The National Hustle

Since the British Petroleum (BP) well erupted at the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig on April 20th, roughly 800,000 gallons of oil has been spilling into the Gulf of Mexico on a daily basis. While BP has been making limited progress in slowing the leak, they have estimated that the well will not be capped until August, at the earliest. Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen has now estimated that the disaster cleanup could take years, but we can only speculate on the long-term damage to the sensitive Gulf marshes and the likely collapse of the local marine population. Rest assured we will be feeling the reverberations of this catastrophe for decades to come. One just has to look at the environmental and social impact on the Prince William Sound area 20 years after the Exxon Valdez oil spill to get a glimpse of the exponential future repercussions of the worst oil spill in United States history.

If you are like me and have been following BP’s self-inflicted soap opera over the past 49 days, you are frustrated and angry. You are frustrated over BP’s risky business practices and their inability to plan for the potential consequences of such behavior (hastily strung together stoppage techniques like “The Box” and “Top Kill” do not count as a disaster plan). Surely you are also frustrated over the widespread corruption and incompetence at the Minerals Management Service, which is supposed to act on behalf of the American people and is “responsible for inspection and oversight of energy companies to ensure they are following the law and protecting the safety of their workers and the environment.” Unfortunately, having a good mission statement doesn’t stop oil spill disasters. And finally, if you are like me, you feel angry at your inability to make any meaningful impact on this disaster. Fortunately, both you and I would be wrong to think we are completely helpless. Continue reading

I’m always interested in understanding individual motivation, so when I came across this video via Lifehacker, I just had to share it here. Essentially the video is a graphical illustration of a presentation and although this is the first time I’ve seen something from RSA, I don’t think it will be the last. According to the theory, what really motivates us is -- spoiler alert -- autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Very compelling stuff.

- Matt

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While reading the introduction of Seth Jones‘ non-fiction In the Graveyard of Empires: America’s War in Afghanistan, I came across an interesting quote on infrastructure and institutions from Nobel-prize winning economist Amartya Sen, which I’d like to share:

“Political freedoms (in the form of free speech and elections) help to promote economic security. Social opportunities (in the form of education and health facilities) facilitate economic participation. Economic facilities (in the form of opportunities for participation in trade and production) can help to generate personal abundance as well as public resources for social facilities.”

You might find this either basic or esoteric, but it certainly deserves some thought. Although I think he was actually discussing nation-building, if there is a formula for what makes America such a prosporous nation, Sen’s idea has provided the most accurate and concise I’ve ever seen.

- Matt

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In a presentation at MIT and replayed on Academic Earth, Pullitzer Prize winning columnist Thomas Friedman discusses his book, The World is Flat.  He discusses the competitive impacts of globalization, the evolution of the “Flat World Platform,” and the need for the U.S. to lead the clean energy revolution.

Before you take a look at the 45-minute video, here are my main five takeaways from Friedman’s presentation:

1. Global economic competition has been flattened in the last decade. (06:10)  According to Friedman, “From the year 2000 to the present, [competition] was shrinking the world from size small to size tiny and flattening the global economic playing field at the same time.  Only what’s really new, really different, really exciting, and really terrifying, is that this era of globalization is certainly not spearheaded by countries, and it’s not exclusively spearheaded by companies anymore.  This era of globalization is spearheaded by individuals.”  During these times of mass media and mass communication, we are also witnessing a new dawn of mass competition on a global level.  Continue reading

Compared to the ginormous $170 billion apportioned to AIG to provide executive bonus compensation and a couple of other minor things, the $17.4 billion we put into GM and Chrysler’s coffers seems paltry.  Yet it seems as though the Obama administration is riding roughshod over the long-suffering domestic auto manufacturers.  I mean, lay off!  These guys have been going through a lot:

• First they had to deal with the American consumers’ notion that foreign cars were better built and lasted longer (a complete exaggeration, American cars are perfectly engineered… to last exactly 36,001 miles); Continue reading