Money Talk

Happy Lagosian!

2009-05-14T21:43:00.000-07:00

Physical development of Lagos has been outstanding in the past few years...this blog documents its all

http://happylagosian.blogspot.com

I have some few pictures to share for those who mind..of course, surf to my picasa folder called Lagos of 2006 to see the difference...it is a new Lagos. Eko o ni baje!

Croton Biodiesel Fueling Mt Kenya matatus

2009-05-12T03:29:00.000-07:00

[Nairobi, Kenya]
Well, I just got my hands on some biodiesel based on the indigenous croton megalocarpus tree that's ubiquitous in East Africa. My contacts in the Nyeri/Nanyuki region (near beautiful Mt. Kenya - aka Mt. Kirinyaga - which sits right on the equator) are able to produce about 500 Litres a day, and then reselling it at about KShs 55 per Litre. CHEAPER than diesel.

So, if you peeps in the West (or other parts of Africa) are looking for something "hot" to invest in, I'd say a project like this has no way to go but up. Incidentally, this project could use more "investment" for expansion.

Think green energy and how keeping monies that would've been spent on petrol will go to better use supporting local farmers and the domestic economy. This is the key to Africa's prosperity.

By the way, we're soon gonna get started on hemp cultivation here in East Africa. You can find out more on my Twitter updates: http://Twitter.com/MaxTheITpro

Related links:

Get the Conversation Started

2009-04-19T22:21:00.001-07:00

TOSIN SAID:

P.P.S. Maybe we can arrange a chat between Africans returned to Africa and those thinking of returning...Shall we?

Who will get us started? Some of us can't wait to hear...

Work to Love

2009-04-12T05:48:00.000-07:00

Two articles in today's New York Times address an issue I've been thinking about, we all have, for some time. Meaningful work; work that fits into life as you dream it, not work as a wage slave. you know what I mean. Check them out:

In the bubble decade, making money as an end in itself boomed as a calling among students at elite universities like Harvard, siphoning off gifted undergraduates who might otherwise have been scientists, teachers, doctors, entrepreneurs, artists or inventors. The Harvard Crimson reported that in the class of 2007, 58 percent of the men and 43 percent of the women entering the work force took jobs in the finance and consulting industries. The figures were similar everywhere, from Duke to the University of Pennsylvania. Dan Rather, on his HDNet television program in December, reported that at Penn this was even true of “over half the students who graduated with engineering degrees — not a field commonly associated with Wall Street.”
Clearly the last person to serve as an inspiring role model for alternative values would have been Summers. But in her first baccalaureate address last June, his successor as Harvard president, Drew Gilpin Faust, stepped into that moral vacuum, zeroing in on the huge number of students heading into finance, consulting and investment banking. “Find work you love,” she implored the class of 2008. The “most remunerative” job choice “may not be the most meaningful and the most satisfying.”
This same note was hit a month earlier by the commencement speaker at Wesleyan University, Barack Obama. “The big house and the nice suits and all the other things that our money culture says you should buy,” he said, amount to “a poverty of ambition.” He wasn’t speaking idly. As America knows, Obama turned down the lucrative career path guaranteed to the first African-American president of The Harvard Law Review to pursue the missions of service and teaching instead. The potential rewards for our country, now that that early choice has led him into the White House, are enormous.
But it’s hardly a given that the entrenched money culture has evaporated along with the paper profits it generated. One skeptic is Howard Gardner, the Harvard education professor who has created seminars at several elite colleges to counsel students in the notion of pursuing meaningful, ethical and effective work — “Good Work,” as he has titled it. He believes that many students may still be operating on the assumption that the world of finance will just pick up where it left off in a few years. “But we’re not going to be back there,” Gardner told me last week, “and we shouldn’t be back there.”
He notes that while the New Deal was built from ideas developed in the Progressive Era and that the Reagan counterrevolution was the culmination of the conservative movement of the 1950s and ’60s, there is as yet “no counternarrative to replace ‘money is king.’ ” The post-crash influx of graduates into Teach for America, while laudable, may be transitory unless there’s the political vision and leadership to make altruistic values stick after our crisis has passed. “It’s completely up in the air what’s going to happen,” Gardner said.

From an opinion piece in the New York Times. Read More...

