 Saturday, May 10, 2008 – Episode #30  Click image to go to No Agenda. |
This Episode’s Show Notes: (by KD Martin)
From summertime in the UK and Northern California, it’s No Agenda! Just back from Korea and his panel moderation, John starts with “goo” floating across the Pacific, the custom tailored “Dvorak Suit,” and anecdotes about the PC revolution. Adam wonders, what’s this about Gina Smith and “I Was” — a new book collaboration with John?
Adam delves into the “Great Firewall Of China.” Maybe China will get busted. It’s a new online and broadcast “China hate culture” that we’ll just blame on… the smog? Hoof and mouth disease? Germ warfare? Great, here come the Olympics and, of course, your, er, keyboard.
Adam spins this into the ubiquitious UK security cams, and the stories begin. These cameras are so effective when we moon them. We hear some tech news for GPS and speed cameras, Australian highway strips and John’s bicycle rant.
Will oil prices hit $200 and reverse? Let’s go long on oil and short on dollars, then reverse the trend and make millions. John: “When someone in France can come to the US and buy a bottle of their own wine for 1/2 price, what is wrong with this picture?”
John switches back to Korea and the “good old days,” before the dot com bust. Now we can go to the Skype store at the airport and get a cool phone that works. Adam counters with the “Free Sat UK.” Can we bring back John’s dream of ancient C-Band satellite tech? Adam says yes, but are there still hackers using this “old” tech?
Adam wants to know how viable is the new broadcast TV, especially dramas with their production costs. What can be done with the internet, and are the big TV shows on DVD making more money? Adam visits an agency that has the rights to 100 TV pilots. They might just make it in a niche and on-demand world.
John takes Sumner Redstone’s “coot” side of things vs. Viacom. Find out why. Now we delve into the Korean’s Spongebob humor and “why this is the weirdest kind of humor.” Let’s get slimed and just “shake it off like a dog.” Adam brings up a new French trend, the “Freedom Kiss.”
Oh boy, more Big Brother and the cams! Adam mentions The Get Out Clause, the band that made their music video from the UK surveillance cams. (See CM’s article here). John shows his knowledge of ‘ancient’ movies and Albert Brooks’ first movie, “Real Life” and how that mocks the current cam concept.
Adam challenges the London tube conductors to remove those who violate some of the new London (anti-alcohol) laws. This should be fun. John laughs about the barbed wire fence between soccer fans in Rio. Adam’s quote of the show: “Why is it in the US, when your team wins, you go nuts, you burn up the streets and you riot, but when gas goes to $4 a gallon you sit at home and…” You’ll have to listen to hear the rest, including John’s retort.
Nastygrams! What the?? We don’t want these people listening to this show! And you thought we we’re cranky!
Queue the closing credits –We hope you enjoy the show!
Running time: approx. 80 mins.
Let me share with you a hard earned lesson about China’s firewall.
It’s pretty effective. If you try hard enough you can find a way around it, but the penalty (prison, death) isn’t worth it.
Let me share something else. There are two levels of access in China. Resident and Visitor. Visitors can access much more outside of china than most residents, but access to this ability is nonexistent outside of a good hotel. Hotels for foreigners can access most of the internet (but never wikipedia) outside of china’s firewall whereas resident access is far more limited.
And heaven help you in establishing a working email that will allow you to send from the US and have it go through to china.
We had to send emails to our partners in China, and it took months to figure out how. Setting up an account using Alibaba.com, 163.com, sina.com, gmail.com, hotmail.com, yahoo.com, all FAILED!
That is, our partner would set up the account, but they could never receive our emails. Ever.
The only solution was to have our partners create an email at yahoo.com/cn The Chinese side of Yahoo. That worked. Oddly enough though, sometimes our emails would be delayed by hours or days to be delivered from the states, whereas their email replies would take only a couple of minutes. We believe it is because our emails are randomly “checked” for content deemed unacceptable to the Chinese government. These delays were especially bad just a few weeks back during the Tibet fiasco.
Nastygraming people who complain about meat eating should be made aware of the couple of scientifically proven facts:
1) We have evolved our mental capacities because of our ability to catch and eat more meat than our evolutionary competitors.
2) There is evidence of many humanoid species who were vegetarian. Every single one got extinct quickly.
3) Agriculture have been invented just 10000 years ago. Our species has roots about 4 mil. years long. You don’t evolve proper capacity for grain eating in such a short time. Hence, if any food is to be avoided it is grains.
Knowing this the only conclusion possible is that vegetarians and vegans have some type of mental illness that forces them to avoid the proper human food despite its ready availability.
