Sideways?

Just checked in by to say 'hello'. I now know exactly how 'Miles' from Sideways feels...as a result of an odd weekend. You just go with the flow with your friends and suddenly you end up with a nice surprise - that you fumble the first time around, naturally.

30?! What already!

Well - it's about time to post something but doe to a hectic spring & winter I haven't been much around. Next weekend I'm turning 30 and during Easter this year I did a little inventory of myself.

- I'm a little year away from earning my bachelor in International economics and management (HD-U), and already after this I'm doing my best to get in line for a EMBA, preferably at London Business School.

- Project 100 - look under December 2009 - didn't stick, so in a few weeks I'll start meeting with a dietitian once a week in order to get a bit 'smaller' Hopefully this will be useful.

- Still working for Garmin but is getting a lot of interesting job offers from headhunters etc. so let's see how long I'll stick around at Mr. Min.

Well - just a summary of April 2010, I hope to be more productive on the blog (:

New cabinet, and what have you....

Well, Prime Minister Løkke Rasmussens new cabinet was presented just short of a week ago, and what’s to say about this. Can he reclaim the power, i.e. win the next election? Probably. Wisely he shifted some heavyweights around internally in the cabinet (Mr. Stig Møller(K) & Mr. Haarder(V)) and disbanded some of the living zombies (Mr. Sander (V), Mr. Neergard(K), Ms. Christensen (K) & Ms. Tørnæs(V)) whom just hasn’t been ‘airborne’ so to speak for the last 6-8 months – if ever. More importently though he abandoned former Prime Minister Fogh Rasmussens policy agenda of ‘contract policy’ which meant specifying a number of tasks and then have those completed prior to the next election. Rather than this he listed some visions for Denmark whom he and the Cabinet will strive to achieve.

First point of order was to push the ball back on the oppositions part of the field by introducing a sound fiscal policy agenda, thus forcing R, S & SF to either concur on a fiscal policy alternative (not likely) or see the – up until now – relatively unified opposition get into a bloody fistfight over where to cut.

Likely as not the forthcoming election, not to be held no later than November 2011 is going to be the most decisive for Denmark in the past 10 years. If the current cabinet wins power once more, then Ms. Torning (S) party leader of the Social democrats and presumptive Prime Minister Candidate for the opposition has lost 3 in a row. This I assume she cannot survive politically. On the other hand if the current opposition does reclaim the power after some 8-10 years in opposition, what will happen with Ms. Kærsgaard. She is the founder, principle & party leader for the Danish Peoples Party (O) if she cannot gain controls of the power my thinking is she’ll want to retire, but that will crumble her party.

So basically there are to women who’s politically life are at stake at the next election; Mr. Thorning vs. Ms. Kærsgaard.
Currently I’m not sure who’s going to win.

PS. Liberal Alliance (Y) – a libertarian party – are launching a major push starting tomorrow with ads, explaining why to vote for them. This might shake things up a bit.

A nice little train!

This Christmas I was gifted with a new train from Märklin, Baureihe 64, that is a multi purpose steam locomotive from DB (Deutschen Bundesbahn). It’s a smooth little locomotive with sound so the faster you let the train go the more intense the steam locomotive sound is. Also squeaking brakes, bell, whistle-sounds etc. Next objective is to get more rails and electrified my railway switches to improve the realization of the usage.

Oh – you gotta love playing with electric trains (-:

What happens when Mr. Vestergaard is killed?

First of a statement of my views in this matter; Ever since Jyllands Posten – www.jp.dk – decided to print the Mohammed cartoons in 2005 I’ve been in favor of this. Danish freedom of speech applies in Denmark and nowhere else, and as such we cannot tolerate that religious, political or any other dogma influences Danish legislation. We have a judicial branch in Denmark separated from religious influence and are to follow international laws and conventions, but through centuries of debating and development of our society we’ve come to accept that no one, with no(!) exception (The Queen – or King, whichever is present, our Prime minister, famous writers, sports stars, the religious organizations ect.) can avoid to be to be mocked or made fun of, this is a cornerstone of our freedom of speech. Only when such statements are of a libellous nature, then the attacked may plead his case to the court and whatever ruling is to be followed. I support the printing of these cartoons, the drawers, the papers that printed them as support later on. This isn’t a discussion of the legality of these cartoons or if they should be printed or not, no rather it’s a kind of what if? (i.e. what when)

I 1988 Salman Rushdie printed The Satanic Verses and in 1989 Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini declared a Fatwa to kill Rushdie. The same hasn’t happened yet and there is number of reasons for this. None the less the cartoonist Mr. Vestergaard was brutally attacked in his home and apparently only survived due to his safe room until armed police agents arrived at the scene 3 minutes later and disabled i.e. shot the intruder in the hand and leg reportedly.

