Cuba and the US: Stranded in Time

For a couple of decades, I have assumed that the US embargo on Cuba was an anachronism that would end before long -- say, within a decade. Today, reading a 2007 review by Christopher Hitchens (in his superb final anthology of essays Arguably) of Graham Greene's Our Man in Havana, it occurred to me that I have likely been wrong in my assumption.

As Hitchens notes in his review, in 2007 Havana was "stranded in time", "compelled to remain very much as Greene described it" in 1958 (Our Man in Havana was published less than 3 months before Fidel Castro and his guerillas entered Havana in 1959). Like me, Hitchens assumed that this state of affairs is temporary, "until the day the dam breaks and the full tide of Americanization flows in".

But this temporary situations for a long time -- it has already been almost 55 years. The key reason for the impasse on Cuba is that neither Democrats or Republicans are willing to take the risk that policy change would produce electoral disadvantage in Florida, where many powerful Cubans still think of the days before the revolution. This is certainly not an idle fear. The US election of 2000 of course hung in the balance for months over the Florida vote and recounts, ultimately decided by the Supreme Court. And things were again very close in 2012, although Florida could not have changed the outcome of that election even if had gone to Romney rather than Obama.

So it suddenly occurs to me that the opening of Cuba may not happen in my lifetime, even if I am lucky enough to be around another 50 years. What a shame.

Starbucks in China: Too Expensive?!

See this post on Tech & Deal China

Overheard at the Frieze

I attended London's annual Frieze Art Fair yesterday and was underwhelmed by what I saw. There was some interesting, innovative work, but mostly the galleries and the artists that they presented seemed to be trying to be interesting without knowing what they were trying to say. In case that sounds bitchy, I'll add that I liked a lot more of what I saw at the Frieze last year.

Many Frieze attendees seemed to have a similar vice of trying to act and sound sophisticated without knowing what to make of what they were seeing. Of course views on art are subjective, but there have to be some standards of what is sensible. Here are some of the best things that I overheard:

"This for me is the most dense part of the fair. There is a lot energy here."

"Oh, really!? I mean Hong Kong. You think it's not Hong Kong?"

"Yeah, but it's not the kind of thing you would hang over your couch. You have to know the artist ... and you have to be ready to commit."

"I wanted to see a Chinese gallery, because I wanted to speak Mandarin. But I was so depressed by that one we saw that I didn't want to speak Mandarin."

Well, OK, the last one is something I said. A friend overheard and insisted that it be included in this blog. I really didn't know what to say either.

UK-China Cooperation: A Nuclear Landmark

See this post on Tech & Deal China

Dealmaking for the "Risk" of Success in China

See this post on Tech & Deal China

Airline Safety Misinformation

I was intrigued to read a review by David Pogue in the New York Times providing "factoids" on air travel safety from a new book Cockpit Confidential by Patrick Smith.  Some of these seem at best misleading, or just plain wrong.

Q. “Turbulence scares me to death. Do I have reason to be afraid?”

A. No. “A plane cannot be flipped upside-down, thrown into a tailspin or otherwise flung from the sky by even the mightiest gust or air pocket. Conditions might be annoying and uncomfortable, but the plane is not going to crash.”

My comment: This is not true for bad weather close to the ground. There have been many crashes caused by bad weather. One that disturbed me was the crash of Delta flight 191 in 1985. It may not even be true high in the air, such as in the case of Air France flight 447 in 2009, which seems to have involved bad weather plus pilot error.

Q. “What happens when lightning hits an airplane?”

A. Nothing. The energy “is discharged overboard through the plane’s aluminum skin, which is an excellent electrical conducor.”

My comment: I understand that's the usual situation, but just this week I was talking to friends whose plane lost an engine flying to Italy as a result of being struck by lightning. Maybe the air crew was lying when they said that happened, but I doubt it.

Q. “If all of a jet’s engines were to fail, can the plane glide to a landing?”

A. Yes. “There’s no greater prospect of instant calamity than switching off the engine in your car when coasting downhill. The car keeps going, and a plane will too.”

