#should have gone further than governments feeble attempts

[shattered-pieces]

I still think we should have made a movie about Ukraine. Several movies. (Someone who cared about Ukraine should have done it. There must be some- United24 has some celebrities...). People would be able to see it from the inside. Not just mostly from news reports. But stories. That's how we connect with people in a fundamental way. It could help people empathize more.... and give facts, help people actually see what's going on, show the overall situation... but also from the eyes of people they would come to care about throughout the movie.

Perhaps a war movie or 2. Other movies to show Ukraine isn't just about war. (I know it takes a while to make a movie but has anyone even started one...?)

Perhaps a bestselling book as well (if possible to make a book a bestseller... at least attempt to). Somehow spread more stories from Ukrainians over here. It's still "over there" to a lot of people. Why should I care about it? they say. Well..... there are a lot of reasons but. Some are that russia is killing people, torturing them.... maybe we should care about that? It also might spread. We should show a spotlight on what russia does... because if people really realized the horrors they're doing and that it could spread... really see what Russian propaganda is saying... what the putin regime is and what it's done and what it intends... Many people focus on Ukraine sadly in a way that's like, it's taking all our money. Well... thats because russia is going all out in this war... of course it wants to win. Do we? We barely realize there's a war and don't realize it should be our war. Russia is targeting us as well-- blasting us with psychological warfare and we're just sitting here absorbing it like a russian boomer absorbs Z TV.

As a writer I would like to write a book but idk if it could be done, if i could write about Ukraine or it should be left to Ukrainians to tell their story. I would like to go there and learn more about it...

It would be nice if it could be done fast but could it be effective then. If it could be good enough to help Americans see Ukraine from the inside.... it's true that novels actually help people empathize more than anything on a screen. Words absorb deeper. (While movies and TV are good at just having people absorb things without thinking much..... do focus mostly on emotions...) .

[rulystuff]

https://servicemeltdown.com/mexico-a-work-in-progress/

New Post has been published on https://servicemeltdown.com/mexico-a-work-in-progress/

MEXICO: A WORK IN PROGRESS

Editor’s note: The very same day I arrived in the city of Monterrey the local news reported that police had found six severed heads in the trunk of a car parked at a gas station. I was in Monterrey to lead a seminar and workshop on Service Management to a local group of business men and women over the coming three days and this was hardly the welcoming I was expecting.

I have traveled widely throughout Mexico and the city of Monterrey in particular for more than twenty years on business and have followed the nation’s gradual descent into violence and death. The depredations of the drug cartels in recent years, however, bear witness to a country which despite its potential and promise is on the verge of perhaps never returning from its infernal evil.

In the last decade alone, nearly two hundred thousand people have lost their lives many of whose bodies have been found horribly dismembered strewn on streets or hanging from bridges. In addition, people numbering in the tens of thousands are now classified as desaparecidos or people who have mysteriously gone missing.

The usual rationalization one hears in Mexico – aside from pointing the finger at America’s insatiable appetite for opioids – is that the violence is self-contained as drug cartels struggle with each other for supremacy in a local area. This is a naïve if not a feeble attempt at putting a good face on a grievous problem. Yes, the bulk of the dead are members of one cartel or another but police officers and military personnel have also been killed in ambushes and skirmishes with the heavily armed cartels. In addition, many innocent civilians, including tourists and foreign workers, have either been caught in a cross fire or purposely targeted so as to intimidate the local citizenry.

The plague that is the Mexican drug war seems no longer confined to the handful of states that have historically been a hotbed of crime. More and more drug cartel violence has been in evidence in tourist areas such as Acapulco, Cancun, Los Cabos, and Playa del Carmen. This has to be of concern to government officials as tourism is one of the largest sources of foreign exchange for the country. Still, Mexico is the most frequent destination for Americans with over thirty-five million tourists visiting the country in 2016.

President Enrique Peña Nieto, of the historically corrupt Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), sought an accommodation with the drug cartels. His approach was to push the problem down to local law enforcement. In contrast, Nieto’s predecessor, President Felipe Calderon saw the problem as one infringing on national security and one that required a more kinetic approach in seeking out and eliminating the perpetrators.

Nieto’s approach speaks for itself, however, as bloodshed has spiked to record levels. Homicides are now averaging in excess of 2,000 per month and will likely exceed 30,000 in 2017. That works out to about 25 homicides per 100,000 population. The comparable figure in the United States is about 5 per 100,000. Americans traveling in Mexico are especially at risk as approximately 600 souls were killed in the period 2009 to 2016. This makes Mexico the number one killing field for Americans, by far, of any country in the world.

WHY DO BUSINESS IN MEXICO?

In the 1990’s, I employed approximately one hundred workers in a software development center in Monterrey. We chose Monterrey – the second largest metropolitan area in Mexico with over four million inhabitants and the highest per capita income in the nation – for our development center because the city is a financial, commercial, and industrial powerhouse. The city is cosmopolitan with important museums, and an abandon of chic hotels, malls, boutiques, and restaurants. The city’s infrastructure of roads and highways is above average albeit in much need of repair. Telecommunications is adequate but remains hamstrung by the presence of a nation-wide duopoly that chills foreign carriers from entering the market. It is comforting, but also rather unsettling to see the ubiquitous presence of armed military personnel patrolling the streets.