The Police haven’t been able to fully secure Mr. Vestergaard since this isn’t the first attack upon him since the drawing but it’s the first where Mr. Vestergaard almost got killed by, what appears to be and renegade Somali male, age 28 acting on his own as revenge for the cartoons.

Now we arrived at my point; when – not if – but when someone, and this ‘someone’ will probably be a younger male with radical Islamic tendencies, succeeds and kills Mr. Vestergaard, what will happen then? Angry editorials condemning the perpetrators? Thousands rallying in the streets to show their disgust of this horrible crime?

Denmark cannot retaliate on a terrorist attack, since a terrorist officially isn’t state sponsored, some are but this is a different discussion. Should we quarantine all whom show Islamic tendencies? Of course not, that’s a joke; I don’t claim to have an answer for this, rather I reckon that we should remember former Louisiana Governor Patrick Henry: “Give me liberty, or give me death”

I truly hope that the police are able to provide Mr. Vestergaard with enough liberty to ensure that he stays alive, rather than experiencing an agonizing death.

And just to nobody is confused; the cartoon is Mr. Vestergaards impression of Mohammed.

And here my own - not even remotely close to the masterpiece above:

/C

Target 100

Well - a new year, and a a new (or old) goal; get healthier - NOW! There is to much of me, around 50 kg give or take, and my New Years Resolution is to get to 100, e.g. "Target 100", which means to break the 100 kg barrier within this year.

First off I need to lose some weight, and afterwards I'll begin swimming again.

Here's what will happen for the first 6 months;

- I'll weigh myself every Monday evening at 2000h starting 4th of January 2010, results will be posted on this blog.
- Ride my bike to work Monday, Wednesday & Friday, e.g. the days I'm not going to CBS. This is a 2 x 17 km ride with lots of steep hills and windy stretches. Results for these rides will be posted on http://connect.garmin.com
- Avoid all of the following: junk (pizza, burgers, fries etc.) for a period of 6 months.
- Avoid candy, cookies, chips etc. for a period of 6 months.
- Only allow myself to drink soft drinks, juice, alcohol etc. from Friday evening to Sunday at noon.

Previously I've been following a diet program from where I know that I can drop close to one kilogram every week. So when this hold-up, the first goal would be a 25 kg drop by 1st of July 2010 - we'll see.

To be continued...

Why the COP15 isn't going to achive anything....

Currently there is major massive invasion of Copenhagen….sorry – Hopenhagen, in order to reach an equitable agreement on the environment under the Danish Leadership, but they won’t succeed in the long run.

Yes the industrialized world might present some realistic and measurable goals to reduce the impact on the environment caused by our demand for energy, but come on; who are we kidding? Name for me please somebody who would like to give up their iPhone? Their online surfing? Their blogging (-:? All that we do in the western world demands energy and really nobody are willing to scale back the comfortable way of life we’ve all come to enjoy; in North America, in Europe, In the Pacific and so on. Instead demanding that we scale our energy consumption back, thus reducing heating, transporting, entertaining our selves, it will be up to the private sector and the intelligentsia of our Universities and engineering and business schools to invent new ideas to produce co2 free energy, or at least co2 reducing energy.

We’re just leaving a decade of overconsumption, over usage in all ways. This produced individuals that are ready to take on commitments to the world, interested in solving the issues, not scaling back to a pre-industrialization society. Only when private corporations and the intelligentsia awake from its sleep something will happen in the industrialized world.

On the other side of the rugby field is the third world countries that are hit – and will be hit the hardest – from the current climate changes. They claim that the industrialized world needs to pick up the environmental bill from our previous abominations. Well this can be argued, and truthfully the industrialized world has a responsibility; to the past – not so much the future.

Fertility are just short of holding the euro-zone and North America above the 2,1 children that is considered to maintain your demography. In the third world women gets 3-4-5-xx kids and they produce co2, and this accumulates to an unprecedented magnitude in just a few generations. How to stop this? Simple; make sure that women all around in the third world have access to and are allowed the usage of contraception’s. Then the rate of women whom will get a education will rise, and thus again improve the quality of living standard.

So how are standing in the doorway? Islamic laws and habits and Catholic laws and habits. Overall those two religions preach the submission of women to men, and hereby greatly reduces the chance for a women to be considered equal to men.

So who am I routing for? Women in the third world. Whom do I trust to come at through first? Private corporations in the industrialized world, but since the religious dogma won’t change anything until they experience their own ‘catechisms’, things are likely to stay the same or even get worse….also after COP15 are over.

I'm not holding my breath...

