Eldon-Online

Direct Property - Direct Sales - Direct Pain!

If you were hoping to find a “rant” regarding some recent experiences I have had about a company involved in direct sales of property, then I must disappoint you.

Following the posting of my Blog, the company took the trouble to get in touch, and to apologise for the experience I had with them. Also, and although not as a result of my Blog, I understand the person who made the telephone call to my PA is no longer with the company. A known problem apparently.

The company has expressed a concern that my Blog may damage their business, and have requested that I remove the post. I am flattered they think I have such influence over the business community; I don’t see it myself.

Nevertheless in view of the apology, the change of personnel, and in the interests of not wishing to stifle what is a legitimate and successful business, I have agreed to the request.  

 

What's In A Name?

Hong Kong, in common I guess with other countries, allows a system of personalising car number plates. In Hong Kong however it is a profit generator. The process allows you to apply for a number plate which is then auctioned. As the originator you rather hope that no one outbids you, but I suppose it can happen.

These personalised plates are in the English language but they seem to be largely unmonitored by the Transport Department – and can lead to some irritation or misinterpretation.

I used to have a sense of humour failure myself when I saw my family name used as a "number plate".

Only because people kept asking if it was my car. Now the only satisfaction I derive is that if someone is looking for me to exact revenge for some wrong doing I may have committed, they might plant a bomb in the wrong car first, thinking it was me!! 

But this lack of "thought" if you like when the Transport Department approves the names in the first place can lead to other rather more unfortunate consequences. For example, as my rather smutty mind was working overtime a few years ago, I commented in my Blog on the wisdom of allowing a car to be registered with the plate “Fuk Hing”. And now I see we are at it again. In the last list of personalised plates up for auction that I saw is one with the name of “Lady Kaka”. Puzzled?

Kaka, it is true, is the name of a Brazilian footballer so the name does exist in another part of the world, although it might be worth pointing out that the person concerned is male rather than a "Lady". And maybe the owner of the car that will bear the "Lady Kaka" plate has the nickname of Kaka. If so, again no real harm and I must point out that I certainly mean no disrespect to her in what follows. But in the more “slangy” end of the English language “kaka” means, politely, faeces. I am quite sure that the licensing authority really doesn't know what it is accepting sometimes, and why should it - English after all is not their first language.

While on the subject of names, and language, I had the privilege of attending a talk recently by the author Lynn Truss, who wrote a great book called “Eats Shoots and Leaves”. She is very entertaining and is known as the "Apostrophe Warrior" for her defence of punctuation and the comma in particular. If you have an interest in grammar – no matter how fleeting, the book is a wonderful refresher and reminds you of the correct use of punctuation marks.

I must say that one of the irritants in my life today is getting letters (yes, and emails) that are written badly. Now I am the first to admit I am not perfect, but some things I get to read, signed by people for whom English is their first language, should actually be taken out and burnt. The authors, I suspect, in every case know exactly what message they intended to convey, but they don’t put themselves in the position of the reader. With the result that the letters often contain misspelt ambiguity. In addition this obsession with using first names in a letter is, frankly, offensive and rude. If I am happy to be addressed as “Dear David..” in a letter or email, which more often than not I prefer, I will let you know. But don’t take the liberty yourself of assuming you are already my bosom buddy.

In fact, I spoke to Ms Truss after her talk and said that I had found her book a great “refresher course”. It was not supposed to be a “Teach Yourself Grammar” book, but it certainly put me back on track, after I had fallen off the rails by employing some bad practices. (Such as I still do in these Blogs).

In our modern technologically driven world, there is still room for politeness – and for using language that is easily understood by some of us dinosaurs. Even the younger generation will benefit. It is the sloppy use of language that leads to ambiguity, ridicule, and therefore to misunderstandings.

Change ... Or No Change. Part III.

I think I have come to the conclusion that my last Blog on this subject wandered too far off the original theme. Muddled thinking helps no one, and even if I knew what I was writing about, a re-read persuades me that others reading Part II might be getting lost.

I started down this road of Change or No Change on the premise that we may think the world around us generally is changing because of the amount of activity taking place. But the reality is we are not changing very much at all. You can be in an induced coma-like state for ten years and when you wake up although things like fashion will have changed, the world around us generally has not done so. To recap, I think this is generally true of Europe ... lots of activity and not much action. North and South America, in a similar position although North America does seem to be translating some of their actions into progress. Africa meanwhile remains in the grip of corruption, and nothing positive will change on that continent until tribal issues get resolved (difficult), and the countries are run by people who will attempt to eradicate corruption (unlikely, in my view).

But what of Asia; is there change here? On the face of it, of course yes. New leaders in China, Japan and South Korea for a start, but will they create real changes?