The city made logistical sense to our company because it was proximate to our hubs in the West and Midwest of the United States, and to markets in South America. Mexico City, a huge market in its own right, with over twenty million population and the nation’s financial, government, and administrative center, is an hour and a half by plane. The icing on the cake, however, was the fact that Monterrey is blessed with some of the finest institutions of higher learning anywhere.

The Monterrey Institute of Technology, known as el Tec, is a world class university known for its STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math – undergraduate and graduate programs as well as its programs in business and healthcare. Most of the graduating students are not just highly competent in their own disciplines but most have a working knowledge of English. Furthermore, the workforce embraced with enthusiasm our service mission which in a few words is encapsulated as “customers are first.” Without a doubt, the young men and women who worked for us were some of the best in our employ anywhere in the world.

The software development center proved to be a big success. President Ernesto Zedillo visited the site, gave a rousing speech of praise and spoke of the ushering of a new era in Mexico.

IT’S GOING TO TAKE MORE THAN MAQUILADORAS

Mexico’s GDP ranks 15th worldwide at $1.1 trillion and is within striking distance of countries such as Spain, Australia, and even Russia. Two thirds of the nation’s GDP is comprised of services such as banking and tourism. At a macro level, Mexico has the potential to vault higher in the GDP rankings. The country is blessed with ample natural resources, ports of entry in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, a young and industrious work force, an abundance of new graduate engineers, and close ties to the largest economy in the world. Mexico’s economy will have to grow, however, at a more aggressive clip than it has experienced over the recent past. The growth in GDP over the last ten years, for example, has been virtually nil.  By all accounts, a developing nation like Mexico should sport a very lofty growth rate. GDP on a per capita basis, too, is bleak: Mexico ranks 72th among all nations and is immediately behind Russia.  By comparison, Australia’s GDP per capita is nearly six times that of Mexico.

Mexico’s maquiladoras – export based and usually foreign-owned manufacturing companies – are booming due to the nation’s modest labor rates. In addition, The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has given Mexico access to the huge United States market under very favorable trading terms. But further growth is going to depend on whether the United States has any appetite for continuing to endure an annual trade deficit of roughly $70 billion.

Entrepreneurial new job starts, especially in knowledge industries, must remain a top priority to smartly diversify and spur the economy. To that end, Mexico needs to develop its private equity and venture capital ecosystem which currently is paltry. More fund managers, more capital, and, in the end, more confidence needs to come into the system to give a shot in the arm to young and innovative new businesses and industries. Commercial credit both short and long term is prohibitively expensive and therefore not a viable alternative for most development stage companies.

My experience here is telling. I had a client with a terrific and viable business plan in the e-learning space. The business had a modest revenue stream and was led by a team of very competent and experienced managers. The startup was headed by a CEO with a doctorate in computer science. Potential investors in the U.S. were rightfully wary of investing in Mexico and risk losing the protections afforded minority investors in the United States. As an alternative, I approached the CEO to re-domicile the business in San Antonio but that proved to be a non-starter for a variety of personal reasons. In the end, we were unable to find investors in Mexico who would belly up to the risk-reward profile of a technology-based startup.

Other precautions must be heeded by the foreign investor seeking to do business in Mexico. An early bridge which must be crossed is how to denominate a contract. We always insist on dollar denominated deals given the Mexican peso’s historically erratic nature – the peso has declined 100% in the last ten years and is now at twenty pesos to the dollar – but successfully negotiating all of the relevant terms is not easy. Also, contract negotiations can prove to be arduous as business practices which might appear to be matter-of-fact to the local businessman seem opaque to us. In one instance, our Mexican partner’s organization was so labyrinthine that it was difficult for us to fix a point of liability in the event of a breach. Mexico is not a common law jurisdiction and therefore expert legal advice is mandatory in order to interpret laws enacted by the various legislative bodies. Finally, corporate financial statements in Mexico can diverge significantly from GAAP standards and will normally require financial and tax advice to harmonize. These and other institutional and cultural reforms are the order of the day if Mexico despite all of its promise and potential is to clamber out of its current economic malaise.

[davidmann95]

If the argument can be made of both Superman and Clark Kent being the real person, then what's actually stopping the Superman persona from going Justice Lord/Injustice to secure his truth and Justice ideals in both Pre Flashpoint and New 52, especially if Lois Lane played a factor or not?

Well, generally speaking, I hear Superman’s a pretty swell guy, who’d never consider crushing the feeble forces of the Earth beneath his unrelenting, eternal bootheel of steel.

You know. Generally speaking.

As for the main version, it’s simply not something he’d do under any reasonable circumstance. He believes in human freedom and self-determination, and that his decisions aren’t above the will of the people, or any more *inherently* correct than anyone else’s. Even if he did think of it as a better immediate option than a given ruling power - and let’s be real, the nicest guy on Earth being in charge and using his superpowers to fix everything would be objectively preferable to any actual government that has ever existed - he knows he can’t decide how he’s interpreted by the world, and his rule would be a mandate to future generations of citizens and superheroes that enlightened fascism is terrific, and might can indeed make right so long as you’re really sure you know best. It’s a recipe for disaster.

