My dear friend Ola Ahlvarsson was world champion of kickboxing in 1997. During our last vacation in Jose Ignacio, Uruguay as you can see in this video Ola gave my son Tom his first training less on boxing. I used to think poorly of boxing and I still do when it gets rough but as training it seems to be safe and fun.

You can also watch this video in Youtube

I come from one of the only countries in the world that has moved from the ranks of the developed world to the less developed world. Argentina´s GDP per capita was higher and better distributed when I was born in the 60s than now. And as recent as 2002 the country was in the ropes with nearly half of the population living below the poverty line, the largest default in human history (3 times the size of Enron) and enormous unemployment. Yet, declaring default and mostly not paying its foreign debt turned out to be an incredible blessing to the country which saw most credit disappear and now lives in a mostly cash, equity economy. Argentina has very little consumer credit, very little foreign debt, very little national debt, very little corporate debt and very little mortgage debt. In Argentina cash really is king as the other forms of payment are practically non existent. So as the world goes into a US promoted credit crunch Argentina finally finds itself in a lucky position which is that of mostly having no debt isolated from global financial problems. In a way it is interesting that USA has been going around the world promoting credit as the cure to all problems using the IMF and the World Bank as its flagships and now finds itself drowning in its own medicine .  In the meantimeformer failed states such as Argentina discover that a mostly equity economy it´s much better in times of financial crisis than the indebtedness that the US was predicating for decades.  Especially when the country while in an all cash diet has been growing at 9% for the last 5 years.

PS: due to my many activities I don´t have time to research this subject but if you are an economist I would be interested in cowriting a study on all equity economies as I would be interested in studying the subject in depth.  I believe that mostly equity economies are likely to outperform heavily indebted economies as the USA in the future.

Three years ago (maybe 4) I met Erik Wachtmeister, the founder of A Small World and heard about his idea to start the social site for the jet set. I liked it, I figured that great parties would come out of it but I immediately thought that something more interesting that getting jet setters in a web site would to get the smartest people in the world in a web site. And together with my friends Andrew McLaughlin (Chief Policy Officer of Google) and Joshua Ramo of Kissinger Associates we thought of starting A Smart World.  The concept was a social site for intellectuals, scientists, writers, professors or anyone who his peers would consider a “relevant, creative thinker”.  But the idea never got off the ground as we were all very busy with our own jobs and projects. But recently I came across examples of A Smart World in different formats. One is BigThink, the vlogging site for the “smart” (horribly designed btw). Another one is Culture Hub, Stan Stalnaker´s project (I ran into Stan at a party in Jose Ignacio, Uruguay this week).  Yet nobody seems to get it totally right.

Disclosure: I am on the board of trustees of the Clinton Foundation. Having said this I would like to comment on Obama´s recent rise in the polls. Personally I think USA and the world is more likely to be a better place with the Clintons back in power. If that means more of what we had in the 90s, if that means “nothing new” so be it.   As far as I am concerned the 90s were a period of mostly peace and prosperity. This decade instead has been a time of mostly war and economic bankruptcy. But as things go maybe we won´t have the Clintons back in power. We may get Obama instead. And that would be fine. I like most of what Obama stands for. But my fear is that Obama turns out to be a Carter. A well meaning yet ineffective President. Moreover I think that the Republicans are more likely to beat Obama than the Clintons. Presidential politics is less about Presidential power per se, which is only great in foreign affairs, and more about the ability of the President to convince Congress, Governors, Mayors and others to implement policies that can steer USA in the right direction. Hillary Clinton and the Clintons in general know how to do work with local politicians better than anyone to get things done. Obama mail fail at that.  But in any case the good news is that whoever wins, even McCain, will be better than George W Bush. In the meantime the whole Republican News machinery Fox included is behind Obama so we are likely to see more of him in weeks to come.

Still on a wonderful family vacation in Jose Ignacio, Uruguay I find out that Meraki has raised 20 million dollars to build a WiFi network with a Fon like system in San Francisco.  Meraki is imitating the Fon model with a twist and that is adding a repeater or meshing function that came out of MIT for its wifi stations.  At Fon we also have had a meshing function for a while but we see difficulty in extending meshing in developed countries (meshing is good where availability of connections is low).  Meshing is opposed by our partners, the telcos because one person buys a connection and many use it for free while at Fon the principle is that if you pay for your connection and donate you roam the world for free, but not that you do that if you don´t donate.  Fon is in any case very active in San Francisco and we have many Fonspots everywhere and what makes sense to me is that Fon and Meraki find a way to roam and collaborate.

