not one of the bosses I've ever worked with (including Moron Lady) has ever let me go willingly. I stand out because of the quality of my work. So, after receiving offers, and also after knowing from the Director of my current department that the new politics for this Area include a need to cut the budget, thus anyone wishing to leave can do so freely with the fix postion we have, I started thinking harder about this whole thing. And so I did a Balance.

I Would Move Because:
1. Working in the Legal Department isn't adding to my career. I had the experience but now my skills are suffering. I know what I am good that, what I'm perfect and top-notch at, and that's not something I can do where I am now. My mind doesn't work the same way with laws as it does with numbers. I can't remember and interpret laws the way I do accounts and costs and figures. That many words and changing rules and illogical fixings and even that "it doesn't matter if it's mathematically or logical wrong, if we can use it to win, we should"-kind of thinking irks me.
2. Going back to my old boss (if I can manage so) would help me continue improving my experience, knowledge and skills in Fees, Costs and Economical Analysis of Service Projects, which happens to be a passion of mine.
3. I don't want to become one of those people who gain some haphazard knowledge of a career they have no paper to prove, and yet loose all their experience and skills of the career they have papers of. Many people agree into that, and consider it becoming "experts in many areas", and never stop to consider the kind of professional suicide it becomes. If I were to look for a job, could I apply for a post as an economist when my working experience is in law? Or could I look for a job as a lawyer when I haven't passed the Bar (the only bar I've ever passed is the Pub kind of bar), and have no diploma that says I am a lawyer? See my point? I am an economist, and I want to put a lot of experience behind that diploma. I believe I have earned enough insight in the law to continue my job as an economist, anymore iddling around would become a waste of perfectly good time.
4. This job doesn't make me happy. I have never before realized how much I need maths and Excel sheets in my life to feel accomplished. I need to put my mind to work in numbers, to find the logical connections between numbers, reseach costs, find the ways to make numbers fit together and get a good result.

I Should Stay Because:
1. They saved me when I needed saving. Yeah, except that I don't do "gratitude" that costs me my personal growth, so fuck that reason.
2. If I go my boss won't have enough people to tackle all the tasks they have to shoulder. Yeah, except that that's my boss' problem, not mine. I am not HHRR, so the lack of employees isn't mine to solve. I'm not Finance to manage their budget problems, and I'm not her boss to manage the workload issues. In other words, yes I know it is a freaking bad situation, but you know what it isn't? My Problem. So fuck that reason too.
3. They do work with two topics I love. Yeah, except that my boss gave those two topics to my other coworker (who has bad spelling, grammar and does a sloppy job compared to me). So that reason also gets fucked.
4. I really like the building.
5. Staying in Legal I'm sure I would never have to work with Moron Lady again.

So, after my balancing of my reasons to stay and to leave, I realized that the only reason for me to stay is the building, and that's the worse reason of all! Yes, I hate the building in which my dear boss - okay, former boss - is located, and the parking there is a nightmare, but isn't it worth it to suffer a little for it in order to do soemthing I really like? The fifth reason, though, is one that really gets me thinking, that really has me considering the whole thing, and I wonder if it is powerful enough to ruin my whole career for. I've been investigating, for as a new change comes to our Government, and thus a change in our Company (we are a public company after all, and the President of the Country always handpicks the people who would manage us, and their friends get to all the power places, thus chips change and fall as result of it), I believe that Moron Lady would be shifted soon, and I would really not want her in Finance in any capacity.

On Monday I'll talk to my old boss, lay the cards for him, and talk it over. I'll be honest and tell him that I had to realize that he's not God, I can't expect him to protect me always from her, and I can't work with her, so if he can give me a fair certainly that we will be away from her, and if he still wants me in his team, he can count on me as fast as HHRR can arrange the move.

I want to go back to Finance, and one way or the other, I will.

Those Mindless Ecological Measures

If you take a train or a car and travel across some European countries you will find some of the most odd things in the world. For miles and miles and miles large stretches of land will go endlessly before your eyes sown with very particular crops, such as corn and sunflower. It is indeed strange to think about corn in Salzburg, or exceedingly large sunflower plantations, so one goes wondering what could be going on, after all we all know that Hungarians don't live exclusively of sunflower seeds nor Austrians eat corn flour tortillas to everything. (I've written about this before, and in many, many occasions, so if you find it repetitive, it's not the same blogpost, but yes, you already heard me talk about it.) What comes to play in here are two economical approaches (one more of international trade, and another of ecological tones) that shape our national and international production in ways that are - in my personal opinion - all fucked up. (I promise this will be a rant, and not another boring economics post.)

On one hand we have a classical theory about something called "Comparative Advantage", championed by David Ricardo (you can google all that), according to which, each economy or nation or country... or whatever productive unit, should produce only what they are most efficient at producting, so that they can trade that with others and get more than if they would have produced everything by themselves. You go comparative when you decide to produce something your neighbours or trade mates aren't so efficient at doing even if you are better at doing something else, but they are even better at that same thing. Got that? Okay, quick explanation: say you make shoes and bags. You are very good at making bags, but even better at making shoes. Your neigbour sucks at bags, but surpass you at making shoes, SO even though you are better at shoes than bags, you drop shoes to make bags and leave your neightbour at makings only shoes. So, according to this, you should always choose to produce what in the end yields the most of money (because your neighbour is going to pay more for your bags than for your shoes).

Picture Googled

On the other side, after the numerous fossil fuel crisis we have had, and our evident dependence from them, bright green scientists came up with the idea of biofuels, which reduce our dependence from the highly contaminating fossil fuels and replace them for an environmentally healthier option: biofuel. We all know what biofuel is and what's the main ingredient for it right? Right. So, here we are, with countries around the world whipping off their lands their traditional produce, usually meant to feed their own population and export the excedent (way back in fairytale history, when we all lived in a Golden Age and the world was perfect), and instead go on sowing crops that are not indigenous and that are not meant necessarily for their consumption. Corn and sunflower are today's oilfields. And actually, you don't have to build drills and pits, nor look for expensive studies to see if you can find oil under the soil, because all you need it to sow the fuelseeds, water them and then harvest them.

Theoretically this will yield much more money, than keeping livestock or sowing wheat or veggies or whatever was usually grown on those lands, and from which the farmer and their family could support themselves with. In theory, now they need not to produce what they eat, because they can buy it much cheaper from other countries who are better at producing that. Risk is also supposed to be lower as if one producer fails for whatever reason, the global network will be quick in providing you with the produce of the next best producer of the same product. How would there be other countries producing the exact same thing as others instead of what they are best at? Sure they have this theory of "country blocks" where they are all equally good at the same thing and so produce it and sell it equally to all the others.