/C

9th of November 1989 - 20 years later

20 years ago the animosities in eastern Berlin was almost at an end. Close to three decades of harassments from Stasi was ending with the opening of “Der Mauer” Ever since the Soviet dictatorship decided to build an "anti fascistic protection wall" in 1961, families had been torn apart and one of the most influential countries in Europe’s history began its healing towards its unification lead by brave men like Mr. Gorbatsjov, Mr. Kohl & President Bush. Communism did crumble and a free capitalistic market did emerge and Berlin is on the fast track to – yet again – become one of the leading cultural cities in Europe.

A lot of grim things have been said about capitalism over the last 12-18 months, but ultimately capitalism ‘just’ need to be tethered a bit and this have been deeply missing in the last few years.

I’d much rather have a kind laissez-faire economics environment, free press & freedom of speech, the possibility to travel when and where one sees fit, rather than a post-communistic plan economy where growth is zero or negative, a secret police within the state continuously spying on the citizens, no freedom of speech and with no places to go – other than where the state thought it were appropriate that you went…Gulag for instance.



Please take a moment to remember what was won 20 years ago. This day is every bit as important as the 7th may 1945 where Nazi-Germany signed the unconditional surrender to the allied forces, just a shame it should be another 45 years before thriving countries like Poland, Hungary, Czech republic etc. could taste freedom from oppression.

Happy E-Day.

/C

Market concepts & Demand orientation

Haven’t been much here lately, been somewhat busy. Just popped in to say ‘hello’ (-:

Just started a new course at CBS that would roughly translate to “Market concepts & Demand orientation” and in our first assignment each class is given a set of manufactures, products etc. to analyze in accordance with their product, services & segments…and one of the companies are Garmin Ltd. (giggles) I’m quite looking forward to what others might mean of the above in respect to Garmin.

…other than that I just spent the better part of a week in bead with the worst kind of flu; man-flu!

/C

The Iraqis in the church….

For quite some time now there has been a war going on and the main battlegrounds have been the major media outlets. During spring 2009 some dozens ex-Iraqis were expelled from Denmark based upon review of their application to seek asylum. When the ruling was confirmed they took refuge in a Copenhagen church and stayed there until this summer, when the police entered the church and lead the Iraqis to the airport some days later. From the get going there have been an intense yet sober battle for the hearts and minds of Danes but now there have been a shift in the public mood.

First off; this is a really divisive matter for the public and there is a great many aspects to be taken into consideration; for some of the expelled Iraqis their trail have lasted 4-5-6+ years, since they first applied asylum. Saddam Hussein regime of terror have been overthrown and the country is fluctuating between a weak state and a country on the edge of civil war, so the conditions may have altered dramatically since they arrived originally.

I’m pro helping people in dire need of asylum, and I’m against the ‘local’ Populist Party with NASPD tendency (Dansk Folkeparti) policy & rhetoric – on the other hand I have a understanding of the concept of rule of law: you get to test your case with lawyers, judges etc. and if you are unsatisfied with the outcome of the ruling you have one or maybe more grounds of appeal. When a court has confirmed a ruling i.e. the Supreme Court confirms a ruling by the High court then its final and the relevant authorities (Police etc.) have to ensure that the text of the ruling is fulfilled.

Why the change in the mood? Without going into a complicated left-right debate I believe that it’s safe to say that in this matter it’s the far left (Enhedslisten) and some left centrist (Radikale Venstre) whom are leading the crusade for undoing the verdict. But now it’s taken a new turn. Today – Sunday 13/9 – there is a fairly large interview in Politiken, where a range of known and unknown Danes admits that they are trying to raise money to help keep some of the not yet gone expelled Iraqis hidden in Denmark, even though that they have been expelled…..now is the time to remember the sound from last year Christmas party when Charles from marketing forgot to lift the pickup before changing the LP.

If you openly confess to an interviewer supposed to appear in a major news outlet, that you are about to break the law and do it in consultation with others you are properly committing a conspiracy.

A judicial professor at Copenhagen University assess that an organization whom are collecting money to support illegal aliens not only commits a crime, but also the people donating to the organization will be committing a crime.

So what is the deal? I’m deeply troubled with the fact that a significant portion of the inhabitants of this equilibrium country seems to think that it’s ok to break the law and even more concerning to thwart the authorities in their struggle to uphold the current legislation….instead of suggesting some real changes to the way we look upon emigrants. And even more I’m outraged that the once in favor of enforcing the law and the specific ruling are considered to be evil, mean xenophobes.

/C

PS. That being said I’m in favor of reexamine the immigration legislation to make Denmark much more attractive to foreigners, but more of that at a later time.

IFA

Back to work – and off again. This weekend I’ll be joining a delegation of Danish reporters from the major news outlets (Berlingske, Politiken, Børsen etc.) when the Danish trade association for consumer electronics will visit IFA in Berlin (Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin). Naturally the reason I’ll be present is due to my employment at Garmin where I’m to conduct interviews with the Danish journalists, regarding our newly launched products, portfolio, nüvifone etc. I’ll try to come around the exhibit and capture pictures of anything interesting – and the booth babes. Friday night is probably spent in my hotel room prepping for Saturday.

