Gift Intelligence – Page 20 – Public Intelligence Blog

Contrarian Investor Sees Economic Crash in China

by David Barboza Friday, January 8, 2010

James S. Chanos built one of the largest fortunes on Wall Street by foreseeing the collapse of Enron and other highflying companies whose stories were too good to be true.

Now Mr. Chanos, a wealthy hedge fund investor, is working to bust the myth of the biggest conglomerate of all: China Inc.

As most of the world bets on China to help lift the global economy out of recession, Mr. Chanos is warning that China's hyperstimulated economy is headed for a crash, rather than the sustained boom that most economists predict. Its surging real estate sector, buoyed by a flood of speculative capital, looks like “Dubai times 1,000 — or worse,” he frets. He even suspects that Beijing is cooking its books, faking, among other things, its eye-popping growth rates of more than 8 percent.

Phi Beta Iota: We agree with Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore when he says that demography, not democracy, will shape the future. While the other seven demographic powers (Brazil, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, Venezuela, and Wild Cards such as Turkey) will be extraordinarily influential as well, China is the only one that is:

Continue reading “Journal: The Chinese Crash or the Chinese Solution?”

2009/12/26

Journal: Billions in Aid Mis-Appropriated–Global to Local Needs Table Would Eliminate This Kind of Fraud

Communities of Practice, Ethics, Gift Intelligence, Key Players, Mobile, Policies, Real Time, Threats

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Sri Lanka tsunami aid misappropriated: watchdog

COLOMBO (AFP) – Nearly half a billion dollars in tsunami aid for Sri Lanka is unaccounted for and over 600 million dollars has been spent on projects unrelated to the disaster, an anti-corruption watchdog said Saturday.

. . . . . . .

The group alleged that out of 2.2 billion dollars received for relief, 603.4 million dollars was spent on projects unrelated to the disaster.

Another half a billion dollars was missing, the group said.

2009/12/222009/12/22

Journal: USAID in Afghanistan

08 Wild Cards, Gift Intelligence, Government, Peace Intelligence

Home > Asia > Afghanistan An Afghan construction worker places mud on a wall for a new building in a school in Taloqan, east of Kundus, April 23, 2009. (Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters)

USAID: Understaffed and overwhelmed in Afghanistan

Obama's troop surge fails to address how to improve delivery of aid.

A dramatic shortage of program officers as well as auditors and investigators and poor security conditions on the ground have all conspired, the 128-page report concludes, to “significantly impair” the objectives of USAID’s mission, which is to provide economic development and humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan and around the world.

The failure of USAID to effectively monitor the development projects threatens to undermine the U.S. military’s new counterinsurgency strategy and troop surge, which is built upon the effective delivery of aid in the struggle against the Taliban for hearts and minds.

2009/12/092009/12/09

Worth a Look: Unitarian Inclusionality

Collective Intelligence, Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Gift Intelligence, Peace Intelligence, Worth A Look

Inclusionality

Evolving Co-creatively, Beyond Conflict.

A place to encourage our understanding of space
in the fluid flow of nature.

Is it possible to understand what gets in the way of human understanding?

That is the question we are asking ourselves as we invite you to participate in the development and communication of a natural awareness that we call ‘inclusionality'.

We think that inclusional understanding , a natural capability that can be “re-awakened” in all of us, can radically transform the way we think, feel and behave, enabling us to live more harmoniously in sustainable dynamic relationship with our living space and one another.

2009/12/042009/12/04

Worth a Look: MicroPlace Giving to the Poor

11 Society, Civil Society, Commerce, Gift Intelligence, Key Players, Methods & Process, Mobile, Non-Governmental, Peace Intelligence, Real Time, Threats

MicroPlace for Poor

Level of poverty

Poor | Very poor | Extremely poor

Green Serves rural areas Focus on women Fair trade

Financial My financial return 1% – 3% | 4% – 6%

When I get repaid Anytime | < 1 yr | 1 – 3 yrs | > 3 yrs

My money is going to Single institution | Multiple institutions

Support small coffee growers in the mountains of Nicaragua

Support Fair Trade Coffee Farmers in Tanzania

Phi Beta Iota: Evidently an EBay initative with a PayPal front end, this impresses us. Subject to audit, it is precisely what we were thinking of (see our Denmark Briefing) as a means of connecting the one billion rich (80% of whom do not give to charity now) with the five billion poor at the household item level of need. The major FLAW with with implementation is that it relies on intermediaries that will suck off 50% or more of the actual value. Still needed: the Global Range of Needs Table. This would also benefit from a Twitter application and a near real time “close by can do easy” option.

2009/10/302009/10/30

Journal: Interview with C. K. Prahalad

Commercial Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Ethics, Gift Intelligence, Key Players, Mobile, Peace Intelligence

Five years ago, C.K. Prahalad published a book titled, The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, in which he argues that multinational companies not only can make money selling to the world's poorest, but also that undertaking such efforts is necessary as a way to close the growing gap between rich and poor countries. Key to his argument for targeting the world's poorest is the sheer size of that marke.

Knowledge@Wharton: In the five years since The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid was published, what impact have your ideas had on companies and on poor consumers?

C.K. Prahalad: The impact has been interesting and profound in many ways — much more than one could have expected. For example, several of the multi-lateral institutions — The World Bank, UNDF [United Nations Development Fund], IFC [International Finance Corporation] and USAid — have fundamentally accepted the idea that involvement of the private sector is critical for development…. I asked 10 CEOs of companies as diverse as Microsoft, ING, DSM, GSK and Thomson Reuters to essentially reflect on whether the book has had some impact on the way they think about the opportunities. Uniformly, everybody — whether it is Microsoft or GSK — essentially says not only that it has had some impact, but that it has changed the way they approach innovation and … new markets.

Continue reading “Journal: Interview with C. K. Prahalad”

2009/09/29

Journal: Clinton Global Initiative Update

01 Poverty, Communities of Practice, Gift Intelligence, Key Players, Mobile, Policies, Reform

Clinton Global Initiative

With a tip of the hat to John Steiner and Janice Hall, here are some highlights from the recent Clinton Global Initiative that struck us as truly righteous.

“I think we can say with some certainty that this mode actually does work,” President Clinton said. “People don't have to have the same politics, the same religion, or speak the same language to work togethr and to have an impact. We all have things to learn from each other. What weneed is a shared mechanism to achieve common goals.”

In 2009, members made284 Commitments valued at $9.4 billion dollars 1,700 commitments hae been made since 2005 valued at more than $57 billion.

Continue reading “Journal: Clinton Global Initiative Update”

Contrarian Investor Sees Economic Crash in China

Evolving Co-creatively, Beyond Conflict. A place to encourage our understanding of space in the fluid flow of nature.

Financial My financial return 1% – 3% | 4% – 6%

Evolving Co-creatively, Beyond Conflict.

A place to encourage our understanding of space
in the fluid flow of nature.