There is hope...

Beethoven (1.4m) beats Bono (20,000) in battle of the internet downloads

Music industry forced to take note as composer's complete symphonies outshine rock acts in online chart

Charlotte Higgins, arts correspondent
Thursday July 21, 2005
The Guardian

Forget Coldplay and James Blunt. Forget even Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which, in the version performed at Live8 by Sir Paul McCartney and U2, has become the fastest online-selling song ever. Beethoven has routed the lot of them.

Final figures from the BBC show that the complete Beethoven symphonies on its website were downloaded 1.4m times, with individual works downloaded between 89,000 and 220,000 times. The works were each available for a week, in two tranches, in June.

Sgt Pepper could well end up as the best-selling online track of all time. But its sales figure of just 20,000 online in the two weeks since it has been available contrasts poorly with the admittedly free Beethoven symphonies. (Sgt Pepper cost 79p on the iTunes website.)

To put another perspective on the success of the Beethoven downloads, according to Matthew Cosgrove, director of Warner Classics, it would take a commercial CD recording of the complete Beethoven symphonies "upwards of five years" to sell as many downloads as were shifted from the BBC website in two weeks. The BBC has been stunned by the response - so much so that its director general, Mark Thompson, opened his annual report with Beethoven's inscription on the score of the Missa Solemnis: "From the heart ... May it go again to the heart!"

Click here for the whole article in The Guardian

On science and religion

Undertaking an exercise of representation at micro-, and macro-physical levels, where n-dimensional string theory (n > 10) turns everything into swarming energies, makes one think of the day modern science will be looked on very much the same way religion is today.

Hasn't religion held predictive and explanatory powers? Haven't religion's metaphors piled on top of each other, giving way to newer and more faithful representations meant to rescue religion from increasing contradictions? Not unlike science, where, for example, swarming energies came on top of swarming probabilities.

What a bemusing scene would make for the contemporary scientist to see some citizen of the 3-rd millennium looking back on our science...

EXCERPTS FROM A DER SPIEGEL INTERVIEW WITH SINGAPORE'S LEE KUAN YEW

"It's Stupid to be Afraid"
Singapore's first-ever prime minister, long-time government head and current political mentor Lee Kuan Yew talks about Asia's rise to economic power, China's ambitions and the West's chances of staying competitive.



SPIEGEL: The political and economic center of gravity is moving from the West towards the East. Is Asia becoming the dominant political and economic force in this century?

Mr. Lee: I wouldn't say it's the dominant force. What is gradually happening is the restoration of the world balance to what it was in the early 19th century or late 18th century when China and India together were responsible for more than 40 percent of world GDP. With those two countries becoming part of the globalized trading world, they are going to go back to approximately the level of world GDP that they previously occupied. But that doesn't make them the superpowers of the world.

SPIEGEL: Their leading politicians have publicly discussed the so-called "Asian Century".

Mr. Lee: Yes, economically, there will be a shift to the Pacific from the Atlantic Ocean and you can already see that in the shipping volumes of Chinese ports. Every shipping line is trying to get into association with a Chinese container port. India is slower because their infrastructure is still to be completed. But I think they will join in the race, build roads, bridges, airports, container ports and they'll become a manufacturing hub. Raw materials go in, finished goods go out.

SPIEGEL: How afraid should the West be?

Mr. Lee: It's stupid to be afraid. It's going to happen. I console myself this way. Suppose, China had never gone communist in 1949, suppose the Nationalist government had worked with the Americans -- China would be the great power in Asia -- not Japan, not Korea, not Hong Kong, not Singapore. Because China isolated itself, development took place on the periphery of Asia first.

SPIEGEL: Such a consolation won't be enough for the future.

Mr. Lee: Right. In 50 years I see China, Korea and Japan at the high-tech end of the value chain. Look at the numbers and quality of the engineers and scientists they produce and you know that this is where the R&D will be done. The Chinese have a space programme, they're going to put a man on the Moon and nobody sold them that technology. We have to face that. But you should not be afraid of that. You are leading in many fields which they cannot catch up with for many years, many decades. In pharmaceuticals, I don't see them catching up with the Germans for a long time.

SPIEGEL: That wouldn't feed anybody who works for Opel, would it?

Mr. Lee: A motor car is a commodity -- four wheels, a chassis, a motor. You can have modifications up and down, but it remains a commodity, and the Chinese can do commodities.