Lord Superman obviously takes a pretty different approach.

Much as parts of that come across now as distressingly plausible, it’s also clearly not any version of Superman we would recognize. He makes his decision to take over the world in the aftermath of that in a place of total calm rationality, which like I said, doesn’t make sense for him. However, this is also a version who implicitly was saving the world out of ego, he enjoyed killing and his Batman had no problems with it, and the team was apparently always known as the Justice Lords rather than the League, so we can assume he’s a very, very different man from the one we know anyway.

The Injustice guy is clearly quite different himself. His Lex was an ally and a good man - and lacking Lex as an opponent to force him to question himself is a pretty good way to potentially weaken his moral fiber a critical bit - Wonder Woman is straight-up evil from word one as a corrupting voice in his ear (Tom Taylor admitted that while he tried to justify Superman’s behavior in the comic as well as he could, he essentially had to write her as just being an evil parallel universe version given what the game presented), and it’s implied there was maybe always something deeper disturbed in him, with the Kents recalling that when he first realized as a kid he didn’t have to sleep he spent months sitting on the roof each night, watching with his scary glowing red eyes for dangers to make sure nothing would hurt his family. But even those aside? Injustice is as close as I can imagine a story coming to justifying Superman spiraling over the edge.

To be clear, that’s not the same as saying Injustice was a good story that should have happened. Tom Taylor did the best he could with this, but it’s still a story predicated on Superman being drugged by the Joker into punching his pregnant wife into space, which nukes Metropolis. Even if I was in the market for any more evil Superman stories at this point - the answer being no on that unless Mark Waid feels like doing an Irredeemable follow-up - I think we can conclude that if THAT is what’s required to justify your premise, then probably even in a wild anything-goes superhero universe we can assume that it’s a dumb premise there’s not much point in investigating. Hell, Taylor wrote two stories himself in there, one of which was the last thing he did in his tenure, about how it’s a bad, depressing premise that never should have happened. Seriously, it’s almost as blatant as if he’d plastered “I swear to god I’m only doing this for the paycheck” on the back cover of all the collections.*

But if you’re willing to allow those dumb, wrong-headed circumstances, a lot of it actually makes sense character-wise. Assuming he could somehow acquire the materials needed, it’s a believably Joker plot, twisting the Superman victory conditions (he beats up a monster and saves Lois) into destroying everything he’s ever loved. I buy that a lot of the Justice League would be bought in by Superman’s initial response, and then could be strung along further because the alternative would be admitting Superman isn’t really Superman anymore. More than that, it’s not quite a simple matter of “Superman is bad now”. In the aftermath of losing everything his immediate first instinct is to continue rescuing people, but with the psychological damage he’s sustained, the convictions and standards and moral clarity underpinning what he does fades into background noise against the immediacy of saving the greatest number of lives possible. Every attempt at holding him back and eventually defying him aggravates the scar on his soul, making him push back, leading to further push-back and aggravation on his end, until his initial motivations behind what he’s doing are lost. It’s not “Superman decides fascism is awesome”, it’s “Superman is having a catastrophic nervous background in the aftermath of a scale of trauma unheard of in human history, and because he’s Superman and no one can actually physically force him to stop and calm down and listen, attempts at doing so can only agitate his already-vulnerable mental state further until he finally loses himself completely”. Insomuch as I believe anything could ever push Superman to calmly laser-vision Billy Batson to death, that’d pretty much have to be it. Though again, if things need to be pushed that far to even kind of believably get an evil Superman, it’s probably not something that ever needs to be worried about for the regular guy.

* If you’re interested, this is a great standalone story by Taylor on how ultimately depressing the very idea of a “Dark Superman” is, and this is the two-parter closing out his time on the book, showing a dream of what would have happened if Superman and his friends had managed to save the day at the beginning after all, which basically ends with Taylor all but turning to the reader and saying “this is how the story should have gone, this is the proper ending”. If you’re curious what a proper Tom Taylor Superman Story would look like, I’d seriously recommend checking out his really fun three-part Batman/Superman arc with Robson Rocha, starting here. You’d never think the guy behind Injustice would have a damn clue what to do with Actual Superman, but based on the strength of these (and his great work on Superior Iron Man and All-New Wolverine) I’d 100% up for seeing what a run by him on Action Comics would look like.

[heartfeltheart]

Alchemy: Tiny Steps

Chapters: 31/45 Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist/Harry Potter Rating: T Relationships: Edward/Winry, Lan Fan/Ling, and May/Alphonse. Primary Characters: Edward Elric, Severus Snape Additional Tags: Crossover, Teacher!Edward, BrOtp Edward/Severus. Sassy beyond measure. Pro!Snape Series: Part 2 of 9. Summary: Part two of the Alchemy Series.  Politics. Either you love it, hate it or you live it. For Alchemy Teacher Edward Elric, he lives it, hates it and loves it when he gets the upper hand. Here is to another year of hell… D/C: I do not own Harry Potter or Fullmetal Alchemist. Discord: La Red(Mesh Mash of… stuff.): https://discord.gg/KYjmVAb Alchemy Series: https://discord.gg/DejEYNJ

"I knew it… I…I knew it. They never trusted me."