So yes, this is so far so good, so what the hell is my problem? Not much, except that it's all bullshit and it has been proven in real life to be the worse possible way to go. Why? Let me break this down from both ends that support this lunacy.

1. Competitive Advantage my Ass

Probably the big industrialized countries don't remember or don't even know much about it or don't even care, but there have been through history many countries that have specialized so much in the production of one single good that they became very sensitive of any market change for it. Pick any case from your part of the world, I'm sure you are surrounded by many similar examples. The closest example for me is coffee.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love coffee, and I happen to live in a country that produces one of the best coffeebeans in the world - or so we are told. Also, coffee is a product that's loved and needed world wide. It's used not only as the coffee beverage we know - hot and cold, black, tall, American or Frappuccined - but also in the medical industry to make some meds, and also by my beloved Coca-Cola Company, as part of the Coke. In Costa Rican history, actually what helped pull Costa Rica out of poverty (all the way to about mic XIXth century, Costa Rica was the poorest country of Central America. Currently we are second only to Panama) was coffee. The production of it helped the country get the money it needed to start developing and investing in infrastructure, culture, education and what not. Hm, but not everything was rosy, for as expected, soon some families rose over others and oligopolies were formed. There were class issues and so on, and the country would have sweeped under the rug the fact that a tiny part of the country was getting uber rich while the rest was sinking in poverty if not because  those rich people got hit when the high dependence on coffee made them vulnerable to any fluctuation of the price. If the price rose they were rich, if the price plumeted, they were in bankrupcy. and guess what happens when there's a lot of product out there in the market? Uhum, you get the general picture.

So once the big rich realized that coffee was going to sunk them among the poors they have exploited, they realized that focusing so much on one product wasn't good. Monocultives weren't good. So came back the diversifying of the crops.

So yes, even in good conditions - and given that big, industrialized economies just looove to gamble with products (they call it, "investing" and "futures" and whatnots that brokers do, which kind of fucked up the global economy a few years ago) - when you go concentrated on one thing, you may end up loosing more than what you would have if you would have produced different things. However, then, it also happens that you will find bad conditions. Your suppliers don't produce with the quality checks you'd expect, or they loose their crops, or there's a war, or even something as simple as the transportation costs becoming prohibitive, or even the breaking of a strike. Maybe your whole country gets isolated for some reason, do you expect to feel and cloth your whole nation with corn or sunflower? By pushing this agenda, you may think that you ensure yourself against the production problems your country may have - floods, wars, draughts, etc. - but what you are actually doing is exposing yourself to the potential productive problems of the whole planet.

It's funny how we are supposed to be the ones "not developed yet", and yet the industrialized, the developed countries are making now the same mistakes we made in the past. Man, you's stupid!

2. Environmentally Friendly

The second and last reason for this crap is the "environmental bullshit". Now, of course I agree that the environment must be protected from the massive destruction we deal upon it, but that's not a carte blanche to then go abusing of people. These solutions that are pushed forward seem to work one way only: "you will get profit by hurting someone, who do you choose to hurt?". It's stupid to think that biofuel is the solution to our problems, as anyone with a bit of working brain can tell you that popularizing that will only mean that you'll end up taking the food away from the poor so that the rich can fill their tank. Cars become more important than people. With the introduction of biofuels less food is produced, because now cars eat too. I wonder if there's any measure of the acres of forest being cut down to turn the land into farming land for more biofuel. So again, how's this working? Other than chopping part of the income from the fossil fuel extracting countries and redirecting that income to other countries, of course.

This environmental crap is being dished freely all over the world with lame ass reasoning. Airlines have decided to go environmental too by using a new type of fuel made out of "forest waste". Now, I'm not a biologist or anything, but do explain to me what the hell is "forest waste"? As far as I knew everything in nature has a purpose and the cycles are always perfect anc complete. What dies becomes the nurture of what lives, and nothing is wasted. However airlines found "forest waste" and decided to use it. As you can expect it, soon there will be forests ripped out to feed airplanes, because those weren't forests, but "forest waste", and that's okay and environmentally friendly.

People, lets get serious: when you'll do something for nature or for the environment, remember that people are part of the environment too. You can't expect to protect by robbing the livelihood of others. You can't ignore the poor because "they are poor anyways, so there will be no difference" because it's not you and yes, there will be a difference. There's a difference between having one cup of rice a day as sole intake of food, and no rice at all. There's a difference between being able to fish some or hunt some, or sow some and sell the product to be able to bring home some food, and having nothing to sell, nothing from which make a living and going to the streets to beg and steal. It's very easy to put on your PETA or Greenpeace or Leaping Bunny shirt and claim to protect nature and animals, and forget that you are with this endorsing the exploiting of human beings in a disadvantaged situation.

Yes, animal cruelty must be stopped, the destruction of the environment must be stopped, but not by shifting this damage onto our own siblings. I won't choose human cruelty over animal cruelty, not human destruction over environmental destruction, I prefer RATIONALITY. However this one, sadly, entails that the heat would be taken by the rich and the exhorbitant profit of their businesses.

And, you, who do you prefer to see suffering?

The Fashionista Fallacy

Sometime in September a heated argument broke out in the Internet, specifically among Filofax fans and users due to the comments of a representative of a marketing company about the features that identify the "filofax customers". I didn't know about this until yesterday, though I had noticed a couple of disturbing publications I'll talk about later. This person basically said that their studies showed that filofax users were basically "people who like to take notes and are interested in fashion". The moment I read that I heard in my head the sound of a car hitting the breaks fast and hard and screeching across the asphalt. Wait, WHAT? That's like saying that gardners are people who like to dig holes, or students are people who like to sharpen pencils. Well, this didn't sit well with the many regular customers of filofax.

Now, to put you quickly on black and white about what's going on, on one hand it seems that filofax has been lagging in the areas of product quality and customer service. You can notice that from comments people do around the Internet about it. I didn't think much about it, but did noticed when I was browsing for my filofax that many looked really nice and shiny outside, but the inside was less-than-perfect. Take for instance the Metropol, where the edges of the outer cover material aren't nicely tucked under some lining. Specially look at how the corners look like with that unfinished frilling - or whatever you call it. And before you argue, no, there are other ways to solve this, such as the way they did it for the Sketch model, which is the one I have, and which - good grace! - is cheaper than the Metropol!

