Davos Newbies

Poverty of dignity

“I have long believed that it is this poverty of dignity, not a poverty of money, that is behind a lot of Muslim rage today and the reason this rage is sharpest among educated, but frustrated, Muslim youth.” Tom Friedman provides an important analysis of the source of Muslim rage in the world. Why, he asks, isn’t there an outcry at the Hindu massacre of hundred of Muslims in India? Israel, he concludes, is an affront to Muslim self-perception.

Free trader

“Those who shut down trade aren’t confident. They’re not confident in the American worker. They’re not confident in the American entrepreneur. They’re not confident in American products.” George Bush in January sure sounded like a committed free trader. But he’s clearly not that confident, having imposed 30% tariffs on most steel imports.

Almost as convoluted yesterday was US trade representative Bob Zoellick: “In order to promote free trade the US has to manage the home front and the international front.” In other words, to get fast track trade authorisation from Congress, this is a protectionist sop. More importantly, as many analysts have observed, states like Ohio and Pennsylvania are filled with steel workers and their sympathisers who might be more inclined to vote Republican this autumn.

I think there’s little doubt that the steel tariffs will lead to a degree of tit for tat protectionism, they will diminish the strength the US has in the push for the Doha round of WTO trade negotiations, and will in aggregate harm the US economy. There may be a lot of struggling steel workers in the US (through little fault of the workers — the problem is managements that have been dilatory in adopting global best practice), but there are far more car workers, for example, who work in companies that thrive on sourcing lower cost materials, like steel.

Where do you look?

I’m naturally an optimist, but current events are challenging my sunny disposition. The conflict in the Middle East seems to be getting rapidly worse, with suggestions of a Mubarak-hosted peace negotiation falling on largely deaf ears. And in the world’s second most populous nation, communal violence is at its worst level in years.

Like so many people who have visited India, I try especially hard to remain positive about the future of the subcontinent. Few other countries combine the vibrancy, culture, democracy and intellectual resources of India. But the software wonders of Bangalore, for example, are still just scratches on the surface of the country. The precarious job of holding India together has proved, eventually, beyond the endurance of politicians. Now it looks like the government of prime minister Vajpayee – with two years left on its mandate – will be polished off by the terrible violence in Gujarat.

I haven’t mentioned Zimbabwe, where my flickering optimism is hoping that Morgan Zsvangirai may topple Robert Mugabe this weekend, despite the most extraordinary and brutal attempts to crush the opposition. Fingers crossed.

Counting the cost 

“Maybe we should shunt employees off the balance sheet into Enron-esque special purpose entities and pretend that recessions never happen.” John Plender has some interesting reflections on the consequences of what he terms “just-in-time chief executive officers”.

Deep linking

Jakob Nielsen writes his usual good sense on the importance of so-called deep linking. I’m only surprised he doesn’t mention another bad design mistake that I encounter all too frequently: frames-based sites that don’t easily provide the URL to enable deep linking. I often engage in convoluted work arounds to ensure my Davos Newbies entries have useful links, rather than mere links to the homepage that odd webmasters seem to prefer.

Look on my works ye mighty and despair

In 1986, someone at the BBC had the clever idea of creating a modern Domesday Book, the eleventh century record of settlements in England. One problem: they put the information on 12-inch video disks, that could only play on special BBC Micro computers. Few of these computers were bought at the time (what a surprise), and now the information is well-nigh unretrievable.

A newly established Digital Preservation Coalition is tackling the problem. Needless to say, the eleventh century original is still eminently readable.

Good apples, too

Not all energy companies are Enrons. BP’s CEO John Browne announced yesterday that the corporation would make no more political donations, anywhere in the world. Few of the UK’s big companies (including BP) make donations in Britain, so the announcement applies principally to the US, where BP inherited a political donation pot with its takeovers of Arco and Amoco.

Here’s what Browne had to say: “We must be particularly careful about the political process, not because it is unimportant — quite the reverse — but because the legitimacy of that process is crucial both for society and for us as a company working in that society.”

CFO for US Inc

John Kay also has problems with Alan Greenspan, or more accurately the entire approach taken to national accounting in the US. He reckons that aggressive accounting could make up all of the so-called productivity miracle in the US.

“USA Corp capitalised much of its software expenditure, revalued that expenditure at the highest price it might ever have paid, calculated its profits without any depreciation of revalued assets and announced stunning results to its investors on the basis of these assumptions.”