So, according to evolutionary evidence, the future of the human race is:
A) the Intellectual Liberal Vegan who orders a double-double latte with their Gardenburger
or,
B) The Arkansas Redneck who orders a side of bacon wrapped hotdog to go with their triple whopper with cheese?
Answer: B.
i’d bet dvorak assplodes if he ever meets a chinese vegan
compare our teeth to any other carnivore, we are not designed to tear apart meat, our canines and incisors aren’t designed for it..
this coming from a vegetarian, but find the meat talk hilarious…+ i hate those pushy preacher bastards too
Fish.
And fat oleic acids.
Good for the brain.
There’s a lady scientist that theorized just that: Humans are more at ease in water than the rest of the primates, and have less hair(for swimming). Also humans spread around coastlines. She says that those are good signals telling that our species must have evolved a lot of time near and with the advantage of water courses.
Can’t remember her name, but Google for it. It’s a fascinating hypothesis.
It is an interesting paper, and here it is!
http://tinyurl.com/6hqxnw
Following up on your brief discussion on BUYING HOMES IN BRAZIL…
Yes, there is some confusion about whether or not Brazilian’s buy homes in cash; or if they take out mortgages or some other type of financing. The correct answer is “they do both”.
A little background is helpful to really understand. First of all, it is very important to remember that Brazil is a ‘Class Society’. The entire population is divided into the following classes A, B, C, D, and E based on income and consuming habits. Class A are the highest earners taking home on average $4,300 a month; class C average $581 a month while Class E bring in an average of $167. In my opinion the Brazilian society classes can actually be divided into two groups; “those that have” and “those that pay interest to acquire”.
“Those that have” may expect fantastic returns on savings and investments in banks. A savings account pays out 10%/yr while a CD returns about 15%/yr. Over the past 5 years the stock market has averaged annual returns of 25%. (Yes, even in May 2008 the market continues to climb. No recession here!) This means that ‘those that have’ get systematically richer, and richer and richer.
At the same time “those that pay interest to acquire” experience a very different reality. In essence their function in society is to buy things on credit paying exorbitant interest back up to the Class A. Here are a couple of examples of interest rates that lower classes are forced to pay as they consume (and fight to survive).
– Overdraft interest on checking accounts top 55%/yr.
– Bank loans on new cars range from 12% to 48% depending any manufactures incentive program.
– Home loans from the bank start at 18% a year and can go as high as 30%.
Now, if you consider 3rd party lending institutions like Check Cashing Houses(loan sharks) these rates get much worse; starting at 60% going up to something around 150% a year. The poor systematically get poorer as they pay interest.
In answer to the question, “are homes bought with cash, or do mortgages exist?” Yes they exist; however, they are considered sucker products. On $100,000 10 year loan the borrower can expect to pay upwards of $250,000 once interest and bank fees are added.
Here is another small example of the ‘evil’ interest. In Brazil you can small items like a clothes iron divided out in 10 easy payments, with interest of course. (A typical iron might list priced like this: $8.00 X 10 months OR $45Cash) The merchant knows the lower classes can’t afford $45 cash outright but they can afford a measly $8 each month for the next 10 months. So in essence the poor pay TWICE for the same goods.
Paying interest in Brazil is for the poor. In my circle of friends everyone owns their apartments clear! Their cars were all purchased cash; no loans. Nobody uses credit cards as ‘credit’ cards – we all pay the entire balance at the end of the month.
In Brazil CASH is king!!!
#10 – Great comments…
Pedro, you’re absolutely correct inflation can be the “Great Villain”. However, in Brazil’s case this villain has been under control for the past 10 years. Last year inflation was 3.8% and over the past 10 years the average has been 4.8%. I agree these values are high if compared to Japan or the US but considering its potential for growth and current growth rate the amount is low.
Regarding the ‘average monthly income of $4300’ for class A; yes this amount appears low. After taking into consideration a law provided Christmas Bonus and vacation pay this average jumps to an annual salary is US$57K. (Not bad for a 3rd world country). When I compare this number to co-workers in my industry here in the big city the amount is very low; here the average annual salary for middle level managers here is US$70 to $80K/yr. Upper managers bring in about US$120K and directors start at US$200+K/yr.
Of course; secretaries, office assistants, and clerks do not bring in these amounts; being part of Classes B and C they bring in salaries comparable. Around here clerks can expect a annual salary of only US$14 to $17K/yr. After paying rent, food and some leisure how much can be left over from $15K to build wealth? Nothing!
This might enforce my theory – the system is designed to make the rich richer and the poor even poorer.