On the other hand, we all know that the world is changing and this change is taking people towards the digital universe. More and more people - and therefore the market - deepens its dependence on electronic divises - particularly those connected to the web. The PDA's - also known once as palm pilots, though that was the brand - came and went, so what's teh future of paper planners, particularly an expensive type of planner in a binder like filofax? It's going to become a casualty in the battle of smartphones? What can they do to keep hold or earn a stronger hold of their market share? Maybe get more clients? Well, as step one they hired this marketing company, which made a study, upon which they decided to work together with some designers to come up with a trendy, fashionable product that appeals to the customers. (BTW, according to the interview, the "attitude studies" were applied to a sample of 1200 people, 300 of which are current customers. I personally found the sample size small, and the proportion of current customers non-significant, particularly considering the characteristics of the product - this having turned into a product with a loyal customer base. This would be similar as to evaluate the idea of making a new Japan Animation movie sampling 1000 people from which only 250 watch currently this type of movies. The results wouldn't speak about the current market conditions. Oh yes, and it would say that otakus like to watch doodles and are aware of fashion.) So yes, they came out with carpetbag filofaxes, which appeal to the fashionable... who in turn would rather keep their lives and appointments on an iPhone/Samsung Galaxy.

Now, what's going on here? Well, first of all, filofax is throwing money to anyone willing to give them an answer, a magical solution as to how to increase their income. As result, however, they may not only not see the return of their investment, but they may end up loosing what they have so far. Let's hope this won't happen.

You see, companies, enterprises, they produce stuff or give a service and they have clients, customers. Basically they need these customers to get an income, since the customers are the ones paying for what they do. However at some point some companies forget about this organic link, and start believing that customers are a nag and they (the customers) should be glad they (the company) even dains to throw something in their direction. Examples of this we have with Facebook and Windows, but I bet many of you automatically thought about phone companies and computer companies. Has Facebook or Windows ever considered what their users/customers want when they implement some change? No, they don't. Do they care about people trashing them for their latest stupid innovation that nobody likes? No. Facebook say "deal with it", becaus they know people can't leave them, and even if they do, Facebook keeps all their data, all their uploaded pictures and documents. Have you tried to leave Facebook? I did. The last thing they say to you is "we know you'll be back".

Windows is pretty much the same, they don't care if you like the newest innovations, because they have such a big market share that even if you move to another segment, you'll have to deal with Microsoft products eventually, and if you manage not to, then you'll be part of a slim percentage that keeps the Government off their backs about "monopoly". But not everybody can do this and live to tell. Ford has it's time back in the day, when they could even decide that all cars would be black, but then times changed and if they don't adjust to the market, then they fall out of it.

Trends can be killers for products that either don't keep up with them, or that have bet on the hype of the moment, became a fashionable article and then the whim of the market killed them. Examples of these are the PDA's murdered in cold blood by the smartphones - starting with the Blackberry, and then the QWERTY keyboards on smartphones - such as the Blackberry's (isn't karma a bitch?) - which were gunned down by the touchscreen. The Blackberry making company, Research in Motion (RIM), has been rumoured to be about to cave in and go bankrupt, with it making an effort to keep their heads over the water and maybe be saved with the latest phone that would be unveiled on January 2013. What went wrong? Nothing, it's just that iPhone and Samsung Galaxy happened, and when a product strives so hard to remain fashionable, it will eventually plunge into the darkest pits of oblivion. These products are short lived, so if you are into one of these, you basically have to create disposable brands and companies, cash in as fast as you can, and harvest as soon as the first signs of decay happen. These companies need to take the pulse of the market closely. They will be the top notch when they are up, but nobody will remember them when they fall down one step.

Then there are other types of products, products that are eternal and that cater to a very particular segment of the market. These are the "eternal products". Examples of these are Apple, Channel, luxury car brands and, yes, filofax. What are the distinctives of these brands? That they have formed around their products a very loyal customer base, one that would remain for ages with their products. For instance, maybe the Samsung Galaxy does end up being the best mobile phone ever, and will win the market battle, and the market massively will move to the Samsung Galaxy, but the true Apple fan would never leave the iPhone. Their markets are smaller, more compact, have specific needs, are prone to communicate with the company, and are willing to try out all their new products even if they don't really need them in the begining. The customers of these companies take the shot with the company and have a higher tolerance towards the shortcomings of the company - which they signal! but they stay waiting for the correction.

Their revenues may not be as astronomical as that of fashionable products - filofax would hardly compete with Lady Gaga - but when they do recognize their customer base and attend to them, they can count on a sustainable income that will outlast any fashion icon.

The marketing company should have done their homework first, should have mapped out the company, understand it, and then work from that on. Well, evidently they keep their appointments in their smartphones, and must hate making notes.

Are Long Posts Fun?

I write quite a lot, I'm aware of that. I don't really consider myself a typical "long letter" type of penpal, but I like writing. However often long, condensed, letter-dense posts are simply annoying. One would thing that it doesn't make sense when you like reading - many books, after all, aren't full of pictures, nor have short chapters or segmentations between chapters to help the attention deficient reader keep up with the story - BUT lets face it, letters and posts aren't often just as books.  Yes, it depends on what was written. Two pages, or 80 lines depicting in painful detail your blurry ideas about why peas are better than beans are not enticing. 200 densely written pages following the story of a vicious murderer that manages to decapitate people in a populated city while a brilliant detective is hot on their tracks... that's not nearly enough.

Anyway, this idea came to me just because I'm on this site, and I receive posts by e-mail for different forums, and there's this user who got a posting rush and has send us all ten long posts about sex and tantric sex. Yes, it would normally be very interesting, but... not. Fuck, how do you manage to kill sex?

So, yes, after that I've been brought to reconsider my posting habits, and really, REALLY make an effort to trim them. Not an easy task when your head is full of plotbunnies, or postbunnies or... just bunnies. Do you know what plotbunnies are? It's a word I learned in my fanfic writing days. Those are the ideas for a story that you have rolling around your head, but that haven't evolved into a full story. I have a couple of that... a couple A LOT of those, and some are.... well, they are not plotbunnies, but gara be like plot-horses or plot-dragons. Regarding stories, not posts. Wait, I have post plotbunnies too... Yes, well, anyway. Where was I and where was I going? Yeah, right, so it's not so easy to trim posts when you have a lot of ideas and things to say rolling around in your head. Has that happen to you too or am I the only person with a messy head and undisciplined thoughts?

Anyway, I wanted to tell you all a little piece of news: it's very, very likely that my thesis mate and I will be published. Yay! ^_^ I finally had a meeting yesterday with someone from the faculty, who reviewed our thesis, since we expressed our desire to find a way to publish it either as a book or as an article, and they told me that our work was actually rather good, that needed trimming some segments, but that our approach was actually refreshing and new within the given topic, and it would be great to publish it as an article. They quickly give us suggestions about which parts of the thesis use to construct the 15 page article (out of 195), and pressed on the matter that we should keep our focus where we had it: on the social part.