[...]
Mr. Lee: I faced this problem myself. Every year, our unions and the Labour Department subsidize trips to China and India. We tell the participants: Don't just look at the Great Wall but go to the factories and ask, "What are you paid?" What hours do you work?" And they come back shell-shocked. The Chinese had perestroika first, then glasnost. That's where the Russians made their mistake.

SPIEGEL: The Chinese Government is promoting the peaceful rise of China. Do you believe them?

Mr. Lee: Yes, I do, with one reservation. I think they have calculated that they need 30 to 40 -- maybe 50 years of peace and quiet to catch up, to build up their system, change it from the communist system to the market system. They must avoid the mistakes made by Germany and Japan. Their competition for power, influence and resources led in the last century to two terrible wars.

SPIEGEL: What should the Chinese do differently?

Mr. Lee: They will trade, they will not demand, "This is my sphere of influence, you keep out". America goes to South America and they also go to South America. Brazil has now put aside an area as big as the state of Massachusetts to grow soya beans for China. They are going to Sudan and Venezuela for oil because the Venezuelan President doesn't like America. They are going to Iran for oil and gas. So, they are not asking for a military contest for power, but for an economic competition.

SPIEGEL: What are your reservations?

Mr. Lee: I don't know whether the next generation will stay on this course. After 15 or 20 years they may feel their muscles are very powerful. We know the mind of the leaders but the mood of the people on the ground is another matter. Because there's no more communist ideology to hold the people together, the ground is now galvanised by Chinese patriotism and nationalism. Look at the anti-Japanese demonstrations.

SPIEGEL: How do you explain that China is spending billions on military modernisation right now?

Mr. Lee: Their modernisation is just a drop in the ocean. Their objective is to raise the level of damage they can deliver to the Americans if they intervene in Taiwan. Their objective is not to defeat the Americans, which they cannot do. They know they will be defeated. They want to weaken the American resolve to intervene. That is their objective, but they do not want to attack Taiwan.

SPIEGEL: Many Americans fear that China and the US are bound to become strategic rivals. Will this become the great rivalry of the 21st century?

Mr. Lee: Rivals, yes, but not necessarily enemies. The Chinese have spent a lot of energy and time to make sure that their periphery is friendly to them. So, they settled with Russia, they have settled with India. They're going to have a free trade agreement with India -- they're learning from each other. Instead of quarrelling with the Philippines and the Vietnamese over oil in the South China Sea, they have agreed on joint exploration and sharing. They've agreed on a strategic agreement with Indonesia for bilateral trade and technology.

SPIEGEL: But the Americans are trying to encircle China. They have won new bases in Central Asia.

Mr. Lee: The Chinese are very conscious of being encircled by allies of America. But they are very good in countering those moves. South Korea today has the largest number of foreign students in China. They see their future in China. So, the only country that's openly on America's side is Japan. All the others are either neutral or friendly to China.

Panta Rhei or A Tale of Passage

On July 12, NYTimes published the following op-ed piece, authored by SUKETU MEHTA. Among the increasing tide of discussions about globalization/délocalisation, Mr. Mehta's piece distinguishes itself by offering a view of the entity at the receiving end of the conversation. As far as the condition of a certain immigrant is concerned, the reader never learns where the "passage" ends, if it ever does. However, the American reader is reminded that the U.S. education system needs improvement, and so does trade between the U.S. and India.
A Passage From India

A Passage From India

ACCORDING to a confidential memorandum, I.B.M. is cutting 13,000 jobs in the United States and in Europe and creating 14,000 jobs in India. From 2000 to 2015, an estimated three million American jobs will have been outsourced; one in 10 technology jobs will leave these shores by the end of this year. Stories like these have aroused a primal fear in the Western public: that they might soon need to line up outside the Indian Embassy for work visas and their children will have to learn Hindi.

Just as my parents had to line up outside the American consulate in Bombay, and my sisters and I had to learn English. My father came to America in 1977 not for its political freedoms or its way of life, but for the hope of a better economic future for his children. My grandfathers on both sides left rural Gujarat in northwestern India to find work: one to Calcutta, which was even more remote in those days than New York is from Bombay now; and the other to Nairobi. Mobility, we have always known, is survival. Now I face the possibility that my children, when they grow up, will find their jobs outsourced to the very country their grandfather left to pursue economic opportunity.