In the case of South Korea the evident change is their first ever woman President in a country known to be a male dominated society, but Ms Park's newly sworn in administration is already beginning to hit some speed bumps. Her Defence Minister nominee has quit, and she herself has been singled out for some pretty unpleasant rhetoric from the North Korean "boy" who is starting to walk down a dangerous path of brinksmanship that might go badly wrong. Of course it seems that Ms Park's relatively narrow victory in the December election was largely due to the vote from the older members of the Korean population who remembered her Father. A military dictator, who was assasinated in 1979, was credited with growing the Korean economy but disliked for his policy of crushing dissent and preventing democratic development. One wonders how much of the father has rubbed off on the daughter.

Japan has returned to a former leader who seems to be promising to do all the things he promised to do previously as Prime Minister - but he only lasted a year on that occasion. The rather hawkish and nationalistic Mr. Abe might wish to leave more of a mark this time - and I am not sure that the consequences will be good for North Asia, or the Japanese economy that remains in recession.

China has now formally had its change of leadership. Some people I speak to are clearly unconvinced about China and what the new leaders will bring, but initial signs seem relatively positive. As with many developing economies, corruption has plagued China for years but the appointment of the no nonsense Wang Qishan to the role of Secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection might bring about some major changes in that area. The new President Xi Jinping, and new Premier Li Keqiang, at 59 and 57 years of age respectively could make some significant changes to China as it continues the process of emerging into the world, but it's not going to be easy. Much remains to be done, although I get a real sense that the new leaders are serious about doing what is necessary to create a "fair and just society" as Premier Li said the other day.

But change takes time. That is why it often appears that there has been no change. Who actually remembers the Kyoto Protocol on Climate change? Did anything substantive really come out of that? I am sure that we all remember the Basel rules for financial institutions. After many iterations of the rules, countries seemed to make up their own minds as to whether they would adopt them or not. Therefore, I would argue, why do we spend so much time, effort and indeed money on debating issues of "change". At the end of the day the changes that take place as a result of the activity are - little or no change.

Change ... Or No Change. Part II.

... as I was saying, sort of, are things around the world changing due to there being a lot of apparent activity, or does that activity result in nothing more than a gentle re-shuffle? As a result little moves too far away from where it started? 

In Part I, I had a quick look at the Middle East and Europe, of which the latter region in particular is looking clearly unwell ... but now if we hop the pond to the USA, perhaps we do have some real change. Okay we have had the re-election of President Obama so no change there then, but what about the economy? 

Fiscal cliff or no fiscal cliff, here we do have a country of which one might say the shoots of spring are beginning to show. Not consistently across the piece perhaps, but there are some positive signs that I find encouraging. Having said that, as the USA was the source of the Global Financial Crisis I suppose one should expect the earliest afflicted to have the earliest signs of the virus leaving. First in, first out. 

Anyway, America's unemployment level is down which is a good change, corporate results are selectively doing well - especially in the financial arena, and Warren Buffet has bought US household name Heinz. All signs that corporate America is raising its head positively. Hopefully it will last, because whether we like it or not, what happens in the USA still has an impact on other parts of the world. But lurking in the corner remains the ever present ultimate threat of inflation once interest rates start to rise, and that could be a harder task to manage. But overall, clearly here is a case where some of the activity that has taken place has resulted in some actual positive change.

Is Latin America changing? I am not sure it is much. Certainly Brazil is continuing to progress and Chile has been quiet and steady for quite a few years now. Argentina remains difficult, as do other areas of Latin America. And although nothing much stands out, look at the amount of commercial activity in the area of acquisitions being made by Chinese and Middle Eastern companies, as well as sovereign wealth funds. With the death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez perhaps there is some scope for real change, in that country anyway, but much will depend on who gets elected - hopefully in free and fair elections. (Unlikely say some of my Venezuelan commentators)!

To Africa, and what can one say about leaders with very dubious human rights records being elected (Kenya), a region providing a fertile breeding and training ground for terrorist groups (Somalia and Mali). A region steeped in poverty where inward investments are chanelled to the few and ignore the mass (Most places). Where investments from China tend to provide jobs for imported Chinese labour and the output, be it agricultural products or minerals, go to satisfy the needs of China leaving little behind in the host country. Nothing wrong with that strategy from a Chinese perspective - rather clever in fact, but will it be allowed to last? Lots of activity bringing about unwanted change in many cases.

But look, when I started on this current tour d'horizon which is deliberately brief and probably considered to be superficially generalist, (and currently missing Asia - of which more later), I came to realise that it does not address some fundamental issues that impact all of us. The most important of which, to me anyway, is the future.