You see, my mate and I made our thesis about the artisanal fishermen of a given island. We were supposed to do a traditional economical analysis and propose a way to improve their activity, but once we arrived at the island we realized that all of that would have been a bunch of crap. The economical situation of the fishermen is tied tightly to their social circumstances, thus throwing at them all sort of market solutions won't work, as it hasn't been working for 20 years or so. Meanwhile they are vulnerable, exposed to abuse, and the sealife is in inminent danger, which only deepens their problems. As result, my mate and I changed our initial position and leaned heavier on the social side of the equation, explaining as clearly as possible that no model or mathematical proposal, no economical solution would turn this region into a burgeoning hub of commerce, but that inherent social issues had to be addressed first.

It's interesting to think that what's going on here is a miniature of what goes on around the world, and what can be seen in Europe. The "solutions" proposed are like trying to push a cart down a road that no longer exists, when the wheels of the cart have already broken off. You can't pretend a cart to rush smoothly as if it were racing on a highway when you are pushing it down a cliff. Yes it's going to rush in the short term, and it's going to rush downwards, free falling. Most of you are not interested by this topic, I assume so I'll close it by saying this: You know what pisses me off the most about the whole situation? Both European and the fishermen's? That there's this bunch of economists and politicians with big titles, probably prizes and publications too, and they are all so fucking blind about the reality that they think people in real life are no different than their paper modeling, and so they just throw in all sorts of "solutions" without actually thinking them over, almost as if expecting either to buy time to get their capital somewhere safe, or simply see if it works. It's not even like putting a band aid on a gashing wound, it's like having a gashing wound and putting stones on it.

Yeah, well, the important is that we might get published, that the first publications where my name appears won't be as a writer, a work of fiction, but as a scientist. ^_^ That's cool.

Blame it on the Economy/Economists

For a while now things have been hard. Nationally and globally speaking. The word "crisis" is part of our daily vocabulary, even if not part of the active one (the one we speak and write), but it's there in the passive one (the one we listen and read). All sorts of big words and big decisions are being made, and we may not get them all, we might not understand all of these, or what they mean in our daily life, how would they affect us, but this uncertainty, this crippling fear starts to creep on us.

If we live in Latin America, Asia or Oceania, things such as the European crisis might seem far, far away from us and unpertaining, yet still our newspapers are full with these news and our politicians talk about "measures" to counter the effects this crisis on us. Then there are things that we do experience on our own. We experience uneployment, the months and months that go by without we or someone we know being able to get a new job. This is also felt hard on those who do have a job and see their conditions get worse, their paychecks reduced or upheld, their workloads increased, them being exposed to more harrassment or abuse while their labor rights take a dive. Phrases like "if you won't do it there's 20 other who would do double for half of what we're paying you", get more and more frequent, as well as the "tests to make sure you are indeed the best person for this position".

We feel it too when the payments for our loans start skyrocketing, and there were we used to pay $1000 for the mortgage, we now pay $2000 or up to $4000 per month over a period of one to four months.

In the middle of this crisis we see banks being bailed out, and that money going to pay the exhorbitant wages and bonuses and "achiement pluses" of CEOs and executives who live in luxury flats, and change their luxury cars every year, and avoid the traffic by using a helicopter. The banks get a breathe, a break, but they keep their foot on the customer, burying them under unpayable payments and stealing away their money with all sorts of commissions and fees applies to their saved up money.

Suddenly it does seem - for those who hear the word "crisis" often accompanied by the words "economy" and/or "economists" - that this economy thing is the root of evil, and these economist people are the devil themselves, greedy and heartless, who look only to squeeze people out of their money. I recently even read a book in which Jesus said that he disliked economics very much. Well, it's time to start cleaning up the bullshit, so people know from where blows the wind.

Economy is something inherent to people. You don't need money, or societies, people around you or anything in the world, to have economy around you, and within you. Economy is about decisions regarding what you have, what you need and what you'll do to satisfy your needs. If you are alone in a deserted island, you are in economy too. There's economy in motion when you decide where will you put your tent -  close to water and fruits, for instance, and as you get hungry and have no idea how long will you be there, there's economy in your decisions about how much will you eat, how much and what will you store, and when shall you go explore the rest of the island for more food, or things to dress yourself or build a shack.

There's economy in daily life decisions too. There's economy when you decide with which of your classmates will you group up for a project. Depending on your personality, on your needs, you decide whether you prefer people who work well and won't leech on you, or rather pick people based on how much would you like to be friends with, or people who's other friends and parents could help you build a valuable network. There's economy when you decide what kind of dress you want to buy or sew to yourself, and there's economy when you decide at any given moment of your day whether you rather study now, go out to see a movie, walk in the park, read a book or bake a cake.

Economics could be understood as the science that studies this and that prepares people to make the best decisions in different situations - or at least know how many ways there are to look at the same situation, which solutions can be offered and what are the consequences of these decisions. Economists are the people who learn this science. Then, unlike a lot of people would think, often the economists aren't the ones making the decisions but suggesting them. Even when they make decisions - at Government level, Regulation level or FED level - what does the smack among people is the reaction of other players of the economy to them.

 In this sense economy, economics and economists are much like health, medicine and doctors. It would be stupid to blame sicknesses on doctors - even though many people does - or satanize medicine as the root of all illnesses in the world. If you don't like health problems you wouldn't say that that's the fault of health, that medicine is Satan and all physicians its servants, right? If you eliminate medicine and doctors, there still will be health and there still will be illnesses, only this way there would be no way to know what's wrong, nor people to fix the problem. Same with economy, except that in the case of economy, there are much more cases where the "patient" self-medicates, takes the medicide in a way different than prescribed, or someone makes sure that all the medicine go to someone else.

Given the sensible nature of economics, and how abusing of economy can tip the balance in favor of some and in detriment of others, some people with connections, make sure that any proposal that doesn't suit their personal gain, doesn't pass. Is it then economy or economics or economists to blame? Is it rather the corrupt system to blame?

Falling into the blaming without knowing is the typical trap set to keep attention away from the real problem, specially because it might be that we are the very root of evil. You may wonder, "me, out here in Honolulu, responsible of the Greek crisis? Gara be shitting me!" (to my knowledge, nobody from Honolulu reads me, so I guess I'm safe!). In a very, very long chain of events, yes, it could even be so. Let's just retrace our steps. Things as the way in which we consume, the products we purposefully or unawarely support, our apathy towards politics, social issues (within our community, as a lot of people is prone to contribute with charitable causes to feed children in Africa, save babies in South America, but can't give a fuck for the neighbour in need, or the starving children in the next village), and the whining about corruption, but not doing a thing about it actively.

