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Saturday, April 03, 2004 |
 Nice sum up on Lance's weblog about the outsourcing trade shock and what we need to do about it. Unfortunately, it looks like we are creating a budget deficit of such a magnitude that it will prevent these needed reforms.
2:22:50 PM 
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Interesting highlights of Osama bin Laden's biography from the perspective of his capabilities as a military commander and organizer.
Osama is the son of an entrepreneur. His father went from being a poor imigrant (Yemeni) porter to the head of the largest construction company in Saudi Arabia. Children of entrepreneurs are extremely likely to be entrepreneurs themselves (3/4 of all entrepreneurs are the sons/daughters of entrepreneurs). In this case he built a private guerrilla/terrorist movement. An example of his entrepreneurial spirit: in 1986 he decided to build his own mujahedeen force in Afghanistan. He built more than 6 camps and developed his own front in the war against the Russians. He has also established an "incubator style" VC operation for terrorist groups (structure, technology, money, expertise).
1:48:57 PM
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Debka has posted an interesting terrorist strategy document (take this with a grain of salt). This is particularly interesting since it signals an increasing level of sophistication in attack planning:
Hafiza calculated the cost of maintaining US forces in Iraq and the dollar losses al Qaeda is capable of inflicting on the Americans through terror attacks. Two, before recommending the attack in Madrid, he analyzed the results of all Spain’s elections since 1982, one by one and drew lessons. He noted that the 9/11 attacks in America gave Spain its first chance ever to distance itself from the dominant European axis of France and Germany and align with the United States.
10:48:43 AM
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WSJ. Employment up 308,000 jobs. Nice. For the good of the country, I hope this continues. Employment growth has been so bad for so long, it is nice to see the economy bounce back (regardless of whether this helps Bush or not). There was yet another sign that the unemployment survey is flawed: despite the large uptick in employment, the unemployment number actually increased a tenth of a percent to 5.7%. Other mitigating factors that may indicated this employment growth may weaken are: a drop in temp labor, flat overtime, and a drop in the average workweek.
10:42:14 AM
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Does privacy matter when it comes to tourist travel? One added thing to look for given this new US entry requirement (see post below): a drop in the 13 m visitors from visa-waiver countries. A 10% drop in travel from just Germany, France, Britain, and Japan would cause a $2.2 b decline in tourist revenue for the US.
10:35:58 AM
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© Copyright 2004 John Robb.
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