"Fear controlled their thoughts and the safety of their child… If it is any sort of consideration, Remus… You were never on my list…"

"Heh…Coming from the Indomitable Amelia Bones… That's a major compliment36…" Remus smiled wryly at the Minister, over his steaming cup of hot chocolate. The two were in his small cabin that had seen better days, Moody and Tonks are waiting outside to give them some privacy. The smile quickly fell as memories over flooded into his mind. "They still talked or wrote to me, but you could tell how tense they were. How they would only talk about certain subjects, avoided talking about other things… I just assumed it was the stress but now… It makes sense."

"I am not going to make up excuses for them, you still have one friend that was quite possibly been framed for something he did not do."

"A friend whom I have been blaming the death of so many for years."

"Now, we do have people to blame for the imprisonment."

"What are we going to do?"

"We?"

"I am not going to allow my friend to continue to rot in that blasted place any longer. If it means I have to diminish the memory of the dead, then so be it."

-.-

"Hello Mr. Elric… Mr. Elric… Mr. Snape…" Kavex greeted the three humans, signaling for them to head into his office. Both Alchemy instructors and Potion's master followed behind the goblin through Gringotts.

Alphonse didn't have the words to describe Diagon Alley, let alone the goblin run bank. Sure, he has been to the Alley once or twice, but never truly appreciated the sights. During those times, he had seen the bank but never went inside. Never came up or needed a reason to. He and Edward had received a letter via owl from his brother's vault keeper, that's what he think it's called? The reason for the visit was not fully explained in the letter, just to come to the bank. When he asked Edward about it, the older of the two just shrugged and went on to say he needed to leave the Wing to get fresh air. At least Madam Pomfrey finally allowed Edward under the supervision of Severus.

"How are my stocks, Kavex?" Edward asked the goblin with a loud yawn.

"They are doing rather well, Mr. Elric. Is there anywhere else you intend on investing?" Kavex asked as he opened his door to reveal his office that is covered with documents, books, jewels, precious stones, and even weapons that would make any goblin proud. He signaled for his guest to sit while he sat in his own seat while pulling up a couple of scrolls and an old book. "Are you three positive on having Mr. Severus Snape be here while we talk about what I found?"

"I am okay with this, he was here with me when I first came here." Edward shrugged, he looked over his brother to see him look pensively at the question. "We could make him promise us not to say anything. Kavex is a sneaky bastard but not one to talk."

"Thank you, Mr. Elric for the compliment."

"If it makes you feel comfortable, I'll wait outside."

"No, no. If big brother trusts you, then…" Alphonse trialed off, not knowing what else to say.

"Then, everybody sit done. What I found might take a long while to explain… but first…we should open a vault for Mr. Alphonse Elric, once doing so, it would open more doors to this mystery of your father's vaults."

"Father?"

"Vaults, as in plural? More than one?"

"I cannot say more until Alphonse opens a vault… doing so would reveal more."

"What do I have to do?"

"He needs your blood."

"Eh?"

-.-

"They… are looking for lost artifacts?"

"From what we found out, the village that is stationed near Briggs was one of the oldest sites of Drachma, and when…we took… the area, many of their countries relics became lost. It was until recently it was discovered what exact location where they were last known."

Mustang looked through letters, notes and several documents that the British Minister of Magic sent over to them. Apparently, Colonel Elric had talked to the Minister and asked for a favor for another favor. To think they are right next to a country that secretly wields magic doesn't settle well for him, but at least they show no hostility towards them unlike Non-Magical Drachma. Magical Drachma is more…open… when it comes to their problems if you know what to ask and willing to give back. "In Private Trail reports, when Amestris took over the land… everything that appeared valuable was gone. No one knew what became of whatever it was there… If we don't know, they don't know and that leaves a third party."

"Could it be…?" Havoc shrugged his shoulders in a motion to avoid saying what could very well be the third party.

"Possible. Very possible, even so. Trail has not seen anything that could possibly lead us further to what they are looking for." Mustang rubbed his forehead in frustration.

"Could it possibility that the Elric's brothers father…?"

"Even if he is a possibility, the man is dead and neither boys neither of them ever mentioned they inherited anything from him."

"They could have gotten something but never mention it?" Falman questioned.

"No… Edward would always come to me whenever his father is mentioned or done something he considers idiotic to me. Did you know Hohenheim wrote a book on Alchemy and dedicated it to his family."

"If my ears don't deceive me… you sound jealous."

"I'll make you do just paperwork for an entire month, Havoc."

-.-

"This is one of the few times I regret having a stomach…" Alphonse had on hand covering his mouth and another clutching at his stomach at a feeble attempt to keep his breakfast down. He shakily stepped out of the cart that lead him to his new vault. He had thought he needed to sign something in his blood, but apparently the last thing that was needed is to open a vault to use one's blood. First stop they were taken is the Edward's vault before they take him to his own, fortunately for him, it's next to the one they right in front of.

"Shut up…" Edward wasn't so successful in keeping his breakfast in.

