The perfect Christmas Gift

Finally a tip for those still wondering what to get him/her for Christmas, what could be better than the ultimate remote control to bring perfection to your wife/husband or even the kids.

The husbands model (to control the wife) comes complete with a variety of essential options including 'Remove Clothes', a 'Mute' button and crucially an option to turn off 'Pre-Menstrual Stress'! The remote also features an in-built luxury menu offering services including a breast increase/reduction dial!

For the women the control includes buttons getting him to stop "snoring", "farting" and "belching", and to talk about "feelings", "shopping" and "shoes". The latter are only 'on' buttons (unlike 'ego' which can only be switched off). However a warning, be careful what you wish for, who wants their husband talking about shopping and shoes all the time!

There are even versions available to control the kids, the boss, traffic police etc., worth checking out and all around R$15,00.

http://www.heals.co.uk/Adult-Stocking-Fillers/Control-A-Kid-Remote-Control/invt/854194&bklist=icat,4,shop,gifts,adult_stocking_fillers

Picanha Vs. Cars

Invited to a barbeque the other week, had to pop into the local super to pick up a slab of meat (picanha) and was startled by the price of R$54.07. Later discussing this with colleagues, together with the other normal masculine subjects we arrived at cars and the reductions currently on offer.

This led us to the main issue, is the car worth more than picanha?
Therefore I carried out a small research using Pão de Acucar as the supermarket price and Web Motors´best deal, together with the cars of some colleagues to see if they are really getting value for money.

As you can see from our list, the best deal is the Peugeot 307 at R$39.08 pr KG, closely followed by the Renault and Civic, our picanha comes next and the Hyundai Vera Cruz is the most expensive kilo for kilo at nearly R$70.00 per KG.
And who was it who said that the Korean cars were the cheap option?

Recession Vs. Depression

Having participated in an economic/investment event yesterday, the question sprang to mind of exactly when is a downturn a recession and when is it a depression.
We all know that a recession is when we have 2 quarters of negative growth in succession, also that the Brazilian official numbers are a touch optimistic, ipso facto Brasil should be there at the end of the first quarter next year, assuming negative growth Q4 2008 and Q1 2009.
This should be a little different from the government figures of 5.1% this year and 2.8% next year, however we are looking to 1.5% still in 2009, call me conservative.

The term "depression" is bandied around willy nilly, but few seem to have a good and less woolly definition of exactly what it constitutes.
For Wikipedia it is "a sustained, long downturn in one or more economies. It is more severe than a recession, which is seen as a normal downturn in the business cycle.
Considered a rare but extreme form of recession, a depression is characterized by abnormal increases in unemployment, restriction of credit, shrinking output and investment, numerous bankruptcies, reduced amounts of trade and commerce, as well as highly volatile relative currency value fluctuations, mostly devaluations.

Taking the 6 main points; High increase in unemployment, credit problems, investment and output shrinkage, bankruptcies, reduced trade/commerce and currency fluctuations, the US and Europe seem to qualify. The only factor unapparent so far is the "sustained" part which is obviously subjective (how long is a piece of string) and needs a bit of time to happen, so assuming things carry on into 2010 I presume we could be there officially.

The best definition I heard for the difference between recession and depression is as follows:
Recession is when your neighbour loses his job, depression is when you lose your job. I guess one positive side to this downturn is that it should produce a number of new jokes.

Happy birthday, 40 years today

Along the lines of fascinating and useless information the computer mouse was invented officially 40 years ago today by the American Douglas Engelbart at the California Stanford Research Institute.
It may have looked like a medievil automated circumcision device, but apparently you could use it on glass topped or multipattern surfaces without having to wack it every 5 minutes.
It was never supposed to be called the "mouse" but the "engelbart" doesnt have quite the same ring to it, or of course the link to the tail like wire hanging out of it.

Worth it´s weight in gold

When something is incredibly useful or dear to us we say that it is "worth it´s weight in gold" so I thought as I have a bunch of friends and colleagues who cuddle up to their iPhones every night I would put it to the test.
With the price of gold at U$D760 an ounce and an iPhone weighing 133 grams or 4.7 ounces the fair price would be U$D3,603. So you see the iPhone with the current gold price is actually a bargain.

