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Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TobagoJack who wrote (47902)	4/2/2004 3:17:01 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

Aztec's G421 versus Cyberspacoid's Q680. Gloat, gloat. The temporal world of fiat currencies grinding against each other in competitive devaluation continues apace. The olde worlde of clutching a defensive gold talisman continues and gives false hope to the adherents. The future world of cyberspace beckons and is winning the value race. Watching young people, I don't see them collecting piles of US$, or gold. They are all clutching cyberphones and upgrading them frequently, constantly clicking away flat out. While we oldster types might consider new cultures adopted by young people as weird if not insane, the fact is that they will be around and we won't. They just need to wait to win. With the wisdom of age, I know that they'll be taking out the piercings, cringing at the rap they 'enjoyed' and hiding the more egregious tattoos, but they won't abandon the technologies they've adopted which retain their relevance. Sure, the CD will be replaced, but mobile cyberspace should have a long innings, like fire and the wheel. Hello Jay. It's a strange feeling to go back to the 3D world where crops are grown, sheep [and tourists] are fleeced and mechanical devices rattle around in the industrial age [those that aren't already in museums or abandoned in undergrowth around old mine workings and in long grass in a back paddock]. It's a nostalgic, buccolic world of geomorphology and biosphere I've been roaming around. My little WiFi RoamAD roamad.com has not hit its stride but It's stride continued to lengthen, not to mention qualcomm.com , while I was away seeing what was happening in the 'real' world. The parts of the 'real' world, meaning the 3D world where most people live, which are plugged into cyberspace are doing well. The rest seem to be stuck in the agrarian and industrial past in a time warp. Places like Invercargill, Dunedin, Wellington, Masterton, Woodville and Dannevirke look much as they did in the 1970s though a few brands such as Subway colour the cityscape and petrol stations have been upgraded. Mostly, there has only been maintenance activity. Other parts, like Queenstown and Wanaka are booming as tourists and wealthy immigrants flood in. 30 years ago I wandered through a bush track and actually onto Pancake Rocks, after parking in the gravel on the side of the road. Now we park in a large vehicle park and compete with crowds of tourists for a view from a fenced and sealed path which is like a small motorway through the bush, though it doesn't have a white line down the middle [probably because it's designed as a one way system]. Now I know where all those people pouring out of 747s at Auckland International Airport are going. The roads are great compared with 30 years ago. I felt like Rip Van Winkle. Mqurice, back in the engine room.

To: TobagoJack who wrote (47902)	4/3/2004 2:53:26 AM
From: elmatador	Respond to of 74559

US plans to fingerprint most visitors from abroad By Edward Alden in Washington Published: April 3 2004 1:38 \| Last Updated: April 3 2004 1:38 Lets see if others countries does Brazil and finger print the Americans too. Or If anyione decides to "salute" the people there too!! The US will require fingerprints from virtually all foreign visitors by the end of September, in a massive expansion of a programme designed to keep terrorists out of the US. The US Homeland Security Department announced on Friday it would end the exemption from the US-visit scheme for the 27 visa-waiver countries, which include the UK, France, Germany and Japan. Under the US-visit scheme, visitors to the US are required to provide a digital fingerprint to verify their identity, and to notify US authorities when they leave the country. The scheme is aimed at preventing entry by individuals on US terrorist and criminal watch lists, uncovering those who travel on false passports, and discouraging visitors from remaining in the country after their visas expire. Washington launched the programme at airports and seaports in January, but restricted it to countries where visas were required for travel to the US. Now, the US plans to fingerprint all visitors who arrive by air and sea by the end of September, except Mexicans travelling on specially-issued border crossing cards, and Canadian citizens, who will be exempt. The scheme will be expanded to all land borders as well in 2005. So far the programme has been implemented with little disruption. But the new plan will greatly increase the burden on US border officials. About 13m visitors arrive each year from countries that are part of the visa waiver programme. The US says about 19m visitors travel annually with visas, though just 2.5m people were fingerprinted in the first three months of this year after the launch of US-visit. Asa Hutchinson, under-secretary of homeland security, said the procedures added only 15 seconds to processing each traveller. "The system has worked, and so we're confident this this can be implemented without any delays in travel or any increase in the line," he said. Steve Atkins, spokesman for the UK embassy in Washington, said "we understand the need to do this," and said the UK wanted to see the measures introduced with the least disruption possible to legitimate travel. The UK had no plans to introduce a similar requirement for US visitors, he said. But William Norman, president of the Travel Industry association, which represents hotels and other US tourist businesses, said he was "greatly disappointed and very concerned about potential negative reaction in key inbound tourism markets in western Europe, Japan and other important visa waiver countries." Travel to the US has declined by 27 per cent since the September 11 attacks, though it is predicted to rebound this year. The move comes as a response to the failure by European and other countries to issue new passports to their citizens that include a biometric identifier such as a fingerprint by an October 2004 deadline set by the US Congress. Virtually all European countries have said they will miss that deadline, and the US too has admitted it will not begin issuing such passports by October. The US administration yesterday formally requested that Congress extend the deadline for two years. If Congress refuses, the US would be forced to issue visas to all travellers from visa-waiver countries, creating enormous backlogs at US embassies abroad. The decision to expand the fingerprinting scheme was a response to congressional criticism that the exemption for visa-waiver countries was a large loophole that could be exploited by terrorists who were citizens of those countries. They cite such examples as Richard Reid, the UK shoe bomber, who was travelling to the US without a visa

To: TobagoJack who wrote (47902)	4/3/2004 2:59:16 AM
From: elmatador	Respond to of 74559

Elmat moved to Jakarta. Have been busy and will be busy for a while until things get to crusing speed. March figures show a definitive "improvement". Elections closing in the ENRONING of numbers will be the order of the day. Jakarta didn't change a thing after these 5 and a half years since I left back in 98. Comparing it to KL is compare Libya with Sweden!!! Three electiosn thjis year, one on Monday 5th another in July and most probably anohter late this year if no candidate gets 50% in the first round. Electiosn are bad for countries like Philipinnes, Brazil and Indonesia. Economic activity grinds to a halt. It is not like this thing they have there in the US, you know, it doesn't matter who is in president it is all the same thing. But we have to be carefull! With Bush going loco as he has been, a chnage back to democrats may make difference. At least the US stops being the laughing stock of the rest fo the world with things like fingerprinting and such.