My comment: This is certainly an exaggeration. Although the plane can continue to glide, it needs to find an airport to land safely (or perhaps ditch in the ocean). The story of British Airways flight 009 in a 1982 volcanic ash cloud is instructive. Fortunately, it did not end in tragedy.

It looks to me like there were a couple of failures of fact-checking here -- one by the author and one by David Pogue (or the New York Times).

Being Ethical Matters

People and institutions with power have the opportunity to use that power for gain or for good. It has always been thus, and there is no absolute moral imperative to choose good over gain. Yet it is pleasant to observe that making that choice can have visible rewards, as two experiences in the last 24 hours have reminded me.

The first experience was the annual Elston Ethics Lecture of St George's House at Windsor Castle. Prof. Mervyn Frost of King's College London spoke on 'Ethics, Foul Play and International Relations: Understanding Asymmetric Warfare'. In the event, Prof. Frost gave relatively modest attention to asymmetric warfare and more to a broader argument that those committing 'ethical fouls' are penalised in international relations. An example from asymmetric warfare was the argument that the primary effect of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States (on whose 12th anniversary the lecture took place) was not terror but anger, and that this anger drove the United States to commit ethical fouls (e.g. Guantanamo, war on Iraq) that have reduced its international status. While I somewhat disagree with his premise (most Americans would agree that the attacks at least initially produced great fear as well as great anger), the point is a strong one. He finished by observing that the recent decision by English cricketer Stuart Broad not to walk (leave the pitch) when clearly out in an Ashes test match, while debatable, would damage the man if it became a repeated pattern of behavior. Being ethical does matter.

The second experience was the exhibit Richard Rogers RA: Inside Out at the Royal Acadamy of Arts. Rogers is one of the world's great architects. I was struck by the broad influence he has had, designing things as different as Paris' Centre Pompidou, the Lloyds of London building and an unbuilt plan for Shanghai's Pudong district, and his early partnerships with Norman Foster and Renzo Piano, two of the world's other greatest architects. But equally impressive was the fact that his firm Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners is owned by a charitable foundation, gives 20% of its profits to charity, and directly links income of partners and staff. One is struck by the contrast to the bloated financial sector, which produces outsize incomes for bankers at the risk of financial stability, with recent shrinkage in profit pools leading those at the top to protect their income by substantially reducing opportunities for younger staff. One hopes that Rogers substantial success results in part from his firm's more ethical approach, and that the finance sector will eventually pay the price of its greed. Being ethical matters, one hopes.

On a personal note, I have not met Richard Rogers, but his firm's offices are next door to my office in Hammersmith, London, and a colleague is quite friendly with him. Rogers is often visible at lunch at the River Cafe, run by his wife in the building next to our offices. I will look for an opportunity to meet him, hopefully to learn something, and less likely to enjoy some reflected glory. No apologies that my motives for this are primarily personal not ethical -- being ethical matters, but it cannot be life's only goal.

The Hopeful Polymath

I have decided on a new approach to blogging, changing the name of this blog from TIDBITs (Thoughts, Ideas, Developments and Biases on Innovative Technologies) to The Hopeful Polymath, for the reasons explained below.

Last year, I decided to focus my blogging on cross-border investment and technology in China through Tech & Deal China. This has been enjoyable, but I have decided not to pursue it as regularly for two reasons:

• I am too busy to do justice to such a broad topic. There are many news sources who do so much better, for both fact and opinion reporting. The two that I read every day are the Financial Times China pages and Young's China Business Blog.
• As I get more involved in China projects as an investor, there is an increasing risk of conflicts of interest and confidentiality concerns when I write publicly, restricting the topics about which I can blog.

So I will leave regular China blogging to others, but I will keep Tech & Deal China alive, posting any China blogs both there and on this blog -- which will become my primary blog.

The name change to The Hopeful Polymath and its new description ("Some thoughts of Maury Shenk as an investor, advisor and human being") reflects my desire and intent to broaden this blog to cover a wider variety of things on my mind, and I intend to write here more regularly. In the six years since I left law firm partnership and then set up my own business, I have discovered that what I love most in life (aside from people nearest to me) and business is learning about new things. Immodestly, hopefully, I aspire to be a polymath.