"Keys, Mr. Elric." Kavex extended his arm out towards Edward's direction.

Edward wiped his mouth with a handkerchief Severus had handed him. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a dull golden key. "Here."

Kavex took the key and promptly opened the vault.

Alphonse peeked into the vault to see that the entire room is filled with cenz, paper and coin, gold, and magical currency. He knows of his brother's finances, he took care of the money side of their travels. This… where did this come from? "Brother…"

"…I have Kavex deal with my money."

"Why did I get the feeling you are taking advantage of the people here."

"Nooo! Meeee?"

"He has Kavex do that for him." Severus deadpanned.

"We agreed to not talk about that!"

"We agreed to no such thing."

"Just take what you need, Mr. Elric."

"Just take what you need, Mr. Elric~" Edward mimicked Severus while he picked up handfuls of magical currency and stuffed them into his pockets.

"What are you going to do with all of that, Ed?" Alphonse asked, seeing his brother fill his coat's pockets with money.

"Mr. Elric is planning on adding it into the Muggle Raised Student Welfare vault."

"Oi!"

"You didn't say anything about keeping it quiet about it with your brother and Mr. Snape already knows…"

Edward grumbled under his breath, he was done filling his pockets and headed out of his vault. He avoided seeing his friend and brother while doing so. When he had asked Kavex about how students could afford school supplies. What he was told of the program that was set up by the Ministry, and how corrupt it became throughout the years. Government employees have been taking out funds from the vault for personal gains leaving little to nothing to many students. Fortunately, with Bones as Minister, she put a stop to that and did the proper protocols to ensure said individuals are punished properly. Since then, he's been 'secretly' been putting his own money into the program. "Let's just get Alphonse to his own vault."

"Right this way then…" Kavex lead everyone out of the vault, once everyone was outside, he promptly closed the vault. He then took them to a vault next to Mr. Elric's own vault. The other Mr. Elric will need a single blood drop to open the vault to ensure it is imprinted and possibly open other doors once both Elric Brothers are recorded into the bank. "If you could…?"

Alphonse hesitantly reached over and placed his hand into Kavex's own. The goblin used his index finger nail to scratch the human to draw blood. He let go of Alphonse's hand and slid his hand over the door before he took several steps back. The sounds of the door being slowly unlocked and open with a loud audible creak. Once the doors were fully opened, Kavex pulled a key from his pocket and handed it over to Alphonse.

Alphonse took the key and he slowly headed into the vault. Prior of coming down to the catacombs of the bank, he had already transferred money into the vault and turned it into Magical currency. What he saw appeared to not add up. There is far more than he would of thought than it should be in there. "What's the exchange rate?"

"It's ridiculous."

"Blame the wizards, bloody morons and their pathetic ethics."

"Sounds about right."

"…."

"What? You know it's right, Severus?"

In a heavily written document somewhere in Kavex's office, words glowed and began to rewrite itself the moment the younger Elric blood was noted into the magical system.

[d2kvirus]

Dickheads of the Month: October 2019

As it seems that there are people who say or do things that are remarkably dickheaded yet somehow people try to make excuses for them or pretend it never happened, here is a collection of some of the dickheaded actions we saw in the month of October 2019 to make sure that they are never forgotten.

In a really, really mature move proven liar Boris Johnson sent a letter to the EU to request a Britait extension but didn’t sign it, in a feeble attempt to try and say that an official letter from his office doesn’t count if he didn’t sign it and he absolutely should not have to fulfill his promise of claiming he’d rather be dead in a ditch than request an extension

Of course Priti Patel would try and claim the Tories are the party of law and order during her conference speech in spite the minor issue her speech came a week after the Tories were ruled to have unlawfully suspended parliament, because what else did she have other than a strawman about he “North London Liberal Elite” to say for herself?

...although we can thank Geoffrey Clifton-Brown for completely undermining Patel’s speech by his being arrested at the conference due to getting into a punch-up with event security  an hour before Patel even took to the stage

Hapless businesswoman Jennifer Arcuri would look a lot less like she’d been handed a script if she asked what business of ours is it to ask why a six-figure sum of public money ended up in her bank account courtesy of proven liar Boris Johnson, rather than the narrative she attempted to spin asking who we are to ask whether or not he had an affair...because the actual question is a matter for the courts instead of the court of public opinion, as whoever wrote her script knew all too well

In the latest bout of the Liberal Democrats showing how they’re definitely not Tories in disguise, all nineteen of the MPs abstained on a vote to keep the NHS out of Britait negotiations and, in the process, handed Boris Johnson his first-ever parliamentary win over Jeremy Corbyn - which Jo Swinson attempted to defend by squawking “something something antisemitism” in an attempt to distract people from noting the day before she couldn’t stop talking about the handful of Labour MPs who voted in favour of the proven liar's Britait timetable as she continues to try and delude herself and others into believing she’s a kingmaker and not a Tory enabler

...although she’s not alone in that regard, as Gavin Shuker took to Twitter to say how The Independents would do anything in their power to prevent Jeremy Corbyn getting into Downing Street, which only serves to justify him losing a No Confidence vote from his constituents when standing as a Labour MP 

It says a lot about Blizzard that their response to Hearthstone streamer Blitzchung voicing support for the Hong Kong protestswas to boot him out of an upcoming Hearthstone tournament, suspend him from any further Hearthstone tournaments for a full year, and withhold the earnings he had made - and attempting to hide behind their competition rules does not adequately explain why they also ditched the two commentators who happened to be hosting when Blitzchung made the comments in spite their cutting to commercial as soon as he made them, which definitely does not make it look like Blizzard are shit scared of losing the Chinese esports market or anything considering they didn;t do a damn thing to any American players or commentators who subsequently spoke up on Blitzchung’s behalf...