Take a check of your steps. You may find things that could be changed, maybe as simple as buying less staples to reduce your waste, or checking the products you buy to support national production, or the production of a particular country in need, if that's your desire (in some countries, such as Costa Rica, often many national products are in the hands of the same family, and it is known that much of the product goes to make them wealthier, money which they then spend in politics and in getting more power, instead of giving back to the nation. You may choose then not to buy products from the companies linked to them - national production that supports an oligopoly - but to support maybe the production of a company from another country, which you know works with a producers' cooperative that supports environmentally friendly production). Then, there are other decisions that are worthy of being checked, like how you react to corruption, to crime, to injustice, to poverty, to social gaps, to economical gaps... and what can you do to make things better. For instance, don't condone corruption, but denounce it every time you find it. Even if you feel it doesn't solve the case, denounce it. Don't defeat yourself before hand by thinking that "it's not going to change" or "the whole system is into this", or "they all over each other's backs", do not condone it, make it loud and clear that you do not accept it, and do not resource to it. Or just because the taxpayer money is used to support a few people instead of the whole nation, it's not excuse for your to avoid paying it. Don't be part of the problem.

If you find that your decisions are all ok, then continue doing so. Don't think that you are too small. Remember that to become President, even powerful people need your vote, so your actions do count and they make the world the way it is. Don't take it as the blame being now placed on you, but as what it is: the responsability is yours, so the power to change things is also in your hands.

The Air France Question

There should be no doubt in anybody's mind about the airline I love the best in the planet. Not many people likes and and many more complain up and down and all the way around about it, but I can't but praise it. That wonderful, amazing, one-of-a-kind, sublime airline is no other than Air France. So it gets late often, what's the rush? They certainly pick up the speed up in the air! So they delay your luggage, it isn't like after crossing the ocean you are thrilled about carrying your overstuffed suitcases anywhere. So a plain crashed in the middle of the ocean and everybody died, shit happens, besides, it's not like they crash a plane every year, now do they? I love their onboard attention, their food, their movie selections, the leisure you feel up there and how all flight attendants smile at you are always ready to help you in any way they can. I don't mind any of the other things, but often even see them as indirect conveniences that make my life and my trip so much easier. Then, as Air France connects through Paris, spending some time there isn't either something I would just brush off my shoulder! Charles De Gaulle is my favorite airport by far (I speak some French and everybody is nice to me, so perhaps that's the reason), and Paris is certainly my favorite city in the whole planet (not that I have visited every city in the whole planet, but Paris is my favorite). A ticket with Air France is much more expensive than a ticket connecting the same destinations with other airlines, such as KLM, Iberia, Lufthansa, just to name a few, yet when the budget isn't so much of a deal, I always pick Air France. Maybe I could get there earlier if I went with KLM, or maybe I would do less stops if I go with Iberia, and maybe, maybe, maybe, but I keep on choosing Air France time and again.

You may say I love the feng shui I get on Air France (I read that on a Feng Shui book I was consulting to get ideas on how to better decorate my future home, given that it is small and I've a freaking lot of stuff - books mostly), but the fact is that I love the way I'm treated by the company, and if I have the dime, I gladly pay what they ask for that chance. I pay more to be treated kindly. I pay more to be around people enjoying their job, and giving away a wonderful, happy vibe. I pay more for smiles. I pay more for delicious food that has been selected carefully by people who know what's a real eating experience, and don't think that tooth paste between two sheets of notebook paper can pass for a sandwich. I pay for that, and I do it happily.

For a while now, I've noticed that year after year - usually by the end of it - the employees of the airline are going on strike. Flight attendants, now pilots, there was onw about maintenance workers, if I recall correctly, and I wonder, what the hell is going on? I've heard that the jobs at the airlines are no longer the wonderful experience they used to be but have been becoming more and more into ruthless lands of carnage and sweatshops. Airlines are falling, and no longer make it into the black, but as the months roll, they sink deeper and deeper into the red. The backs of smaller companies have already cracked and got crushed into bankrupcy - the latest I know of being Malév, the Hungarian airline - which pours more and more airline workers into the market, and putting more pressure on the airlines from every angle.

The question now is one: Money, and this is going the worst way possible. And sadly this is true for just about any company in the planet, in any industry there is. It's a fact that each time a company starts getting in trouble, the first thing they think of is to pull the income over the outcome, or in other words: create profit. There are two ways to do this: increase your income, by way of increasing your prices or making sure you sell more units... or both if you can pull that out. The other one is to reduce costs. Now, in the current market situation, probably increasing the price or even trying to increase the number of trips sold isn't much likely, so make pencil sharpening analysts (accountants and business administrators, maybe even a rouge economist or two), select to cut costs. That's okay, I mean, you need to get some earnings, go back to the black, and if you can't sell more, and make more money, try making the same money and producing it with less. It never ceases to amaze me, though, how each time these decisions are aimed at reducing the parts that are important for the service, and that's like shooting yourself on the toe.

The "smart" BAs (I refuse to acknowledge the existence of idiotic economists, so I'll pretend they aren't even people, because they should know better), pull out their massive books of leadership and crisis and administration, and decide to go on cutting in the inputs. Lower quality in foods, a cheaper catering service, reduce the replacement rate of parts, eliminate a meal, eliminate newspapers, magazines and other on board amenities and so on (I'm keeping the example of airlines, though I'm not saying this is what's happening with Air France! Hyne forbid! If I get KLM food on Air France, my world will collide). When that's not enough, they take the knife to the employees. Reduce wages, take away off-days, sick-days, cut contracts, eliminate rights and benefits... and then come the layoffs. These people safely locked away in their office buildings, can't possible understand how all of these cuts take away from the quality of the service, from the customer experience cutting actually on the one thing that makes it stand unique, that has earned a differentiating status and created loyalty among customers. Unhappy workers and crappy food along with crappy service - it's what you get for reducing the expense on quality (if all you care is money, then so your workers will care only about the money and will send the quality of your product down the sewer... not like you showed you care), and it will make you yet another gray brand in a pool of gray brands where one can disappear an nobody would notice.

Though mathematically and even economically it makes sense to cut costs when you can't raise your income, I've always wondered why in the fucking hell, if they are so bent on getting the company back on its feet, they don't cut the expenses where it affects less the product. Like, the wage of the CEO and all those on the top floor. How about in times of crisis you get read of a handful of middle  managers and slash the wage of the remaining ones so that all of them get the paycheck of a... flight attendant? If the flight attendant can make a living out of it, sure the CEO can as well! Besides, it would be only while the company gets on it's foot again. But that would be the day a bunch of managers do that, and why? Because just as they have the face to demand their workers to "make it for the team" and "accept the cut so that we all can keep our company up", they are too selfish and aren't willing to bite the bullet. They want to save the company as long as others do the saving, because they want to keep the "benefits they are entitled to".