The outsourcing debate seems to have mutated into a contest between the country of my birth and the country of my nationality. Of course I feel a loyalty to America: it gave my parents a new life and my sons were born here. I have a vested interest in seeing America prosper. But I am here because the country of my ancestors didn't understand the changing world; it couldn't change its technology and its philosophy and its notions of social mobility fast enough to fight off the European colonists, who won not so much with the might of advanced weaponry as with the clear logical philosophy of the Enlightenment. Their systems of thinking conquered our own. So, since independence, Indians have had to learn; we have had to slog for long hours in the classroom while the children of other countries went out to play.

When I moved to Queens, in New York City, at the age of 14, I found myself, for the first time in my life, considered good at math. In Bombay, math was my worst subject, and I regularly found my place near the bottom of the class rankings in that rigorous subject. But in my American school, so low were their standards that I was - to my parents' disbelief - near the top of the class. It was the same in English and, unexpectedly, in American history, for my school in Bombay included a detailed study of the American Revolution. My American school curriculum had, of course, almost nothing on the subcontinent's freedom struggle. I was mercilessly bullied during the 1979-80 hostage crisis, because my classmates couldn't tell the difference between Iran and India. If I were now to move with my family to India, my children - who go to one of the best private schools in New York - would have to take remedial math and science courses to get into a good school in Bombay.

Of course, India's no wonderland. It might soon have the world's biggest middle class, but it also has the world's largest underclass. A quarter of its one billion people live below the poverty line, 40 percent are illiterate, and the child malnutrition rate exceeds that of sub-Saharan Africa. There's a huge difference between the backwater state of Bihar and the boomtown of Bangalore. Those Indians who went to the United States, though, have done remarkably well: Indians make up one of the richest ethnic groups in this country. During the technology boom of the late 1990's, Indians were responsible for 10 percent of all the start-ups in Silicon Valley. And in this year's national spelling bee, the top four contestants were of South Asian origin.

There is a perverse hypocrisy about the whole jobs debate, especially in Europe. The colonial powers invaded countries like India and China, pillaged them of their treasures and commodities and made sure their industries weren't allowed to develop, so they would stay impoverished and unable to compete. Then the imperialists complained when the destitute people of the former colonies came to their shores to clean their toilets and dig their sewers; they complained when later generations came to earn high wages as doctors and engineers; and now they're complaining when their jobs are being lost to children of the empire who are working harder than they are. My grandfather was once confronted by an elderly Englishman in a London park who asked, "Why are you here?" My grandfather responded, "We are the creditors." We are here because you were there.

The rich countries can't have it both ways. They can't provide huge subsidies for their agricultural conglomerates and complain when Indians who can't make a living on their farms then go to the cities and study computers and take away their jobs. Why are Indians willing to write code for a tenth of what Americans make for the same work? It's not by choice; it's because they're still struggling to stand on their feet after 200 years of colonial rule. The day will soon come when Indian companies will find that it's cheaper to hire computer programmers in Sri Lanka, and then it's there that the Indian jobs will go.

Of course, it's heart-wrenching to see American programmers - many of whom are of Indian origin - lose their jobs and have to worry about how they'll pay the mortgage. But they are ill served by politicians who promise to bring their jobs back by the facile tactic of banning them from leaving. This strategy will ensure only that our schools stay terrible; it'll be an entire country run like the dairy industry, feasible only because of price controls and subsidies.

But we have a resource of incalculable worth right here to help us compete: the immigrants who've been given a new life in America. There are many more Indians in the United States than there are Americans in India. Indian-Americans will help America understand India, trade with it to our mutual benefit. Just as Arab-Americans can help us fight Al Qaeda, Indian-Americans can help us deal with the emerging economic superpower that is India. This is the return of the gift of citizenship.

And just in case, I'm making sure my children learn Hindi.

Is globalization enough carrot for staus qvo?

For those visiting contemporary Greece, it may become apparent that the height of a civilization is no guarantee in and of itself for how long that civilization lasts.

For some time now, more precisely since the collapse of the Soviet Union, we have been dealing with increased anxiety regarding the course of our society. For now, clustering economies and trading blocs seem to emerge as part of a first stage in the opposition to a "uni-polar" world. Military re-arrangements on the geo-strategic map do not seem to be too far off either. The public can now see in the EU arms-trading overtures to China what has probably been in the minds of military chiefs of staffs for some time.