Get real

Each day on the Bloomberg channel they interview someone supposedly knowledgeable from London about the worldwide financial situation between 6.30am and 7.00am, Brazil time.
The majority of the shell-shocked fund managers repeat the same sort of thing:"never seen anything like it", "the worst in our generation" etc. etc.
As most of them appear around 17 years old and recently out of teddy bear pyjamas , one can understand perhaps their bemusement as a generation who only new "boom" get to grips with "bust".
Obviously the interviewer always asks them when the current situation is going to end and also fairly obviously they explain that they don´t have a clue!
Until last week when someone shed some real light.
"When the companys get real" he said. Today the majority of companys are still publicly expecting growth of "just" 1% where they should be announcing a slide of around 10%. Therefore we will be enduring turbulent times as every little bit of bad news impacts us, as each company is surprised by their results, so for now we just need to hold on to our hats and hope our stomachs can withstand the ups and downs of the rollercoaster ride. As Warren Buffets´ guru replied, when asked how the market would perform, volatile, at least we can count on that.

Pure inspiration

Just had the priviledge of seeing Daniel Dias speaking at the Unimed annual convention and have to admit that was bowled over to see him and the other Olympic athletes telling their stories.
How often do we complain about out trivial problems and feel hard done by, dealt a bad hand by life/fate etc.
Then there is Daniel, born with 2 stumps instead of arms and just 1 leg, sitting there smiling away and proudly clutching 8 gold medals. He has 4 different world records and considers himself very lucky. Surely a lesson to us all, as my discussion group mentioned, you choose to be a victim or to drive your fate. His regret is that he can´t play the piano, although he gave us a great show of his drumming talent!

Wild wildlife - Photographer of the year

The results are just out on the wildlife photographer of the year. Although the American photographer, Steve Winter won the award with his snow leopard, these eagles fighting over food in Poland, snapped by Antoni Kasprzak is my favourite.
Take a look at the winners and runners-up at the Natural History Museum where they are on display.
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/whats-on/temporary-exhibitions/wpy/onlineGallery.do

The circle of life

This cartoon caught my eye and seemed worth ripping out of USA Today.
Highlighting the confusion and dissatisfaction being felt in the USA about the infusion of capital vs. the purchasing of preferential stock which most Yanks I spoke to seem to prefer. At least it´s a chance to smile after "yet another" black friday.

GPS systems can seriously damage your car

After each trip to the states or UK I realise how quickly we become dependent on GPS navigation systems (or sat nav) as the people who choose to be different call them.
How intoxicating it is to hear those soft, sexy tones and the understanding voice as she recalculates the route after being ignored. In fact it seems almost impossible to hear a female voice accepting calmly as you go past the turning she instructed, more likely that "Mrs Reality" would be screaming and threatening.

This unfortunate chap in Poland was apparently driving home from a bar and relied a little too much on the sweet voice instructing him to proceed in front. The road had been flooded and become a lake around a year before, but he trustingly followed the advice and ended up sinking fast.

Having had a similar experience in Beverly hills, getting stopped after taking a right turn where it was not allowed but instructed by GPS, I can almost sympathise...except my driver was sober as she explained herself to the nice officer.

100.000th floor please

Reserve a slot in your agenda to attend the "space elevator" convention in Japan, November, hosted by the Japanese Space Elevator Association. Thousands of scientists from all around the world will be there discussing the application of carbon nanotube to Arthur C. Clarke´s dream.

It seems that in around 25 years the first elevator can be ready, with a big tube anchored to the earth's surface reaching tens of thousands of miles into space, connected to a space station which acts as a counterweight and through inertia the whole thing stays straight.

To avoid hurricanes they propose among other options the Galapagos Islands as a potential site however, apart from the obvious turtle issue this seems slightly out of the way for your typical New Yorker/Londoner etc. http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/10/02/space.elevator/index.html

A shame to cover them up

Judging by the recent Martin Margiela show at the Paris Fashion week we seem to have been ahead of the crowd. At the Conarec event in São Paulo we took 4 of the most beautiful models in Brasil, if not the world and put dice on their heads, covering them up with just a space at the front.
The strategy showing the concept of "knowing people behind the data" or "pessoas por tras dos dados" in portuguese caused a stir and high recall, with many participants taking their photo with the girls and compementing the "intervention action".
Good to see that we were first and that this week in Paris this has now been consolidated as a new fashion trend. Here´s the link to see a bit more of Martin´s show.....photos of our models strictly reserved!?! http://content.coutorture.com/2120226

"My name is not Gordon"

For those of us that lived and laughed through the yuppy 80´s there was a glimpse of US desperation today.

