China, India as new economic powers

Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch of Australia says that China and India will be the next two powers that will reshape the world. The on-going metamorphosis of the two countries from historic backwaters into economic powers will re-shape the world in the next few decades. This was the upbeat assessment made by the News Corp. chief for the future despite the troubled economic times. His analysis is part of the series of speeches in Australia, his birth country.

In a speech delivered weeks ago, the media mogul spoke of the great transformation that he observed in the past few decades that unleashed human talent and ability across the world and that the golden age of mankind is just around the corner. In the same speech, he added that China and India are great countries whose people are only recently emerging from long histories of being incarcerated by caste or communism. And the rise of the their economies is creating a new middle class for the world that can become three billion strong within 30 years, and as such will be set as the new benchmark for global competitiveness. Murdoch heads New York-based Twentieth Century Fox, Fox News Channel, Dow Jones & Co and a number of newspapers in Australia and Britain.

Great expectations

According to a recent survey,  Americans have great expectations on their new President. In a poll conducted by CNN/Opinion Research Corp, nearly two thirds of those surveyed say that Barack Obama will change the country for the better. For them, Barack Obama will make major accomplishments as president of the United States. Twenty five percent of those surveyed said that Obama won’t change the country and another 9 percent indicating that he will change the country for the worse. Simply put, the bar is set high for the Obama presidency. Barack Obama has an overall 75 percent favorable rating, making him the most popular president-elect in at least a quarter of a century.

McCain losing it?

Right after my fave Hillary Clinton has dropped out of the race, my attention shifted to John McCain. And it seems that McCain is set to lose as well. Well what is happening to my choices? At the homestretch of the campaign, Obama leads McCain by an average of 8 percentage points in national polls. So is this a coronation of sort for the Democratic candidate? Well I think that he has already been coronated by the media and those ‘objective’ media practitioners in the US.  At least, ‘change’ is now at hand for the people there. Let’s just wait and see what kind of change will that be. After all the intoxicating sweet words, let’s sit back relax and see the real action, no?

Obama increases lead over McCain

The march towards the White House continues for Barack Obama, and it seems that there is no stopping the Democratic presidential candidate. Recent poll suggests that Barack Obama now holds an 8 point lead over John McCain. Obama is set to win, since the recent poll results come just two weeks before the US presidential elections. The poll was released by Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby and was released Tuesday. The actual count delivered 50 percent for Obama, and 42 percent for McCain among likely US voters in the latest three-day tracking poll. The telephone poll has a 2.9 percent margin of error. Everything seems to be lining up for Obama, and it seems that he is set to win the election. Will he? It started on dead-heat right after the end of the Democratic primaries, then Obama opened with a 2 point lead, now 4 and we have an 8 point lead. He should be leading by miles and miles, given the weight and push given to him by the media, the record campaign contributions, and historic campaign for presidency, no?

US Senate approves $700 billion bailout

Good thing the US Senate acted responsibly and at least approved the bailout. I may not be a Wall Street player, nor someone who has a PhD in management, finance and economics but I think the bailout is one measure in the right direction, no?

The US Senators approved the edited measure 74 against 25, including yes votes from Obama, McCain and Biden.

So funny that they are arguing that this will increase deficit, or it’s not right for the state to dip its fingers on private matters. But you know, this is a major crisis of the lone superpower/economic power on earth and not an ordinary crisis. So for extra-ordinary situations plaguing an extra-ordinary country, I guess extra-ordinary measures are needed as well.

As if this will matter to a lowly third world student/freelance writer like me? Haha. But then, props up for US Senators.

Bright future for Albay entrepreneurs- Salceda

It’s a welcome news to know that our entrepreneurs here are getting all the right support. One supporter of our entrepreneurs here is Governor Salceda who sees bright future for the province’s top of the line products. He made this observation even as he encouraged the entrepreneurs to improve on the quality of their products. Ask any entrepreneur out there and they will tell you that funding is one of their problems.

And the government understands this problem and the Governor added that the local government is always on the lookout for funds that can help the entrepreneurs. The Governor added that the program of the Department of Trade and Industry will help the cause of the local entrepreneurs. This program is known as the One-Town, One-Product. The program is simple, a town is encourage to find their own product, develop it and market. This is what I’m trying to zero-in as well as the need to nail the comparative advantage of one location. As expected, most of the products of the towns in this province is related to abaca and abaca handicrafts. Tiwi has its clay and Camalig has its pinangat produce.

Simulating nations

Starting my newest virtual nation and rolling it again. The first nation that I made online was more than 200 days old. But I soon forgot about it after the ‘Great Raid’. Hmm another interesting label don’t you think? Now I call my online and virtual nation as the Kingdom of K. I started with two very important metals as resource and accepted the trade of someone who has gold and lead. My nation will boom and I’m giving it two or three more weeks. I tried many free online simulating games on line and some of these are all browser-based games that features economics and public administration but I think the best one is Cybernations. I tried Uranme.net, Nationstates and the other one I forgot. But the experience that I get with Cybernations and the kind of public administration that I get with the site is both educational and highly entertaining. If there is another free web-based nation simulation games, then please leave me a message so that I can play that one too!

Postcript on Enron

My classmate in the Graduate School and I will be doing a report on ethics in accountancy and the topic assigned to us is the Enron Case. That’s the energy company that crashed in 2001 leaving around 4,000 employees without jobs. The two of us is ready since last week and we are ready to face the accreditors from the city.

You see the Bicol University Graduate School was on the process of accreditation last week and we were informed that our class was selected and we will be observed. And the professor wanted me and my team-mate from Aleco to do the report in front of the accreditors. Time ran out last week so our report was postponed for tomorrow. Well that could be a good thing since we can include new materials on our Enron report. Just this morning news about Enron came out.

CNN posted the news about Enron and the largest settlement in the history of US securities fraud cases. According to the news story the shareholders of Enron and the investors will split around $7.2 billion from the financial institutions that were accussed of having a role in the downfall of the then energy giant. Added the news story, around 1.5 million people and other entities are elegible to the pay-off. The investors will get an average of $6.79 per share for the common staocks and an average of $168.50 for the preferred stocks. This will be a welcome news to the investors of the company who saw the plummeting of Enron stocks then from  high $90s to as low as less than 1$. So tomorrow will be a great report. And for sure will satisfy the needs and the wants of our professor. The case of Enron is just a perfect case study in public administration classes and in management.