We all make our promises and I made mine which was not to blog during this wonderful vacation in Jose Ignacio, Uruguay.  It was my children´s request.  And it did not only involve blogging but also being on the internet in general.  But I think that my kids will understand if I brake the promise just to thank my readers for your insightful comments and wish you all a very happy 2008!

• When a successful entrepreneur stops investing and starts donating, paradoxically, he slows down the economy somewhat.
• The brits must have done something right cause their ex colonies rule the world…
• If people stop having kids once they realized that they were more of a financial burden than a pension…why were they having them?
• The Chinese Com Pty is hooked on selling goods to USA. US govt is hooked on selling paper to the Chinese Com Pty.
• If rich people need poor people to be rich, who r the poor that make the Scandinavians so rich?
• Piracy of US content has led to Chinese who want to be “American”. The world can’t afford this.
• Will the MBA of the future be a file transfer into our brain?
• China is now a nation of lone children.
• Most of the GDP of the world is concentrated in 7 times zones out of 24. So r most of the people.
• Why r most rich countries socialist at home and liberal abroad?
• USA has a very poorly distributed income still it is better distributed than in “socialist” Venezuela.
• Why do most rich countries support the welfare state but not the welfare planet?
• Why don’t we elect the secretary general of the UN in a global election?
• In capitalist NYC the rich pay much higher taxes (48%) than the rich in comunist China.
• Land should be taxed if left unused. Patents should be taken away if left unexploited.
• They should teach intro to consumer society at schools so kids learn all the tricks that advertisers use on them
• Humans r still killed by animals. As we grow smarter our rivals get smaller.
• Spain’s presidents don’t speak English
• education for entrepreneurs should be based on problem solving rather than memorization
• Cultures of innovation, homogeneous: Nokia, diverse: Google
• To promote organ donation they should give organ priority to those who declare themselves donors
• China is the biggest contributor to global warming now, but the one who suffers desertification the most.
• As the Chinese go for religion again the poor become christian and the rich budhist
• Plug in hybrids has the big advantage that cars are charged at night.
• Plug in hybrids are a distributed solution to our inability to store electricity
• In the Hudson River they r testing current based electricity generation.
• I like novels that manage to explain what science has fail to understand
• If knowledge is 100 I think that in 1800 we were at 5 and in 2007 we r at 10
• I can understand people who believe in God slightly better than those who believe in any organized religion
• Some predict political demands will increase in China if the economy stops growing. I think the opposite.
• Jews believe that the world was created 5768 yrs ago. 5.768bn would be almost right.
• Now that we have C sections, will brain size continue to grow?
• USA co’s beat other countries because USA’ co’s can attract best from those countries
• A true love story can’t have a happy ending
• Before science was discovered religions used to evolve.
• An avatar in Second Life consumes as much electricity as the average Brazilian
• Worldwide internet related emissions are now equivalent to those generated by the airline industry
• Most marriages fail because being everything to one person is just too hard
• The treatment of pedestrians by car drivers says a lot about a culture
• Most work a third of the day for a third of the year. Should people be defined by what they do at work?
• Is the real death of a person the last time somebody thinks about them?
• If u want to go fast go alone if u want to go far go in a group, African proverb
• Tutu is the only religious figure who makes me like religion
• You Tube should launch You tube Live for people to have live web casts of long tail sports events
• Politicians are people who are particularily trained in acting slowly.
• The key to successful parenting is that your kids get it by the time u don’t anymore
• Apple proves that decline does not mean extinction and it can be reversed.
• all currencies are sinking except the euro and the pound, when are the Arabs going to stop holding dollars?
• France still has to do the reforms that Germany did. Without this and with the euro at 1.42….
• All students should have a laptop, but not during class.
• The test of self esteem: when you find someone who has done something great, do you feel admiration or envy?
• In the US there r more black people in jail than in college
• the internet is an extension of our neural system, in a few centuries we will connect ourselves to it
• Japan’s population is aging and shrinking but the Japanese still reject immigration as a solution.
