While Detroit Slept

international herald tribune
Thomas L. Friedman

Wednesday, December 10, 2008
As I think about the U.S. government bailing out Detroit, I can't help but reflect on what, in my view, is the most important rule of business in today's integrated and digitized global market, where knowledge and innovation tools are so widely distributed.

It's this: Whatever can be done, will be done. The only question is will it be done by you or to you. Just don't think it won't be done. If you have an idea in Detroit or Tennessee, promise me that you'll pursue it, because someone in Denmark or Tel Aviv will do so a second later.

Why do I bring this up? Because someone in the mobility business in Denmark and Tel Aviv is already developing a real-world alternative to Detroit's business model. I don't know if this alternative to gasoline-powered cars will work, but I do know that it can be done - and Detroit isn't doing it. And therefore it will be done, and eventually, I bet, it will be done profitably.

And when it is, America's bailout of Detroit will be remembered as the equivalent of pouring billions of dollars of taxpayer money into the mail-order-catalogue business on the eve of the birth of eBay. It will be remembered as pouring billions of dollars into the CD music business on the eve of the birth of the iPod and iTunes. It will be remembered as pouring billions of dollars into a book-store chain on the eve of the birth of Amazon.com and the Kindle. It will be remembered as pouring billions of dollars into improving typewriters on the eve of the birth of the PC and the Internet.

What business model am I talking about? It is Shai Agassi's electric car network company, called Better Place. Just last week, the company, based in Palo Alto, California, announced a partnership with the state of Hawaii to road test its business plan there after already inking similar deals with Israel, Australia, the San Francisco Bay area and, yes, Denmark.

The Better Place electric car charging system involves generating electrons from as much renewable energy - such as wind and solar - as possible and then feeding those clean electrons into a national electric car charging infrastructure. This consists of electricity charging spots with plug-in outlets - the first pilots were opened in Israel this week - plus battery-exchange stations all over the respective country. The whole system is then coordinated by a service control center that integrates and does the billing.

Under the Better Place model, consumers can either buy or lease an electric car from the French automaker Renault or Japanese companies like Nissan (General Motors snubbed Agassi) and then buy miles on their electric car batteries from Better Place the way you now buy an Apple cellphone and the minutes from another telecommunications operator . That way Better Place, or any car company that partners with it, benefits from each mile you drive. GM sells cars. Better Place is selling mobility miles.

The first Renault and Nissan electric cars are scheduled to hit Denmark and Israel in 2011, when the whole system should be up and running. On Tuesday, Japan's Ministry of Environment invited Better Place to join the first government-led electric car project along with Honda, Mitsubishi and Subaru. Better Place was the only foreign company invited to participate, working with Japan's leading auto companies, to build a battery swap station for electric cars in Yokohama, the Detroit of Japan.

What I find exciting about Better Place is that it is building a car company off the new industrial platform of the 21st century, not the one from the 20th - the exact same way that Steve Jobs did to overturn the music business.

What did Apple understand first? One, that today's technology platform would allow anyone with a computer to record music. Two, that the Internet and MP3 players would allow anyone to transfer music in digital form to anyone else. You wouldn't need CDs or record companies anymore. Apple simply took all those innovations and integrated them into a single music-generating, purchasing and listening system that completely disrupted the music business.

What Agassi, the founder of Better Place, is saying is that there is a new way to generate mobility, not just music, using the same platform. It just takes the right kind of auto battery - the iPod in this story - and the right kind of national plug-in network - the iTunes store - to make the business model work for electric cars at six cents a mile. The average American is paying today around 12 cents a mile for gasoline transportation, which also adds to global warming and strengthens petro-dictators.

Do not expect this innovation to come out of Detroit. Remember, in 1908, the Ford Model-T got better mileage - 25 miles per gallon - than many Ford, GM and Chrysler models made in 2008. But don't be surprised when it comes out of somewhere else. It can be done. It will be done.

If we Americans miss the chance to win the race for Car 2.0 because we keep mindlessly bailing out Car 1.0, there will be no one to blame more than Detroit's new shareholders: we the taxpayers.