Just take a look at the banking system in the United States four years ago: their world was collapsing, they were dragging the economy down with them, they claimed for help, people spoke in the news and anywhere in the TV willing to listen about how it was a problem of "everybody", how this was going to affect Everybody, and how Everybody needed to be saved with a bailout. They didn't cut expenses by cutting the over inflated wages and eliminating the obscene bonuses they awarded to their managers and top floor - as a matter of fact, once they've got their bailout, those where to first ones to get paid! - they took the knife to their customers and they smaller workers. If the 80% of middle managers in a bank where to be eliminated, and the wage of the CEO made equall to that of a teller, you could go to a bank and wait for the exact same amount of tellers to get your errands done. If you usually have 10 tellers at your local bank, and 100 customers, each teller takes 5 minutes per customer, you could be out in 50 minutes - more or less. If anything, certainly some issues would also take longer because there would be less managers stamping their signature on the paper to get it approved. Butm if you keep all the managers and the wage of the CEO and cut the costs by firing tellers, maybe even closing some branches, the you'll end up with 5 tellers attending to 200 customers, and you'd be in line for nearly 4 hours. You lose, the economy loses as usually the fired tellers would be more in number than the potentially fired middle management, and only the CEO and the top floor would be happy, specially because thy today work at a bank, and tomorrow at a technology company and they can't care less, all the care of is the check they cash.

The modern, liberal economical philosophy many praise these days are exactly about this: have the freedom to act whichever way that makes sure the top floor can keep milking the customers and the company until this collapses and they can go leech on the next. Liberal economy swears to be the answer to the economical crisis - which was brought to be thanks to their irresponsability, top floor thinking, thank you very much - and I wonder if they can produce the numbers that show how their methods have helped create real, decent jobs from which people can live with dignity. I mean real jobs like the ones you could find at the GM plants in the United States in the 50's-60's, where a wage could feed a family of four with a house in the suburbs, with a lawn, a dog and a white picket fence. I don't mean the current Foxxcon-like jobs where workers jump off the roof is desperation or die due to the unhealthy and insecure conditions.

How many little businesses have made it... from the total of little businesses started. Because you can say "Oh, 1000 made it last year", and it doesn't say a thing. It's different if you say that 1000 from 4000 started have succeeded, than saying 1000 from 1.000.000 made it. These are numbers sometimes should be sent when you are laying off people and telling them that the change is okay and they should try to make it on their own, start a new business and show them 2 or 3 "success cases", like that actually makes a difference.

So, when I see news about strikes, before I rush to the fed conclusion that these are ungrateful, spoiled workers, I can't stop thinking about all the fucked up decisions made by those with the numbers in their hands. The big speaches about organizational culture and profits... those are nothing but empty bullshit. Want organizational culture? Don't print out posters, but call on a general meeting all of your employees and tell them that costs need to be curbed, and the first ones biting the bullet are the top floor, taking on one wages of people who have no subalterns, and removing all middle managers - those who have the capability and are willing, will become regular workers like the rest of them, those who don't are leaving the company. Then tell them that if things don't get better by this time, you'll ask them to please bite the bullet as well. If you were to do that, you would be surprised at what your workers are able to do.

Evasion and Corruption, a Symbiotic Relationship

Disclaimer: It's important I let you know that this post is of an economical nature (or socio-economical nature) where I'll go on explaining in a very rudimentally way how the market functions, what's the role of the State and what's the role of taxes. It also goes political and heavily biased (as everything I post here because this is my blog, these are my ideas and opinions, and if you don't like it, fuck it), so if you are not an economist, or interested in economics, OR you are but you are of a more liberal tendency, and strong about it, you may want to skip this one and wait for my next fluffy post - which should be out soon, if I keep my current tempo. I promise lighter stuff for the next one, so if you don't feel like reading a lot about why I think tax evasion is evil - after a lenghty exposition about economics and why taxes are good - then turn around right now.

Last Warning!

The topic of tax evasion is one that we find around quite often. In the case of some because they evade taxes, and in the case of others, because they know or hear about people evading taxes or planning to. This doesn't mean that they are all surrounded by groups of libertarians who proudly evade taxes and consume only tax-evading products. Tax evasion, as it happens, isn't only something big companies do, or organized crime groups, but something a lot of people do, regular people like you me, and even uncle Pete. But just because "everybody does it" it's okay if we do it too? Well, let's explain some about taxes.

Taxes: What Are They?

The way societies are organized nowadays - economically speaking - there's a private component: you me, the companies... who interact to sell each other things. We - individuals - interact with companies to sell them our work force, for wich we are paid a price known as "wage" or "salary". That workforce is then used to make - along with other inputs - into goods and services we may or may not buy or use, paying for them a price, know as "price" or "fee", "fare" or any other name we may call it. We all interact in a the market. In it every transaction depends on two factors: money and need. If you have money you can access to the things you need, as long as you have enough to pay for them. However, if you really need something and the person or company who has it knows that you need that thing, it can push the price higher and higher, asking even more than what if costs to make it, simply because you really need it and have to pay for it in order to have it.

If you would let the companies act this way - since they produce all you need to live, and they are the ones who can decide to hire you and pay you whatever they want - things could come to a point where lots and lots of people would work a lot, earn too little and still don't have enough to cover their needs, while a few would profit from it, having more than what they need, both in products and services, but also in money.

Some say that this situation isn't sustainable as if most of people don't have enough to live, they won' be able to buy up the things the companies produce, and thus the companies would bankrupt. That's not true. Actually, hunger and need will keep pushing people to continue working (or start stealing, killing and getting involved in criminal organizations), while the companies hiring all that people would adapt to what the paying segment needs. This way, for instance, the food the poor people who work can't afford, would become biofuel for the cars and planes of the people who can afford it. Sure, people will start dropping dead of famine, but currently the planet is packed with people, and by some insane reason, the poorer segments are the ones having more and more children, so that would be perfectly okay for the economy.

A rebelion of the proletars? Yeah... not in these time, when we've been all subdued to laziness.

Now, in order to prevent this situation and keep a sense of balance, there's in the market a third party that makes an effort (or should make an effort) to keep the score balanced. That's the State. As it's job - economically speaking - , the State should make sure nobody is taking advantage of nobody. No company is too big to call the shots, no wage is so small people can't afford a decent living from it, no work schedules too long and so on. In order to do that, the State makes Laws and other rules, and to enforce them on society (because nobody is going to behave well because Simon says), the State needs money. Money to pay people to keep an eye on everybody making sure everybody is acting acording to the law, and if someone isn't, that person or company can be punished. For this you have to pay a Judge, prosecutors, a courthouse, maybe a jail with a set of guards, and then some people to asses the assets of the person or company if found guilty and so on.