Stay tuned.

/C

PIM(P)

The summer is long gone – now it’s back to work and school. Monday we had the introduction to our courses this semester and it turns out that we have to turn a paper in by the end of October, and that this paper serves as an exam….dreary me. Oh well. It’s probably not any worse than macroeconomics or commerce legislation that I survived last year, so probably it’s going to work out just fine.

The course for this semester is called PIM(P?) a abbreviation to Problem identification, Information theory and Modeling. Quite honestly I think it’s going to be fine fiddling with lots of data and then use a variety of applications to get hold of your information flow, in order to produce a model that fits like a glove to the specific task. On the other hand I thought that I was done with regression analysis etc. but no.

....so no more going out until June next year, instead I’ll use my non-CBS time on my Cannondale – more of that at a later time.

/C

Who will be the next power; BRIC? EU? Santa Clause?

Currently we’re experiencing a financial crisis that nobody has been able to fully comprehend yet. This post isn’t related to what caused the problems (to low interests rates from the federal banks, derivate debt products, subprime mortgage etc.) but rather a speculation of what is next.

In my opinion Fareed Zaakarias book “The Post American World” is highly recommendable on this subject, but he fails to see the real issue here. In the sixth chapter of the book he claims that the main (or at least one of the main reasons) the American dominant era is coming to an end, is the open-ended engagement in Iraq (and Afghanistan) and this is costing the US its freedom of maneuverability. Now it’s important to remember that this work was finalized by the end of 2007 and published in May 2008 i.e. several months before the financial crises really caught on in September 2008. Rather than being the military evolvement that broke/drained the treasury of the US it was (is?) the financial crisis. After this crises first became a world market event governments, including The congress and The White House, around the world have poured gazillions of cash (€£$) into public spending, in order to keep the unemployment rate constant, or at least avoid that it exploded, but sometime soon the governments are going to run out of cash. When this happens then we’ll have the collapse, since consumers still are holding back on their private spending thus private company’s cannot grow their enterprise and we’ll eventually get a long time rescission, unless…..

Fareed Zaakarias assumes that the 21^st century will belong to the newcomers, or at least that the US will have to consult with other states, Brazil, Russia, India, China etc. and act multilaterally rather than unilaterally. Say for moment that we accept the thesis above, and expect the US to run out of cash it can throw into government spending programs by mid 2010. Now the US is hamstrung by its debt, especially to China, and even China on the other hand will have no interest what so ever in forcing the US to repay its loan prior to schedule due to risk of having to deal with a hostile President and/or Congress, and what might be.

One of the key factors to the non-western economical growth over the last 2 decades has been (is) the access to a sort of stable energy supply (oil, gas etc.), the reality that Russia wasn’t a factor, the only superpower left was the US and access to loans with exceptionally low interest rates. Now all of this is changing rapidly. Russia is resurgent, or tough only due to the massive demand for Oil and Gas thus trying to regain its previous super-power status, due to demands especially in China and India energy prices will rice. The possibility to be authorized for a low interest loan is unlikely, so this is where the EU should make its case. I won’t for a second argue that governments should direct research into specific areas but I’d like to see an overall effort to reduce the dependence of fossil energy inside the EU by say 50 % over the next generation i.e. 30 years. What will this accomplish? Most likely universities & business schools in partnerships or while competing with existing companies, will improve and re-think how we think of energy. The BRIC countries have to experiencing the same learning curve that have been creeping up on the west over the next generation, and then the energy alternatives are ready for mass distribution.

Devil’s advocate:

Won’t the non-western countries develop and discover the above themselves? Probably not. One main advantage kept by higher learning institutes in the west, is that when students enrolls on courses they have a sense of critique to the established consensus, whether it’s nature science, economics, philosophy etc. they want to challenge the sitting establishment and somehow I don’t think that’s the way to achieve a meaningful relationship with the rulers for example in China? But I might be mistaken…..

We have enough.

Most of the citizens in Western Europe have a home, a flat, either a rented or an owned. Most families have a small house, a terraced house or larger flat. Their kids go to school the majority of them can get meaningful employment. They have either tax paid health and medi care or through an insurance. I know that there are some areas where thing can get better – there always will be, but shouldn’t we, the west, be able to say that we did something when the end of history and the last man arrived (Fukuyama) rather than just see the western lifestyle burn in the fire of decadence of massive over consumption?

I hope that this crisis will act as a much needed wakeup call to the European Union whom I think and hope will seize the moment an become a world power.

……just some random thoughts from the balcony this lovely summer night.

/C