It didn’t take long for the BBC to start gaslighting the public during the election campaign, with Fiona Bruce telling a Question Time audience member that Vote leave was cleared of breaking electoral law in spite the fact that they were found guilty of breaking electoral law, at which point panellists Paul Scully and gaslighter extraordinaire Isabel Oakeshott piled in to continue the bullying somebody who showed more aptitude for journalism than Bruce, Oakeshott and Scully managed between them

I have no idea how Rudy Giuliani managed to give a journalist on the Orange Overlord’s no-no list reason to further investigate the Trump regime leaning on foreign governments to dig up dirt on their opponents when his right buttcheek somehow dialled their number, but what I do know is that it does not surprise me in the slightest that the stop fell into a journalist’s lap because Giuliani was so careless he managed to butt dial them

I’m sure it’s a coincidence that both James Cleverly and Mark Francois both used their Tory conference speeches to threaten rioting on the streets if Britait isn't done, which definitely isn’t a well-worn trope of the Leave camp by this point and certainly not something the police should look into

Isn’t it interesting how Lib Dem staffer Steve Wilson was quick to accuse Dawn Butler of making up incidents of experiencing racist abuse, which not only undermined the Lib Dems’ attempts to portray themselves as anything other than the Tories under a different coat of paint, especially considering the fact that Wilson just so happens to be husband of recent Lib Dem appointee Angela “funny tinge” Smith?

I’m sure we’ll be hearing a lot about how Matt Hancock tried to claim that the 20,000 new police officers the Tories claim will be on the streets by 2025 will replace the 21,000 they have laid off since 2010 in an interview with Good Morning Britain, just as I am sure people will mention he kept repeating his soundbite even when being told that the UK will still be 1000 police officers worse off than they were ten years ago several times until he started to look like a malfunctioning computer

Of course Louise Ellman responded to a vote of no confidence being called against her by her local party by resigning from the Labour party and using the usual “Corbyn is an antisemite” arguments we heard numerous times before from people facing deselection.  It’s passed cliche and is rapidly headed towards high camp at this point

...especially when Karen Pollock of the Holocaust Educational Trust posted a video to her Twitter telling her followers how terrible it is that Labour are looking to have Jo Bird replace Ellman and regurgitated the exact same claims of antisemitism...yet never once deigned to mention that Bird is Jewish, which looks uncannily like the “wrong type of Jews” argument we’ve heard more than once from the Board of Deputies

Of course Anne Sacoolas expressed regret at her reckless driving being responsible for the death of Harry Dunn...after she legged it back across the Atlantic as soon as humanly possible, waiting a few days for the heat to die down, and then issuing a press release saying she regrets her actions but will not actually face consequences for them due to scurrying to hide behind diplomatic immunity in record time

On paper it looked as if WWE had merely given wrestler Jordan Myles a really unimaginative shirt design because the character they gave him is Smiley Guy Who Is Happy To Be Here 708...but the thing is that, on paper, the design didn’t look uncannily like something from a minstrel show, which Myles was particularly vocal about when he saw it - and even more vocal when WWE’s statement in response was the usual ass-covering gaslighting they issue when the company is shown in a bad light 

It appears that the BBC are taking the threats against politicians so seriously that they invited Julia Halfwit Hartley-Brewer onto the Question Time panel little more than a week after she shared the home address of Jo Maugham on her Twitter account so her followers could happily dogpile

You would think that Bethesda would have learned that Fallout 76 has been nothing but a humiliation conga line for them by this point, but apparently not, as they had the genius idea of charging $99.99 (or £99.99, because fuck British players amirite?) for a premium subscription for a game that came out to critical derision and commercial stagnation a year before someone hit on this idea, and if that wasn’t humiliating enough it soon transpired that the supposed benefits of paying $13 a month didn’t work to the point where players paying the premium were losing items while those who weren’t had no problems at all  

Once again it seems nobody told Extinction Rebellion that there’s a way to protest that doesn’t mainly involve being a bunch of dickheads and generally pissing people off with dickheaded stunts, with James Brown taking the prize for most dickheaded act after he climbed on top of a plane at Heathrow, although the bloke at Canning Town getting a shoeing after trying to hold up the train runs him a close second

I have no idea how Roland Rudd imagined his boardroom coup to take over the People’s Vote campaign would have gone, but I’m going to guess the mass walkout of staff when his plan to make the campaign a fully-fledged political party who would position as pro-business “liberals” in an obvious bid to try and split the Labour vote may have had something to do with it