Contrary to all this, it seems, runs globalization with its powerful advocates and mighty interests. It is commonplace observation to notice how the tide of globalization raises most nation-boats. The temptation is to say that there is too much interest in globalization and free trade for anybody to run contrary to it. Moreover, there is too much to be lost by all players would the current global system collapse or come under threat.

So, in such a world run by so many accumulating contradictions, where is one to find the equivalent to a visit to Greece? In Sinking Globalization, an article published with Foreign Affairs, March/April 2005, Niall Ferguson gives the reader a comparative reading of the history. This may help one realize that there were times in the past when players, well-informed of the cost of war/collapsing global systems, could not avoid the unimaginable losses of letting the hell break loose. So, history tells us, through the voice of Niall Ferguson, that bad things can happen despite our having either a huge vested interest in status qvo OR the potential for huge losses.

Here is Foreign Affairs' summary of Niall Ferguson's article:
"Could globalization collapse? It may seem unlikely today. Yet despite many warnings, people were shocked the last time globalization crumbled, with the onslaught of World War I. Like today, that period was marked by imperial overstretch, great-power rivalry, unstable alliances, rogue regimes, and terrorist organizations. And the world is no better prepared for calamity now."

Drucker on the course of (some) things to come

Many a time, when analyzing the future, we see the various macro-trends that would place an industry, economy, nation or bloc of nations, on a competitive map zig-zagging beyond our ability for classification and sense-making.

Peter Drucker, this thinker whose output resists classifications, shows us his version for the near-term future in an interesting piece, 'Trading Places,' published with The National Interest. His attempt is made interesting by its multi-dimensional scope of analysis. On one hand, Drucker looks at several key sectors of our economies, and on the other, by leveraging an acute sense of time, traces his points deep into history.

Here is the gist of his analysis:
"The New world economy is fundamentally different from that of the fifty years following World War II. The United States may well remain the political and military leader for decades to come. It is likely also to remain the world's richest and most productive national economy for a long time (though the European Union as a whole is both larger and more productive). But the U.S. economy is no longer the single dominant economy.

The emerging world economy is a pluralist one, with a substantial number of economic "blocs." Eventually there may be six or seven blocs, of which the U.S.-dominated NAFTA is likely to be only one, coexisting and competing with the European Union (EU), MERCOSUR in Latin America, ASEAN in the Far East, and nation-states that are blocs by themselves, China and India. These blocs are neither "free trade" nor "protectionist", but both at the same time.

Even more novel is that what is emerging is not one but four world economies: a world economy of information; of money; of multinationals (one no longer dominated by American enterprises); and a mercantilist world economy of goods, services and trade. These world economies overlap and interact with one another. But each is distinct with different members, a different scope, different values and different institutions."

What now, what next?

The US dollar goes lower while the oil price goes higher, and so do the US government's expenses. What if the latest surge in demand from US consumers indicates a problem whose solution is structural, unspoken of, and only marginally addressed by most current debates around oil, currency valuations, and such? Is the world economy viewed, by the handlers of capital, as a fixed pie whose growth comes mostly through increased asset prices, especially in the developed world? What if, by lacking the capability to manufacture most goods it needs, matters in the US can only worsen unless... it rebuilds its manufacturing capabilities? How likely a scenario would this be and what would the markers be along its timeframe?

Alan Greenspan still holds a card or two, and so does the President...

Nouriel Roubini takes issue with Alan Greenspan. According to him, Mr. Greenspan's decision to support President Bush's tax cuts was a great, if not the greatest, mistake the Fed Chairman has made.

What I would add is that Mr. Greenspan started making such 'errors' a while back, and one should not ignore the support he lent to President Clinton's economic policies.

Given all these, how safe is it to assume that Mr. Greenspan traded in his institution's independence for longevity? On a different level, how much independence can go against an elected president's economic agenda? I would posit, not much if the Fed were alone against the executive branch.

For the original posting on Mr. Roubini's site, follow this link: What did the Delphic Oracle mean on the current account? Reading Greenspan's Tea Leaves. And a modest appeal to the Chairman to speak up on our reckless fiscal policy.