Corporate Governance in USA and Japan

Found this great website, and will try to use in my paper on Employees and Corporate Governance.

http://www.financialarmageddon.com/2010/10/the-liars-and-thieves-are-moving-ahead-in-this-country.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+financialarmageddon+%28Financial+Armageddon%29

Also quite excellent:

http://www.economicpopulist.org/content/wheres-waldo-graphs-unemployed-and-not-counted

Employment law

On Sept. 12, 2001, there were no commercial flights in the United States. It was uncertain when airlines would be permitted to start flying again—or how many customers would be on them. Airlines faced not only the tragedy of 9/11 but the fact that economy was entering a recession. So almost immediately, all the U.S. airlines, save one, did what so many U.S. corporations are particularly skilled at doing: they began announcing tens of thousands of layoffs. Today the one airline that didn't cut staff, Southwest, still has never had an involuntary layoff in its almost 40-year history. It's now the largest domestic U.S. airline and has a market capitalization bigger than all its domestic competitors combined. As its former head of human resources once told me: "If people are your most important assets, why would you get rid of them?"

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/02/04/lay-off-the-layoffs.html

Kyoto

Just got back to Tokyo from Kyoto. The bus ride to Kyoto was quite long.  I have to say I didn't really sleep at all. It started off auspicious enough.  I was with Yumi, and we were waiting in the rain here in Tokyo, near Tokyo Station.

During the bus ride I thought it might be tricky to fall asleep so I popped what must have been like 2 Valium.  It didn't do much good. I got to Kyoto super tired but in good spirits.

We had to wait a bit until the tourist office open so that we could see about a hotel room.  So we waited in the cafe and had some breakfast.

Later we went to the tourist office, there was a great deal of bickering.  I jokingly feigned worry about the hotel situation, which didn't go over well despite insisting that I wasn't worried since we could get a room in Osaka.

The Golden Temple was a small let down.  It was nice but rather small and chalk full of tourists. 

All in all it was great to spend more time in Kyoto.  I spent yesterday and much of today in Osaka which was also nice.  I especially enjoyed the Sauna World, which had excellent baths.

Bad Lieutenant Port of Call New Orleans

Today I was thinking about what are some great films that I've seen recently.  I saw recently the film called Bad Lieutenant Port of Call New Orleans. The film was both absurd, sick, funny, twisted, you name it.

It explained why he did bad things in the first place to a certain extent, and also showed him to be in some respects a sympathetic character.  I thought it did an excellent job in that respect.  It also narrowly confined the subject matter to his psychological state, and the relations between him, his wife, father, and other policemen.  It also had a interesting twist.  You expected things to come crashing down on him but instead there was a kind of happy ending, although even that was spoiled, yes he did get better in some ways, but in the end he is back were he started. 

Literally the film also returns to beginning since he meets the guy who he injured himself trying to save, the guy in turn takes him to an aquarium away from a mountain of cocain.

The physical explanation for his psychological condition is also great, his injury helps explain his descent into madness, drug use, and bad behavior.  Morally it doesn't take a side on whether he is a good or bad person, although he saves the criminal from being shot near the end, but then he is back to shaking down party goers.

It's quite rare that a film doesn't take a moral stance, and yet is not celebrating some pathology.  The Saw movies seem to be the latter.  I would say that film Crash is similar in that respect for developing a problem, a way of looking at things.

It is always much more interesting to draw ones own moral conclusions when watching a film rather than leave it to the film maker to explain everything.  The film Inception was extremely quite shallow in this respect.  It didn't really trust the viewer to make up their own mind.

If you compare it to Cube, which also had a kind of universe with multiple levels, there was at least real dialogue.  The characters talked as if they were all trapped in a elevator, but the world was fantastical, yet theoretically not possible.

By contrast, Inception had to explain each element.  The characters were dream builders, part of a secret society of people able to go into the dream world, professional globe trotting specialists.  They were basically similar to highly paid multinational employees, flying around the world working for huge business tycoons.

They were working for a client, the main character was all business, get the target to think a certain thing.  But, who cares, the only element that made you care slightly was that he was framed for murder.  So you had this element of  The Fugitive.

Personally I had no reason to care about this character, other than that he was a famous person.  Contrast this with Catch Me If You Can, or The Titanic.  Both effectively explained the characters motivations.  One a kid running away from his father, another a young hobo trying his luck.

Canada for sale

Every now and again I read an article that confirms to me that any part of Canada can be sold for any price. Case in point:



I mean how disgusting is it that the biggest Canadian mining companies are all now owned by foreigners.

Here is a quote from the article in the FT.

A Toronto-based mining banker said the conservative government’s “blindly free-market” attitude to takeovers was seldom matched in the home country of a bidding company. “If Barrick became a $300bn corporation, could it take over Vale?” the banker asked. He was referring to Vale, the Brazilian iron ore champion and Barrick Gold, the Canadian gold miner.

When I read this I feel like vomiting. But, such is the way of business in Canada these days, forget about National champions. The sad thing is that you know it will not be reciprocal. As this banker aptly points out, Brazil, China, India, etc... will not allow us to take over any of their huge companies.

A very interesting evening

I managed to find a really interesting part of Tokyo today. I went to a station called Shimo-kitazawa.  It has lots of good 2nd hand clothing shops, although the prices at a lot of them were a bit high.  Interestingly enough the first one I went into had really good prices.  I got a couple of t-shirts and a jacket, but I could easily have bought more, the prices of most things was 5 or 10 $.  Not exactly that cheap, but cheap considering the quality.

I also met up with my friend at the gym while I was doing a shoulder workout.  I saw his new Kindle E-Reader.  I was somewhat impressed with the readability of it.  I did think that the size was a little small, but the price is pretty amazing.

I was thinking about what to do for my papers in Corporate Law, and also thinking about setting up a law office in Vietnam or China if the position at the College in Montreal does not come to fruition.

There are so many excellent things to do with the kinds of a qualifications I have, the future is really promising right now.

Tokyo has been surprisingly hot, today was close to 30 degrees, although it was not that humid which was quite good.

I should be drinking more fluids during the day.  I actually ran into this women who was from Osaka, she found Tokyo to be a bit overwhelming.   

David Lynch Cafe :)

One part of the cafe

This was the David Lynch Cafe.  I saw it last year or in the winter, and this time I managed to find it again.  The first time I just remarked at how cool it was, but this time I actually got a coffee, and it was quite delicious.

Here is a quote from Lynch, "Sex is a doorway to something so powerful and mystical, but movies usually depict it in a completely flat way."

The man himself, so so cool.  We talked about movies, and art.  I showed her my family pictures, and she showed me her paintings.  It was a very fun and relaxing time.

My Russian friend enjoying her Coffee
and me posing for a cool picture as usual.

I don't actually think it is called the David Lynch cafe, but it is for me at least.

I found the aesthetic of the place to be reminiscent of his film Eraserhead or Moholand Drive.  It had a kind of Western kitchey feel, while at the same time having antique style furnishings.  If I owned a cafe it would be hard to top this in terms of style.

It almost felt like an antique shop, mostly because of the hunks of old looking metal hung about the place, what is apparent about these pieces is that they are not the kind of things you normally see in those trendy shops, in other words not the typical things like Green lamp with gold trimmings, or the telephone with the brass and varnished wood.