If the suggestion I am making through the title of these two pieces is at least on the right lines, that despite all the apparent activity going on around the world there is in fact little change coming out of that activity, is it always going to be that way?

Don't get me wrong - there has been phenomenal change particularly in certain areas of technology, medicine, manufacturing processes and others. But there are also negative changes taking place in food and water supplies, and population growth. Putting a strain on our limited resources.

So I wonder whether the political and economic structures of the world today, such as they are, can actually cope with these changes? Are companies, those generators of employment and wealth, considering where they need to be in 20 or 50 years time to remain competitive? Do we in fact run around re-arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic believing that the traditional ways in which we do things today are going to prevail, or are they going to be swallowed up by newcomers who think and do things differently? It is all very well talking about the way things "should be done", but the new competitors will do things differently whether you like it or not. And what will be the role and impact of governments who think in terms of four and five year election cycles? Will those other political/leadership structures that exist elsewhere actually provide a different, and maybe more successful - model from the one we grew up with?

There are some really interesting studies out there today. Information that is readily available from a variety of sources but put together in one place so you can see almost at a glance where the problems and the opportunities exist. To enable you to consider the future, and think about how you can remain competitive.

But more of that - and Asia - in the third and concluding part.

 

Change ... Or No Change. Part 1.

There is a game show on British television which having started in Holland must exist in some form or other in additional countries, called "Deal ... Or No Deal". It's a game of chance where you hope to walk away with more money through your own luck rather than skill, than you are being offered from time to time by a faceless banker. Sounds a bit like real banking at present!!

There's no real point to that story other than that it provided the thought behind my Blog title today. For those of you who know I have not been active of late, I was thinking to myself ... in the time I have been away what's changed in our world? And the answer, as it seems to be in many "soaps" is lots on the face of it but precious little in reality, or if I were really showing off I could have called the piece "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose", in other words "The more it changes, the more it's the same thing".

The Middle East in general, Syria in particular, is not in the news quite as often as previously so you might expect all has quietened down. If you do, you would be wrong. Assad still believes he will come out of his war unscathed. Heaven help us if he does, but at this moment in time even if he were to lose there is no great certainty that peace would follow, as there are too many factions installed in Syria. Remember too that Syria is a "new country" relatively speaking. Under Turkish rule from the early 16th Century it came under the French in the early 20th Century becoming a military republic in 1963.

The region is probably also going to be heading back into the newspapers once the Iranian elections start to grab some attention and then there is Egypt which, for my money, has always been a major key to Middle Eastern stability. It's simmering like a pressure cooker. Tunisia, Bahrain, Yemen, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan - the list of potential trouble spots continue. And Israel, currently more hawk than dove, (more war than peace), cannot be left out of any solution. So, lots going on even if it's not much in the headlines, but not a lot has changed.

Europe looks decidedly uneasy. You have a comedian in Italy capturing a large share of the vote in the last general election, on a platform of getting out of any previous agreements made with the EU that would continue the austerity measure which, in my view, sadly must continue - although not in a solely cut, cut, cut environment. You must have growth too.  And Mr. Berlusconi, who seems to be desperately seeking election to avoid being tried on sex-related and corruption charges, is obviously in some Italian minds a "credible" leader. Either that or they just want to see what the hell happens next. 

Mr. Hollande, the French President would appear to be seriously out of his depth with the country getting into deeper and deeper trouble, and even Mrs. Merkel with the immense job she has done in holding it all together in Europe is going to face something of a backlash in her own country. So, even if much has been happening, has anything changed? Not really.

Oh wait, there is of course a significant change ahead in Vatican City following the resignation of the Pope. A brave move, in my view - but what hasn't changed, disappointingly, is the number of churchmen in high places who have been admitting to past indiscretions of a sexual nature. And just because these people have been falling on their crucifixes does that mean the younger generation of priests have not been doing the same sort of thing? This appears to have been a plague, passed from one generation to another.

And that little island off the coast of mainland Europe is also struggling. I actually think many of the measures being taken by Mr Cameron's government have a semblance of sense in them, but if the old adage which says it is "going to get worse before it gets better" is true,  then the Conservative party is going to be voted out of office before it does get better and Britain will be plunged into financial chaos by a new populist administration with all the hand-outs and borrowings. Maybe Scotland DOES have the right idea with wanting independence! (Please don't take that last comment seriously). 

It seems to me that the problem with politics, politicians and national economies is that everything ends up in a compromise. Can we not at least for a short period of history (during my lifetime would be nice), put the best people into those important jobs that affect the countries in which they live, irrespective of their "party" lines?  Which might take me neatly into the USA (doing better, I think), Latin America, Africa and then Asia, but at the risk of writing too much in one go, that will be for Part 2 very soon.