The sheer spinelessness of the BBC was exposed for all to see when it emerged that a solitary complaint from a viewer was all it took for the corporation to reprimand Naga Mulchetty for suggesting that Donald Trump saying non-white congresswomen should go back where they came from, yet when Brendan O’Neill saying people should take to the streets and riot if Britait isn’t delivered received over 600 complaints no action was taken.  And as if that didn’t make it any clear, when Priti Patel was called out by Andrew Marr for smirking through an interview when a list of businesses facing bankruptcy due to Britait drew a couple of hundred complaints, the corporation issued a grovelling apology that said they should not make light of Patel’s natural facial expression, even though there’s a wealth of evidence that smirking is not her natural facial expression

Funny how the dogwhistling boneheads have nothing to say about Jess Phillips’ mental flub during an interview when she claimed she'd knocked on the doors of 25,000 doors in the previous two weeks when she meant to say 2500, yet have spent the past two years continuously howling about the one time Diane Abbott flubbed her sums in an interview.  Hmm, I wonder why the white middle-class Phillips gets better treatment than the black working-class Abbott...

Luckily for Rebekah Vardy it isn’t exactly difficult to do a disservice to the image of footballers wives, but her being caught out leaking stories that Coleen Rooney planted on her Instagram to find out who was leaking stories to The Sun wasn’t the logical defence of trying to claim that The Sun hacked Rooney’s phone as they have previous in that regard but to reel off ever-more spurious attempts at a denial and threatening legal action

In a desperate bid for attention Tracy Ann Oberman accused Jeremy Corbyn of stalking her at her place of work by posting a selfie of herself standing near a table where Corbyn, his wife and Shami Chakrabarti were having a cup of tea at a theatre in Corbyn’s constituency, and to prove she’s definitely not unhinged this soon degenerated into her getting into the usual vicious Twitter spats that occur when her behaviour is called out

Pity poor Savid Javid for having to endure the pain and humiliation of Hugh Grant not shaking his hand at a film premiere.  Of course, maybe if Javid didn’t publicly dismiss the concerns of those who have been victims of press intrusion, maybe he wouldn’t be in a situation where a victim of press intrusion such as Hugh Grant would not want to shake his hand at a film premiere...

It was finally revealed how mug salesman Steven Crowder looks borderline informed when in debates with other people.  It’s because his father prevents him from taking part in debates against opponents who will show him up as the ill-informed blowhard that he is.  Yes, really

Sentient testicle Toby Young decided this month’s dogwhistling about Meghan Markle would be how she obviously can’t be depressed as the rich and famous are never depressed, which plumbed new depths of ignorance even for him 

Britain’s most triggered man Piers Moron Morgan thought he was being clever when asking Good Morning Britain viewers to vote in a poll about whether he should be fired or not.  The look on his face when 56% of voters said he should be sacked revealed how clever he actually is... 

And of course, what would a month be without Donald Trump being utterly moronic, on this occasion saying it’s okay for the Kurds to be attacked as they didn’t help the US in World War II in spite the act that a.) They did, and b.) KURDISTAN IS NOT A COUNTRY.  But then again, he does seem to be running out of material as the best he can say about Joe Biden is “But his text messages!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

[rulystuff]

https://servicemeltdown.com/mexico-work-progress/

New Post has been published on https://servicemeltdown.com/mexico-work-progress/

MEXICO: A WORK IN PROGRESS

The very same day I arrived in the city of Monterrey the local news reported that police had found six severed heads in the trunk of a car parked at a gas station. I was in Monterrey to lead a seminar and workshop on Service Management to a local group of business men and women over the coming three days and this was hardly the welcoming I was expecting.

I have traveled widely throughout Mexico and the city of Monterrey in particular for more than twenty years on business and have followed the nation’s gradual descent into violence and death. The depredations of the drug cartels in recent years, however, bear witness to a country which despite its potential and promise is on the verge of perhaps never returning from its infernal evil.

In the last decade alone, nearly two hundred thousand people have lost their lives many of whose bodies have been found horribly dismembered strewn on streets or hanging from bridges. In addition, people numbering in the tens of thousands are now classified as desaparecidos or people who have mysteriously gone missing.

The usual rationalization one hears in Mexico – aside from pointing the finger at America’s insatiable appetite for opioids – is that the violence is self-contained as drug cartels struggle with each other for supremacy in a local area. This is a naïve if not a feeble attempt at putting a good face on a grievous problem. Yes, the bulk of the dead are members of one cartel or another but police officers and military personnel have also been killed in ambushes and skirmishes with the heavily armed cartels. In addition, many innocent civilians, including tourists and foreign workers, have either been caught in a cross fire or purposely targeted so as to intimidate the local citizenry.

The plague that is the Mexican drug war seems no longer confined to the handful of states that have historically been a hotbed of crime. More and more drug cartel violence has been in evidence in tourist areas such as Acapulco, Cancun, Los Cabos, and Playa del Carmen. This has to be of concern to government officials as tourism is one of the largest sources of foreign exchange for the country. Still, Mexico is the most frequent destination for Americans with over thirty five million tourists visiting the country in 2016.