We can all remember the classic film Wall Street, where Michael Douglas "Lunch is for wimps", "It´s all about bucks, the rest is conversation" showed us what capitalism was all about "I bought that building for a million dollars, at that time it was all the money in the world, now it´s just a day´s pay".

As he was campaigning against nuclear testing and trying to focus on this important issue, he was asked by some reporters about the condemnation by certain world leaders of the greed ethic. "Are you saying Gordon that greed is not good?" to which he replied, "I'm not saying that, and my name is not Gordon, it was a character I played 20 years ago"

For those of you who remember, greed was not good for Gordon Gecko, the righteous won over, he ended up in jail......with only the pleasure of giving Charlie Sheen a tap on the chin as compensation.

A trip to the butchers

After all this upheavel and volatility in the stockmarket I finally succumbed and thought that there must be some bargains out there. Yesterday I dipped my toes into the market after some sharp declines, bought those cheap retail shares which against all odds managed to drop further.

So as a reasonably mature investor I called up the broker and enquired after a little more, that´s when it hit me. I was going to pump-up on Lojas Americanas or maybe Renner and F. the broker said "You like GVT, it´s just reduced 10% today". "Wow", said I, give me a bit of that, so there I was buying a few kilos of GVT and, why not, a few kilos of LAME4 too as it´s on offer today.

The realisation that buying shares today was a bit like a trip to the butchers, wanted some meat, bought what was on offer to make the most of the special discount and......like meat, have to keep it in the freezer until it´s time to use/sell.

Shouldn´t be too long now, everyone is saying that the Brazil market is a best buy, except for Morgan Stanley....and what do they know after recent performances?!?!

Better off asking your butcher for financial advice.....incidentally GVT is back up a few percent already!!

International talk like a pirate day

Today is the day you were waiting for...September 19th. The day when everybody can don a blackbeard (or not) and talk like a pirate. If you´d like to check the official day´s website. http://www.talklikeapirate.com/piratehome.html

Obviously they are celebrating this in style in Los Angeles, if you happen to be there and want somewhere to grab a Jolly Roger and walk the plank there are a number of restaurants with special pirate celebrations. http://theguide.latimes.com/profiles/15/lists/171438

My favourite pirate is the one in the middle!?!

122 years of Hovis

This is the new Hovis bread commercial showing 122 years producing brown bread through time. Brings a tear to the eye and shows a nice bit of English History including 2 world wars, 1 world cup, the swinging sixties and the millenium celebrations.

AIG and ManU

So AIG will keep supporting Manchester United, the worries are over...... lets hope the players manage the same consistency and with $85B perhaps they could bring Robinho accross the city!

They need a bit of support up front still it seems.

Amusing to see the street interviews with "average" Americans being told that they are now sponsoring an English football team, most of them seemed fairly ok, just one young lady who said that if they had David Beckham back she would like it even more.....must be appreciative of the beautiful game.

Credit Crisis, an alternative view

Very disappointing to see all those poor souls leaving Lehman Brothers yesterday with their stuff clutched in a cardboard box, but it raised a very serious question which doesn´t seem to have been addressed as yet.

Where do these cardboard boxes all come from?

I used to think that the IT department in a company were the first to know when a person or persons were about to be "liberated to pursue other interests". They are always ready to shut down access passwords etc., but now I realise that I am wrong.

The time taken to close a password and user information is seconds (unless you happen to work in my office, but that´s another story) however the time needed to get quotes for boxes, choose suppliers and get the things delivered.....well that´s another story. So now I know..they must be the first ones in the picture.

On the cardboard box note, it seems that paper companies could be a reasonable bet for anyone who still has a few dollars/euros/yuan to gamble with...oh sorry, invest. With conservative estimates running at 500,000 redundancies by the end of the year there will be a mini boom for the plant/bottle/stapler holders.
I noticed that Klabin the biggest Brazillian paper for packaging company is investing over a billion dollars in their new expansion, from 1.6million tonnes per year to a 2million tonne capacity, creating 250 new direct jobs...seems like someone got their 5 year plan right at least.