• The problem with capitalism and democracy is that capitalism, as China and Russia show, does not need democracy.
• The trouble with some journalists is that in their eagerness to tell the truth, they imagine it.
• Time mag talks about winning the climate war. Why do Americans think so many problems r “wars”?
• To rule in NYC u need $, in San Fran talent, in Paris elegance, in Madrid humor, in London all of the above.
• 2 competing urbanization models, downtown vs suburban fight it out around the world
• The Holocaust survivors who founded Israel thought that Christians were far more dangerous than Muslims to Jews.
• In ancient times kings were very rich, now the very rich r kings.
• On the average children are the poorest people in the world. Is that partly because they can’t vote?
• All children of UN countries should have one year of common education around how to get along with each other and the earth.
• When will we stop saying that Europeans discovered America and say the simple truth: that they invaded it.
• Why does my native Argentina reinvent the wheel when it gets to economics (price controls) and politics (Peronism instead of right and l … …
• A German Politician is proposing that marriage be a 7 year renewable and not a lifetime committment
• if stats show that spaniards read less books, spend less time on the net, see less movies than northern europeans, what do they do?
• Divorced parents with kids still have a lifetime relationship in a way.
• pinging is so much more energy efficient than crawling!
• Dollars r the new pesos! Funny
• A historian is a matchmaker of the past and present.
• If it wasn’t for that we still pay for stuff in the real world the ad supported virtual world would cease to exist.
• While many worry about Iran going nuclear Pakistan is and it’s on fire.
• high school is the last time in your life in which you are expected to be good at everything
• I am frequently surprised how quickly Americans call strangers amigos. Facebook is the $15bn amigo corporation.
• The best combination: Europe’s values, America’s creativity and Asia’s drive.
• If global warming increases plant mass. Shouldn’t climate change be self correcting?
• Downloading requires a lot of time and hard drive space. Streaming sites are much easier and cheaper to use.
• Spanish is an underepresented language on the internet because hispanics love to talk in real life!
• We should start a campaign on the internet against the frequent attacks from traditional media. Si a la red! Yes to the internet!
• American incomes look very high til you divide it by the amount of hours they work or convert it to euros.
• Chavez likes to say that you are either with him or with Bush. Many of us find both pathetic leaders.
• At my home streaming sent to the big TV is replacing satellite TV
• Marriage’s challenge: it’s hard not to underdeliver when u start with such an overpromise.
• what goes up must come down…. unless it goes into orbit
• if carriers implemented number portability, google should implement ranking portability so u can take your blog to another platform
• my twitter is only quiet when Loiclemeur is asleep in California 😉
• if internet advertising is so great, why do people dislike mags without ads and instead dislike web sites with ads?
• If property is theft…. what is poverty?
• Wikipedia is a collective approach to reality.
• A living organism is a genetic plan looking for approval
• PCs of all kinds should be considered cultural goods and move around the world duty free.
• selling marijuana is illegal, selling weapons is legal ??!!
• The reason infectious disease does not succeed wiping us out is that we r the pathogens homes. They could but they also need a place.
• That the US has not been attacked again proves that civilians at home do a much better job than the military abroad.
• For a country having tons of oil is a curse. Hard for citizens to come up with anything that beats money pumped from the ground.
• Many foreigners believe that USA is a dictatorship because what they get to see, US Foreign policy mostly is.
• Is the US bad loan a 50bn write off or a half a trillion write off?
• Charity is not sustainable
• Everything changes but flying hasn’t changed in 30 yrs.
• why are internet companies taking over tv and not the other way around?
• My dream wifi router would download my favorite movies on its own while I am at work.
• judaism does not oppose abortion emphasis is on healthy baby not conception
• Populist leaders are bad, but unpopular leaders are worse.
• Oil is bad but coal is worse
• USA is the only country that supports the death penalty….that you would want to live in.
• Christmas was invented to get over the depressing winter days, in my native Argentina it comes at exactly the wrong time.
• Slim, #1 rich man in the world has wealth equiv to 7% of the Mex GDP. Gates 0.4% of US GDP.
• Methamphetamine is the most important drug you have never heard about (or taken)
• Life’s challenge is not to have problems but to learn how to deal with them.
• Why should we care more than China about North Korea’s atomic bombs?