Also, since the State can't (or won't) force companies to give services and products away for free to those who can't pay for them, it needs money to pay for these, or make them and give them to the people. These things are stuff like public education, roads, public healthcare (for those who have such a thing - I do), public parks, unemployment checks, food stamps, care for those who need it, shelters, orphanages... you name it. Things that basically a company wouldn't produce because the people for whom it would be can't pay for it, so it wouldn't yield a profit, only losses. To do this, the State need money, and how does the State gets money? It actually have three ways: 1. prints it - which if it does a lot makes the money lose its value, so it ain't a very clever solution (the correct term for making money isn't printing, it's "minting", but printing gives you a better idea of what I'm telling you ^_^), 2. makes companies and sales services, which some States did, but then were called "too communists" and "too inefficient" and all those State services were given to private hands who do things just as crappy, but for much more money and hardly give back to society - except for show (and except those companyies that actually are non-profit), and 3. through taxes.

So taxes have a purpose, and if you are not some selfish bastard that thinks everything in this planet is put there to suit your needs, then you see that the fact that you pay taxes means you are a very fortunate, lucky person, and you should be happy because that money you give to the State helps us all, and helps those you don't know and need it more than you. Aaaand yes, there's corruption, which takes that money (not all, but a part) and instead of putting a book in the hands of an underpriviledge kid, it stuffes it in the pocket of someone who would use it to give more money to someone who already has a lot, or buy themselves a nice car, or pay expensive trips and live a life of glamour.

Evasion and Corruption, Justify One Another?

So we've seen that taxes are needed in order to keep the State going and the State is needed to make our societies a livable place for all of us - and not all of us the starving slaves of a few ones. Though yes, the State could get money by selling services and goods, this has the downside that part of the income from the sales must cover the costs and only a part of it can be used to the things the State needs them. The other downside is that the current predominant social ideology prefers all that profit to fall on private hands (specially because most of the services that the State used to operate are very profitable, such as telecommunications, health, education and the production of several goods). So, since printing money is a very bad idea in the medium and long term, taxes are the income source of excellence, specially because the biggest chunck of the income goes straight to the State.

However it happens that some people and some companies don't like to pay taxes. This is basically money they've made and they want it all for themselves, or they say that they don't want to give it to the State so that the State - being a corrupted entity - can steal it and divert it to it's own profit. So they better keep that money for themselves.

If you look at it, most of the people who evade, say the same thing: "they don't pay taxes because it upsets them how that money goes to line the pockets of the corrupt". But, does this justify comitting a crime that has as victim not the corrupt pigs lining their pockets, but the whole of society, starving for State funded services and products? The way I see it - and as it has been obviously put this far - no.

The thing is that the corrupt will always steal, no matter the amount of the money collected from the tax payers. Also, as a matter of fact, this corruption allows in a way, the evasion to happen. How? Well, those deviating money are busy deviating a portion of the incoming flow, which leaves less money to the tasks that should be funded - among them a decent and working staff of tax collectors empowered enough to catch the evaders and get the money out of them. Assembling and keeping a well working system of tax collectors demands a lot of resources, and those resources are rather invested in personal profit - in the hands of the corrupt. So you evade, corruption adapts to keep getting its cut, you evade more, they adapt more and the ones suffering are those who would make use of the goods and services the State can't fund anymore. This could eventually lead us to that scenary where there's no State because it has no more money to function and the whole society is at the mercy of those who hog the money - who are not the evaders, but the corrupt (who can also be evaders!).

If the evader is also corrupt by the sheer evasion is another topic (and I do believe it is, but in this post we refer to the corrupt as the one diverting the funds from their destiny and profiting from it.. which is also what the tax evader does, but on the other end of the scope).

Evasion and the Stupidity of It

One thing that amazes me the most, is how a lot of people who evade taxes claims to do it for a reason (as I stated it previously), so this way they try to actually legitimate their crime by infusing in it a pseudo-ethical spine. Question: Are they stealing from the corrupt to give it to the poor? Is that tax money going directly to help the poor, the sick, those in need? Any good evader would say: "yes, that's me". Thing is that they don't. They could mask it, as if they were helping someone who needs it, but they don't.  Many down right hate systems based on solidarity, where those who have more share their fortune with those who have less. Their thought normally is "why should I help them if they are not my kin?" Well, in a way they are. The society in which you live has given you education, healthcare, roads... teachers taught you for your own personal growth, and nurses and doctors cared to make you feel better. Yes, maybe all those were paid for you, but does that mean that you have right to them because you can pay them, but those who don't have that money should not benefit from it? Stay ignorant and thus never get a chance to improve their lives? Or stay sick and die?

If the family is the base of the society, shouldn't then society behave like a family where we all care for each other? In the mind of the evader, no. You are out of the womb and that's no man's land, and everybody for him or herself. Well, that's certainly not the kind of world I'd like to live in, but in a world more caring and human, we all have to chip in, even to help those we don't know and may never meet. But evader don't see it that way.

Those who evade taxes, will probably do other things, cut corners and look for ways to get things withour paying for them, or paying the full price. Yes, there's a word for that, and that word is "stealing". And it's only natural: if they steal from someone as big and powerful as the State (that could send them on a whim to prison and take away their assets), why wouldn't they do it with someone less powerful? Steal cable signal, steal internet signal, steal phone service, energy, water, pay less on public transportation fares, less at the restaurant, the video rental... anything and everything is fair play as long as the can "outsmart" it, or in other words CHEAT.

So where's the moral fibre, the ethical stand according to which they evade taxes because the State steals that money? They don't want someone else to steal what they can steal? It upsets them that some corrupt asshole is stealing more than what they do?

If your problem is corruption, denounce it, demand the State to do something about it, but you can't fight crime with other types of crime, because that only fuels the circle. Yes, corruption shall be fought and eliminated, but what are we achieving with evasion towards that end? Cutting the fund to find a cure isn't the way. Nor is remain passive. Push for accountability, vote, get involved, do your best, refuse to join the long list of corrupts, and have a moral stand to demand transparency and honesty. Do your part as it should be done, and demand the State and everybody else to do the same. Teach that to the future generations, not only by words, but also by example.

Diclaimer: non of the pictures used for this post belong to me. They were taken from the Internet. If any of these belong to you and you want it back, let me know and I'll take it off.

Economy, Ecology or Eco-Moron

I write today in hopes of being mistaken. I want to be mistaken, I YEARN to be mistaken, so please if someone out there can honestly prove me wrong - I don't know how - do it!

Sometime ago I received an e-mail denouncing that the German airline Lufthansa was planning on incorporating into their lot planes that operate with biofuel. The idea on one side is quite ludicrous sounding, as most people know that plane fuel (I'm under the understanding that some types are called "jet fuel") is different from what you pump into your car, namely because it has a much higher octane level. In other words - as I understand it - it's much purer. So, the idea of being able to make a fuel of such a quality from crops does seem to defy the logic of simple, pedestrian minds such as mine. When I first read this, I took it with a grain of salt, as, well, I always thought I would see a Gundam, than a plane flying on cooking oil. Perhaps it was also my hoping that I would never see the day when such a thing happens. After all, if you have been following this blog long enough, you probably remember my rants against biofuel for cars.

