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Friday, June 11, 2004 |
 Doc has collected some interesting info on smaller antennas.
10:41:56 PM 
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The New Yorker. Nice article on executive perks. The conclusion is that companies with lots of perks for senior executives underperform. This is excellent:
The problem is not the cost of the perks themselves; at a ten-billion-dollar corporation, they’re hardly even a rounding error. It’s what they are symptomatic of. Perks and rigid management hierarchies tend to go together; perks are designed in part to reinforce status divisions, and rigid hierarchies do not lend themselves to intelligent decision-making, since they isolate executives from the rest of the company. Also, C.E.O.s who indulge in perks are likely to be profligate in general with shareholder money.
9:18:44 PM
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NYTimes. State Department admits that terrorism did not decline in 2003 as it previously claimed in a major report. It actually rose sharply. Hopefully this wasn't part of a political disinformation campaign. Lots of our internal decision making is based on reports like these.
9:15:00 PM
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New from Iraq. More on the mess at the Pentagon. This is going to end badly. Spicer is an enforcer for oil and mining companies with a "spicy" past, and we just gave him more than a quarter of a billion dollars.
Occupation authorities in Iraq have awarded a $293 million contract effectively creating the world's largest private army to a company headed by Lieutenant Colonel Tim Spicer, a former officer with the SAS (NOTE: this is disputed), an elite regiment of British commandos, who has been investigated for illegally smuggling arms and planning military offensives to support mining, oil, and gas operations around the world. On May 25, the Army Transportation command awarded Spicer's company, Aegis Defense Services, the contract to coordinate all the security for Iraqi reconstruction projects.
Peter Singer (NOTE: author of the excellent book, Corporate Warriors) says that the new contract raises many questions about what kind of background check and vetting of firms and contracted employees are occurring at the Pentagon. "It's not only good policy, but a basic rule of good business, but not clear that it is always happening with Iraq contracting," he said.
4:15:00 PM
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ATimes. Pakistan is being sent into trouble again, as the hunt for bin Laden continues.
In fierce clashes in the Ghat Ghar area, about 20 miles west of Wana, the main town in the South Waziristan tribal area, Asia Times Online contacts report that 18 Pakistani security troops and eight insurgents were killed on Wednesday... Wednesday's clashes were preceded by several days of last-ditch Pakistan attempts to stave off the dreaded military option, including a threat to raze Wana's main bazaar, a move that would economically ruin the tribals. All this achieved, though, was to draw more tribals into the resistance camp, which is becoming increasingly more organized. Asia Times Online contacts in Wana say that the tribals will use more sophisticated ams than before, and attempt to open up several fronts, including the urban centers of North West Frontier Province, in which the tribal areas are located.
9:48:55 AM
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Security Management: Piracy.
According to the Piracy Reporting Center at the International Maritime Bureau (IMB), pirate attacks rose by 20 percent in 2003 to 445 incidents.
And these attacks are not carried out by rogue criminals but by sophisticated syndicates. As hijacking requires money, equipment, weapons, planning, experience, and contacts with corrupt officials, and given that the loot per vessel ranges from $8 million to $200 million, piracy has matured into a branch of organized crime, with political or terrorist connections in some cases. As such, the fight against piracy has worldwide economic and security implications.
Potential costs:
New maritime security measures to counter the threat of terrorist attacks will require an initial investment by ship operators of at least $1.3 billion and will increase annual operating costs by $730 million thereafter. An imminent or actual attack could lead to more drastic government-implemented emergency security measures, such as the complete closure of ports. It might also lead to duplicative and lengthy cargo checks. The cost of such an attack on the United States could run as high as $58 billion.
9:18:51 AM
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Fortune. Wall Street analysts in search of a business model that isn't riven with conflict.
And that's the game right now: figuring out how to produce research that is unique enough—and valuable enough—to survive the arrival of transparency.
Exactly. However, I am not sure the street is ready for innovation. Old ways die hard. When it does change, I have a business proposition for a data-intensive research service at the intersection of terrorism/markets. It would be must have on the desks of traders (both buy-side and sell-side), brokers, government officials, vendors, etc. and would likely generate $150 m a year in revenue. A micro-bloomberg moment.
8:09:44 AM
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Fortune. Another example of how the market is driving cultural change. Here's a big clue, delivered gratis to Republican cultural conservatives: Free markets = free choice.
7:51:56 AM
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© Copyright 2004 John Robb.
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