I don’t twit in the traditional sense of the term (internet tradition is measured in months not years). I don’t generally tell people what I am doing. Instead I twit what I am thinking about. For year end I will post what Evan Williams, founder of Twitter, appropriately called thought nuggets.

• Ireland shows that to thrive you don’t need to have leading global companies. U just need for them to like u.
• having children is the only miracle we can experience in real life
• will the next web finally be the one in which the interface is human meaning speech, video, sound, and not keyboards and text?
• i am now trilingual, mac, ubuntu, windows, but I rarely use windows anymore
• Why is top blogging equal or better than top print and top video blogging a la youtube so much worse than cable TV?
• the best internet conferences in Europe are DLD, Google Zeitgeist, Le Web 3 and SIME
• facebook: your social CV
• my favorite Nokia apps are shozu. fring and pocketcaster
• Are Putin and Hu Jintao dictators or are they necessary intermediary steps between Stalin, Mao….and democracy?
• There are 3 approaches to immigration: no immigrants like Japan, low skilled immigrants like Spain, most qualified immigrants around the wo …
• FedEx proves that moving things is much more profitable than moving people.
• virtual philanthropy, second life or stardoll can give virtual property away for free to people in poor countries
• Airlines are masters at affinity programs yet they don’t seat people on planes according to affinities.
• There r 3 Arab civil wars going on now in Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq.
• With global warming the amount of cells in the planet will increase.
• Would Sarkozy love an Obama led America as much?
• I was against Sarkozy but I sincerely hopes he brings a sense of urgency to complacent France
• A few months ago the future was in Second Life, now the future is in Facebook, where is the future going to be tomorrow?
• USA tries to stop illegals at the border. Europe on the streets.
• I work better since I abandoned Microsoft for Ubuntu and Mac. But I can’t wait for browser based computing to be ready.
• Coming from Europe, Canada seems like a kinder, more caring, USA.
• in USA “undivided attention” is a thing of the past
• Are social networks about being social or about self promotion.
• Facebooks success is like America’s: immigration.
• San Fran. One of the most beatiful cities in the world. Even the homeless seem to agree.
• Why is it that in Europe most parking is underground and in America is not?
• I am in the wine country. Didn’t know they had such a country. Its just beautiful!
• Calistoga, Healdsburg, areas, add them to the list of places to see…
• When u fly in America, u realize that terrorism won.
• Why if women do not compete with men in sports do they fight agaimst them in war?
• there are over 700 people worth over $5 million thanks to the rise in Google share price
• Skype should offer an open API for chat even if it does not for voice. If not Google Talk will eventually catch up.
• forget about the war on drugs, i want to start the war…on war
• One measure of civilization: lowest police per capita.
• as population grows, there are more people who believe in past lives that there are past lives available for them
• Israel is the home of over one million Palestinian. None of them become terrorists.
• Is it possible to be a very well educated person and not speak English?
• Since Facebook opened apps all the other communities I belong to are going silent.
• It is easier for me to understand why humans die than to understand why they sleep.
• Chile has the best government in Latin America, but the worst music. In Cuba the opposite is true.
• The Bible by proclaiming virginity leaves out the only miracle we do experience in real life: conception.
• Nintendo fanboys are sheep, Sony fanboys are crabs, PC gamers r hermits
• The best two service economies are USA and Japan. One is based on tipping. The other one on duty.
• the iPhone is web 1.0, it s a great spectator phone, but you can’t film, the camera is very poor, it’s amazing to read but poor to write on …
• Pakistan’s ruler likes the West but his people hate it. Iran has a ruler who hates the West, but his people like us. Pakistan has the bomb. …
• Enhanced TV is the TV industry answer to time shifting
• 2006 was the year with most TV sold in USA, most TVs sold over 50 inches
• HBO is the only big TV network without ads, can that last?
• US regulators believe that anyone in finance who is consistently generating alpha is cheating
• Londons recent lead gain over NYC is mostly due to poor US reg moves
• U cannot chat, film, gps on an iPhone.
• Companies r taken private when investors think they will be misunderstood
• The net neutrality fight, to US consumers, is like hearing divorced parents argue, consumers need both, papa and mama
• The fastest growing population segment in OECD countries is those over 65
• A smoker has on the average 3400 dollars of extra medical costs per year in USA
• Health Care systems should be rated along 3 axis: quality, access and cost.
• The secret to how grandparents get along so well with grandchildren is their common enemy
• The members of the Forbes 400 pay less taxes in percentage terms than their receptionists
• USA has a 250bn deficit with China. USA gets goods. China gets paper.
• U want to buy a biz that an idiot can run cause sooner or later one will, pete lynch
• As I listen to Bill Gates present I realize that he is falling out of touch with the times.
• Microsoft Surface, computer on your desk gets in your desk, looked cool
• George Burns got 4 amazing girls for his 95th bday. He saw them and said: sorry babes, I am 95, one of u has to go.
• Warren Buffett’s political views would make him very well liked in Europe. In USA he gets away with them.
• USA and Europe lose a lot by training foreign students and then refusing them work visas.
• The NYC public school system has to deal with students whose parents speak 170 different languages
• In the States education is managed by mayors, not presidents