Things with the news about Lufthansa were cooling down in my head, I was happily chalking it up to yet another "X-Files Type" conspiracy theory thing, when I actually heard in the news how a Mexican airline, Mexicana has started operating flights with biofuel. I checked today on my favorite airline, and they too, Air France, have been "cooperating" in this so-called ecological and "sustainable solution". Yes, it doesn't use brent derivates, and the petroil is running low in the planet, and we have all these machines that work on fossil fuels, and "we can't live without them", and yes, you are welcome to point your finger at me and ask me how do I pretend to travel to Hungary from Costa Rica 'Columbus style' or I'll just go very Christian, pray to God and walk on water. Yeah, yeah, yeah... I'm quite positive there are other methods, for instance - and this is my Sci-Fi proposal of the day - why don't you invent the electronic planes? Can't? Okay, it was just a suggestion. But before you rant on why biofuel and all the technical stuff that I don't really care about, I'll point out AGAIN a thing or two that might be worth keeping in mind.

First of all, let's look at a few things that are happening while the biofuel erupts around the globe. While our cars and planes go lean, slim and vegetarian, FAMINE strikes the poorest regions of the planet. I still remember a picture of a directive from the FAO holding up a red mug, much like the one any of us use for the morning coffee or tea, and telling people that that's the size of the DAILY ration of food a child got from them. There was a serious shortage of food, and on many places there was no fuel to get tractors and farming equipment moving. You would say, "see how good would biofuel be then? Then you can get the farming equipment moving and you could grow crops to feed people again". If you do consider that answer, let me smile fondly at your candor. That's so sweet, really. In those days the biofuel was sounding quite strong, if I recall correctly.

Now, let's not dwell there much, and let's skip ahead to the present. Planes on biofuel and what else do we suddenly find? Famine emergency in Somalia. You can consult the report of the FAO on the matter here. Does one thing have to do with the other? Some will say that no way, that's just humbug and someone is "playing the local conspiracy theorist". Indeed, I would say that you can't take to separate facts and link them together just because they happen almost at the same time. I agree with that. Correlation doesn't mean causality, and we are yet to find out if there's a correlation here. So at this point I would like to point out a few very important questions we should be making.

What kind of crops and how much it is needed to fuel a plane? How much land is used for it? How much is the whole productive chain (farmers, intermediaries, etc) paid for the crops dedicated to fuel compared to those dedicated to produce food for people? There's talk about using forestry waste. What's exactly that and who is taking care that nothing that could be used to feed people is turned to fuel planes?

You see, it can be said that the biofuel comes only from the organic waste or the forestry waste, and none of the parts of the crop that are used by the food industry are engaged, or that there's no need to use parts ot the forest that are protected. Personally I would like to see numbers about that. How much is needed to make my car run 100 miles? How much is needed to fly me from Houston to New York? Then, when this "waste" is mentioned, that's because the rest is useless - can't be used - for biofuel, or because there's a decision not to use it? I'll tell you why I ask. Thing is that we all know that fuel is usually much more expensive than food. So, if I'm a farmer and I produce 2 tons of something - let's say corn - and I get paid $1000 a ton if I sell it to those who would make food out of it - the best offer, but I get paid $2000 a ton if I sell it to those who would make fuel out of it, who do you think I'll sell my two tons to? Just think about it. You are a farmer, you have a family to keep, a farm to get running, debts to pay, children to send to a college to get a better life than the one you have... will you go for the $4000 or the $2000? Sure, you can sell one part to one side and another to the other, and say, you get $3000... but you still could have made $4000.

You, as farmer, could ease your soul saying "well, I'll sell it all to fuel, and someone will sell it all to food, Besides we also need fuel. If there's no fuel, our farming machines won't move, and then there would be nothing to sow or harvest because we won't have how to do it". Yes, only how can you make sure all farmers won't take the same decision?

If the biofuel yields a bigger profit - and it probably will - then farmers will seek to grow the crops that can be used to produce biofuel. That will reduce the crops used for food, even if only a part of the crop can be used to fuel, as then instead of separating food from fuel, many farmers will seek to grow crops that yield more to fuel and less to food. It is a rational move, it's not ilegal, but it does make the food more scarce and thus more expensive. With this move a lot of people who live in poverty will slip down to extreme poverty because they won't have that extra cent, that extra dollar, that extra euro to pay for the bread, for the veggies, for the chicken, for the eggs. Sure, if you are a comfy middle class, middle-high class or high class the only thing you'll notice is that things wen't up and now you can't down seven tequilas with your friends on Friday, only five, but that's okay. But if you are not so lucky, if you have much lean resources to survive, you'll find out that now it's bread or milk, but not both of them, and there's no more McDonald's once a month, but if you want to smell french fries you have to stand on the street and inhale the fumes of all the "smart", "eco-cars" that rush past you.

If we go with the general mindset of all those "happy little liberalists", and the neoliberals that love to talk about the market, they will say that the market will regulate itself and there's nothing to worry about, what's needed by the market will be provided and everybody will be happy, and a perfect balance will be established. Yes, that above is the market's "perfect balance". Smarty-pants neoliberals, and their cousins, the happy little libertarians seem to forget that in the market your voice is the money you have. The more money you have, the louder your voice, and the market listens only to the louder voices. What's the biggest part of the money saying? That's how the "perfect market" regulates itself. If you have no money you have no voice, and honestly nobody would be interested in attening your needs or selling you anything if you can't pay. Just imagine you have a store. Two people come in: one want you to go fetch apples and sell them to him/her. That person is loaded and puts on your counter a briefcase full of money. All that for apples. The other one ask you to go fetch pears. That one has no money. Not a dime. You have a store, you must keep that store running. You have a family to mantain, kids to send to school, bills to pay... what will you go to fetch? Exactly.

If you have no money, you can't ask for anything. If things go so expensive you can't pay them, you might as well consider yourself with no money. There are entire regions that have ran out of money. There are countries struggling to get on their feet, control debts that have gone rampant. Decades of irresponsible spending, financially irresponsible behavior are passing the bill and we find out that we fucked the planet, smoked up the fuel like it was eternal, depleted the resources of food, contaminated land, air and water, and what's the solution? Well, basically it seems to be "let's hurry, wolf on what remains and let the richer survive, let the poor die".

So, is the biofuel a nice and gree ecological solution meeting the economical needs, or it is an eco-moron and eco-mocking half assed move to keep on the irresponsible attitude? You know my answer, now ponder yours.