President Enrique Peña Nieto, of the historically corrupt Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), seeks an accommodation with the drug cartels. His approach is to push the problem down to local law enforcement. In contrast, Nieto’s predecessor, President Felipe Calderon saw the problem as one infringing on national security and one that required a more kinetic approach in seeking out and eliminating the perpetrators.

Nieto’s approach speaks for itself, however, as bloodshed has spiked to record levels. Homicides are now averaging in excess of 2,000 per month and will likely exceed 25,000 in 2017.

WHY DO BUSINESS IN MEXICO?

In the 1990’s, I employed approximately one hundred workers in a software development center in Monterrey. We chose Monterrey – the second largest metropolitan area in Mexico with over four million inhabitants and the highest per capita income in the nation – for our development center because the city is a financial, commercial, and industrial powerhouse. The city is cosmopolitan with important museums, and an abandon of chic hotels, malls, boutiques, and restaurants. The city’s infrastructure of roads and highways is above average albeit in much need of repair. Telecommunications is adequate but remains hamstrung by the presence of a nation-wide duopoly that chills foreign carriers from entering the market. It is comforting, but also rather unsettling to see the ubiquitous presence of armed military personnel patrolling the streets.

The city made logistical sense to our company because it was proximate to our hubs in the West and Midwest of the United States, and to markets in South America. Mexico City, a huge market in its own right, with over twenty million population and the nation’s financial, government, and administrative center, is an hour and a half by plane. The icing on the cake, however, was the fact that Monterrey is blessed with some of the finest institutions of higher learning anywhere.

The Monterrey Institute of Technology, known as el Tec, is a world class university known for its STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math – undergraduate and graduate programs as well as its programs in business and healthcare. Most of the graduating students are not just highly competent in their own disciplines but most have a working knowledge of English. Furthermore, the workforce embraced with alacrity our service mission which in a few words is encapsulated as “customers are first.” Without a doubt, the young men and women who worked for us were some of the best in our employ anywhere in the world.

The software development center proved to be a big success. President Ernesto Zedillo visited the site, gave a rousing speech of praise and spoke of the ushering of a new era in Mexico.

IT’S GOING TO TAKE MORE THAN MAQUILADORAS

Mexico’s GDP ranks 15th worldwide at $1.1 trillion and is within striking distance of countries such as Spain, Australia, and even Russia. Two thirds of the nation’s GDP is comprised of services such as banking and tourism. At a macro level, Mexico has the potential to vault higher in the GDP rankings. The country is blessed with ample natural resources, ports of entry in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, a young and industrious work force, an abundance of new graduate engineers, and close ties to the largest economy in the world. Mexico’s economy will have to grow, however, at a more aggressive clip than it has experienced over the recent past. The growth in GDP over the last ten years, for example, has been virtually nil.  By all accounts, a developing nation like Mexico should sport a very lofty growth rate. GDP on a per capita basis, too, is bleak: Mexico ranks 72th among all nations and is immediately behind Russia.  By comparison, Australia’s GDP per capita is nearly six times that of Mexico.

Mexico’s maquiladoras – export based and usually foreign-owned manufacturing companies – are booming due to the nation’s modest labor rates and access to the U.S. market. But further growth is going to hang in the balance particularly if NAFTA is renegotiated.

Entrepreneurial new job starts, especially in knowledge industries, must remain a top priority to smartly diversify and spur the economy. To that end, Mexico needs to develop its private equity and venture capital ecosystem which currently is paltry. More fund managers, more capital, and, in the end, more confidence needs to come into the system to give a shot in the arm to young and innovative new businesses and industries. Commercial credit both short and long term is prohibitively expensive and therefore not a viable alternative for most development stage companies.

My experience here is telling. I had a client with a terrific and viable business plan in the e-learning space. The business had a modest revenue stream and was led by a team of very competent and experienced managers. The startup was headed by a CEO with a doctorate in computer science. Potential investors in the U.S. were rightfully wary of investing in Mexico and risk losing the protections afforded minority investors in the United States. As an alternative,  I approached the CEO to re-domicile the business in San Antonio but that proved to be a non-starter for a variety of personal reasons. In the end, we were unable to find investors in Mexico who would belly up to the risk-reward profile of a technology-based startup.

Other precautions must be heeded by the foreign investor seeking to do business in Mexico. An early bridge which must be crossed is how to denominate a contract. We always insist on dollar denominated deals given the Mexican peso’s historically erratic nature – the peso has declined 100% in the last ten years and is now at twenty pesos to the dollar – but successfully negotiating all of the relevant terms is not easy. Also, contract negotiations can prove to be arduous as business practices which might appear to be matter-of-fact to the local businessman seem opaque to us. In one instance, our Mexican partner’s organization was so labyrinthine that it was difficult for us to fix a point of liability in the event of a breach. Mexico is not a common law jurisdiction and therefore expert legal advice is mandatory in order to interpret laws enacted by the various legislative bodies. Finally, corporate financial statements in Mexico can diverge significantly from GAAP standards and will normally require financial and tax advice to harmonize. These and other institutional and cultural reforms are the order of the day if Mexico despite all of its promise and potential is to clamber out of its current economic malaise.