• Biz is on on dog eat dog world, politics is just the reverse
• Problem: politics has gone global but policies remain local
• Many local problems only have global solutions
• Tony Blair a hero of mine in spite of Iraq. I wish he ran the UN
• Bush argues that if USA leaves Iraq the country will fall into chaos. At this point it is more likely that the opposite is true.
• Americans defeat the weather. In the winter…it’s too hot, in the summer it’s too cold.
• Carlos Slim is the wealthiest man on earth. Mexico’s GDP is 1/17th of that of USA.Slim’s wealth says a lot about poor income distribution! …
• in madrid people are nasty in the upper class suburbs and nice downtown, in NYC the opposite is true
• in America the rich are mostly visible, in Spain they are mostly invisible
• in America many people take their babies out of their homes and drive them around to put them to sleep…
• NY Times says USA has become one of the countries with the most road fatalities rates, it ranks bet Poland and Greece.
• in New Hampshire its legal to drive without your seat belt: live free or die?
• the Youtube/CNN debate made the Time cover true, the clipmakers were the protagonists
• the Americans invent, the Europeans design, the Chinese manufacture
• China is replacing USA as the growth engine of the world. USA is slowed down by military spending and legal waste.
• USA’s real estate market moves in two different waves, one for 99% of the population and the other for 1% of the population
• Many conspiracy theories come out of poor policy choices. People can’t believe that their gov is so incompetent and attribute higher motives …
• I prefer to know what people are thinking than what they r doing
• do first born children have more sleeping problems? if they do it must due to the inexperience of the parents
• women are overcoming 10K years of oppression in 50, not bad
• Americans let teens drive at 16 but get to drink at 21. I think it would be best if teens could learn to drink in moderation and then drive
• When it gets to sex and alcohol the US gov makes teens feel and act like criminals.
• Endowments many times survive their reason to exist
• Freedom is the ability to lead a life without fear
• in Argentina where I grew up being very thin was associated with being poor, in the Hamptons where I am now the opposite is true
• USA should lower the drinking age and raise the driving age
• 40% of bottled water in the States is tap water
• Back in Spain, make a GSM call, quality far superior to US, why r US cell nets so bad?
• Since 1980 the number of imprisoned Americans grew 450%
• How can the Spaniards work so little compared to the Koreans and have the same GDP per person?
• Is Google atmospheric P/E a blessing or a curse for googlers?
• People get much more energy per kg of food than engines running biofuels.
• flying and sailing have much more in common than people think, people who are afraid of flying but not sailing should learn about this
• Laws should follow the principles of inactive email accounts, after certain years of not being used they should be deleted
• Paradox: in Europe the highest holocaust survival rates were among German Jews.
• Can fully veiled women be candidate in an election?
• The next big thing in tattoing is to tattoo objects
• Books are tools for communication and as such they are becoming outdated
• Why do so many people believe supermarket food poisons them?
• Ten percent of Protestants, 21 percent of Roman Catholics, and 52 percent of Jews do NOT believe in God.
• there are 1,4 billion Mulsims and 14 million Jews in the world
• there are over 6bn people on the planet, around 1 bn consider themselves non religious
• Religious theories are shortcuts towards explanations
• Europe and USA diverge on death penalty, guns, religion in politics, environment, military spending, egalitarianism, beaurocracy, transport
• When credit markets get shaky LDCs credit tanks first even when they run surpluses. Hard for them to believe in markets.
• When people tell me that we all had previous lives somehow I can’t work out the demographics
• Virginity: the rare occasion in which beginners are praised.
• People who are afraid of chemicals don’t seem to realize that all that we see and eat are chemicals.
• Americans can’t remember, Europeans can’t forget, Asians can’t forgive
• Digital photography. You can always do prints…you never do.
• I have a hard time with the notion that our TV signals will be around the universe once our planet is gone.
• The Southern hemisphere is mostly water, less able to eliminate carbon emitted in the North.
• There are more bacteria in your body than years in the universe.
• Antartica is technically a desert
• Learning requires focus, focus requires that we ignore most else, so learning requires ignorance?
• Judged by numbers, the animals who we hate, rats, have been doing better than the ones we like,cats.
• I spent hours thinking about a plausible theory of why humans like music and dance so much, could not come up with anything reasonable…
• When non US people buy dollars US citizens get richer. If those buyers shift to euros….
• Birth rates collapse when people children as a financial burden rather than life insurance. Is that why they were having them?
• weeks are an irrational division of time
• University is the place where professors teach u what they were never able to do
• Species need lucky mutants to evolve, does human knowledge need thinking mutants to expand?
• Anyone who is anybody spends time on the internet. If I was looking for Osama Bin Laden I would look for him online.
• USA is the only country able to export famous people, why?
• Growing old in America: Dawson’s Creek, Friends, Sex and the City, Desperate Housewives and Weeds.
• humans process food much more efficiently than cars, another reason to oppose biofuels
• global warming is bad except in the fact that it increases the amount of living cells in the planet
• Addiction treatments like AA rely on 0 tolerance for addictive substance. This is not possible with addiction to food.
• Does children happiness correlate better with parents being together or with time spent with parents?