In the end these companies probably will disappear

STOCKHOLM - LESSONS learned from the 1930s depression and from more recent economic crises could be the only thing warding off a new Great Depression, the 2008 winner of the Nobel economics prize Paul Krugman said on Sunday.
'If we had not already experienced the Great Depression, I think we would be about to have another one,' the Princeton University professor and New York Times columnist told reporters in Stockholm, where he will receive his Nobel prize this week.
'But the fact that we did have that Great Depression and have some economic analysis of how it happened, gives us some hope of avoiding a repeat,' he said.
Mr Krugman, who supports massive government spending on infrastructure and public works programmes as a way to revitalise the slumping US economy, said Sunday that Washington should also draw lessons from Japan's deep economic crisis in the 1990s.
'I think we need to be grateful to the Japanese for ... simply (giving) us the realisation that such things can happen and which policies do and don't work,' he said.
'The experience of Japan in the 1990s was that indeed government spending, while it may not produce a permanent cure, can greatly alleviate the pressures on the economy,' he said.
Mr Krugman has in his New York Time columns cautioned that US president-elect Barack Obama, who on Saturday vowed to make the largest investments in US infrastructure since the 1950s, may not act boldly enough to bring an end to the country's economic malaise.
'I'm very concerned about how quickly the programmes can be brought online given the speed with which the economy is declining,' he said on Sunday.
Public spending 'is in fact our only response. This is a crisis situation and we need to provide support. The private sector cannot support itself,' he added.
Mr Krugman, who won the Nobel prize for his work on the impact of free trade and globalisation, also praised Mr Obama's pick of Timothy Geithner for Treasury chief, describing him as 'very smart, very open-minded (and) quicker to realise the vulnerability of the financial system than most people'.
However, 'he faces an extremely daunting task. The simple mechanics of producing a rescue for the world economy are very hard. The pace at which things are getting worse is so great,' he said.
While supporting government spending to rescue the US economy, Mr Krugman expressed more scepticism to bailing out the country's floundering giant car makers.
There is, he said, 'a correct lack of willingness to accept (responsibility for) the failure of a large industrial sector ... in the midst of a very, very severe recession.' 'In the end these companies probably will disappear.'
Mr Krugman will receive his Nobel gold medal and diploma along with 10 million Swedish kronor (S$1.8 million) at a formal prize ceremony in Stockholm on December 10.
When asked what he planned to do with the prize money, Mr Krugman said he had yet to decide, pointing out that 'My favorite congratulatory email said: 'Congratulations, I hope you can find a bank still standing'.

El quicio de la historia..

Ya queda menos para el Inauguration Day. Léanse esta obra maestra...

Hay ciertos paralelismos...

OBAMA

http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/results/president/speeches/obama-victory-speech.html#

Guerra en Afganistán

Al hilo de la probable connivencia de los servicios secretos pakistaníes con los talibanes afganos, por favor, lean este libro:

No dejará de sorprenderles y entenderán algunas cuestiones esenciales...

Una república bananera con misiles

Si este gobierno de Bush ha fracasado en su intento de convencer al Congreso,¿podrá el Congreso convencer al gobierno -a este o al que venga-?

COUNTRY FIRST?????

El primer debate

http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/president/debates/first-presidential-debate.html

Let me begin with something General Eisenhower said in his 1952 presidential campaign.

"We must achieve both security and solvency. In fact, the foundation of military strength is economic strength,".

With that in mind, the first lead question.
Gentlemen, at this very moment tonight, where do you stand on the financial recovery plan?
First response to you, Senator Obama. You have two minutes.

OBAMA: Well, thank you very much, Jim, and thanks to the commission and the University of Mississippi, Ole Miss, for hosting us tonight. I can't think of a more important time for us to talk about the future of the country.
You know, we are at a defining moment in our history. Our nation is involved in two wars, and we are going through the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
And although we've heard a lot about Wall Street, those of you on Main Street I think have been struggling for a while, and you recognize that this could have an impact on all sectors of the economy.
And you're wondering, how's it going to affect me? How's it going to affect my job? How's it going to affect my house? How's it going to affect my retirement savings or my ability to send my children to college?
So we have to move swiftly, and we have to move wisely. And I've put forward a series of proposals that make sure that we protect taxpayers as we engage in this important rescue effort.
Number one, we've got to make sure that we've got oversight over this whole process; $700 billion, potentially, is a lot of money.
Number two, we've got to make sure that taxpayers, when they are putting their money at risk, have the possibility of getting that money back and gains, if the market -- and when the market returns.
Number three, we've got to make sure that none of that money is going to pad CEO bank accounts or to promote golden parachutes.
And, number four, we've got to make sure that we're helping homeowners, because the root problem here has to do with the foreclosures that are taking place all across the country.
Now, we also have to recognize that this is a final verdict on eight years of failed economic policies promoted by George Bush, supported by Senator McCain, a theory that basically says that we can shred regulations and consumer protections and give more and more to the most, and somehow prosperity will trickle down.
It hasn't worked. And I think that the fundamentals of the economy have to be measured by whether or not the middle class is getting a fair shake. That's why I'm running for president, and that's what I hope we're going to be talking about tonight.

http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/president/debates/first-presidential-debate.html

Mas libros

Directamente recomiendo un clásico de Howard Zinn (historiador controvertido pero coherente): A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. Los puntos sobre las íes.

Feliz Navidad

y Feliz 2008