“In choosing careers, young people look for signals from society, and Wall Street will no longer pull the talent that it did for so many years,” said Richard Freeman, director of the labor studies program at the National Bureau of Economic Research. “We have a great experiment before us.”
What will the new map of talent flow look like? It’s early, but based on graduate school applications this spring, enrollment in undergraduate courses, preliminary job-placement results at schools, and the anecdotal accounts of students and professors, a new pattern of occupational choice seems to be emerging. Public service, government, the sciences and even teaching look to be winners, while fewer shiny, young minds are embarking on careers in finance and business consulting.
For the highest-paid business fields, the outlook is for a tempering correction instead of an all-out exodus. At Harvard, for example, about 40 percent of undergraduates in recent years went into the most lucrative corporate arenas like finance and consulting, based on surveys at the school year’s end. “That certainly won’t be the case this year,” observed Lawrence Katz, a professor and labor economist who has studied undergraduate career choices at Harvard going back to the 1960s. “We’re seeing students who would have been part of the Ivy League pipeline to Wall Street in the past considering very different career paths.”
Kedamai Fisseha, a 21-year-old senior, is one of them. An economics major, Mr. Fisseha says he always assumed he would go into finance, and his summer internship last year was at the investment bank Morgan Stanley. Yet after Wall Street’s meltdown, job prospects there have withered. Instead, he is interviewing with Teach for America, a nonprofit group that recruits college graduates to teach in hard-to-staff schools for two-year stints. (After that, only one-third stay in the classrooms, though two-thirds remain in education.)
Mr. Fisseha regards the turn of events as an opportunity to broaden his horizons. “It’s been liberating, and lucky for me,” he said. “But your situation does dictate your preferences.”
Graduate schools of government and public policy are seeing a surge of applications. In a survey of its members released last week, the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration found that 82 percent reported an increase in applications this year, and many saw the largest percentage jumps in several years, or ever. The most-cited reason was the expectation by students that government will be hiring.
Still, the appeal of public sector careers extends beyond job openings, say school officials. The laissez-faire presumption that government is not the solution but the problem, dating back to the Reagan era, has been cast aside, they say.
The government’s need to step in with financial bailouts and recovery programs to steady the economy is seen as the immediate proof, they say, but not the only one. The environment, energy and health care also pose huge, complex challenges. “Young people today understand that government has a powerful role to play in solving these problems,” said Sandra Archibald, dean of the Evans School of Public Affairs at the University of Washington, where applications this year are up 26 percent.
Government school officials also point to an Obama effect: his election as an endorsement of government activism.

From "With Finance Disgraced, Which Career Will Be King?" Read More...
Well, there's always Nigeria etc. In Africa there's raw talent. There's high population. There are problems. There is a great need for competence in several fields. There is low-hanging fruit, so you can with little effort make a huge impact. There's often not the huge pay that you can expect in the West, although that can be arranged sometimes. It's worth a try.

P.S. Ask me about my own time in Nigeria (July 2008-July 2009) sometime.

P.P.S. Maybe we can arrange a chat between Africans returned to Africa and those thinking of returning...Shall we?

Spitzer: Huge Fan Of His. Have to be.

2009-03-24T07:15:00.000-07:00

Source
On today’s edition of CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS," former Governor of New York Eliot Spitzer appeared on the program for his first television interview since resigning. A full transcript of the program is below.

Welcome to all of you in the United States and around the world. I'm Fareed Zakaria.

This has been another week of outrage over Wall Street. But mixed in with the outrage, there continues to be a bewilderment about how these problems in the financial industry could have been piling up without warning.

When being briefed by academics from the London School of Economics, Queen Elizabeth II asked a simple question: Why did nobody notice it?

In fact, some people did notice it. Warren Buffett, Paul Volcker and others did warn about the danger of derivatives and debt. Others warned about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

But through all these warnings, the markets kept rising. Financial firms minted money. The naysayers looked like fuddy-duddies, and the risk-takers like geniuses. No one likes to fight success.

Actually, there was one guy who took on the financial firms at the height of their prestige and power when the country, the media and Washington were gushing with admiration.

That man was Eliot Spitzer.

And he is my guest today, for his first interview since resigning as governor of New York.

You remember him as the governor of New York who resigned after a scandal involving prostitution. But think back before then. He was the attorney general of New York who went after Merrill Lynch, prosecuted AIG and several other institutions for practices he argued were corrupt, fraudulent and illegal. Those prosecutions were deeply controversial, and Spitzer made most of Wall Street his enemy.

I'm going to talk to him about what he thinks about the world he's watching today.

ZAKARIA: So, now to my guest today, former governor of New York, former attorney general of New York, Eliot Spitzer.

Welcome.

ELIOT SPITZER, FORMER GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK: Thank you. A pleasure to be here.

ZAKARIA: When you saw the news about these AIG bonuses, what did you think? This was the company that you prosecuted way back when.

SPITZER: On the one hand, I was not surprised. Bonuses are part and parcel of Wall Street compensation. And I think if you looked at any company, you would see bonuses of an equivalent size.

So I think to a certain extent, what we are now doing is looking at what is a typical part of Wall Street compensation, voicing a visceral outrage that is legitimate, but is not particular to AIG.

ZAKARIA: But when you took on AIG, what troubled you about it?

What made you look at AIG and say something's wrong here?

SPITZER: Their fundamental accounting structure was wrong. And when we prosecuted them, we brought a case alleging that they had manufactured false, fictitious reinsurance contracts. It's a very technical issue, but there were false reinsurance contracts designed to create the appearance of capital on the books, which was not there. And this was a structure that had been designed and orchestrated at the very top of the company.

And as we dug into the accounting...

ZAKARIA: So, they were basically fudging the numbers to make it seem as though they had a stronger balance sheet than they had.

SPITZER: Precisely. That's exactly right.

And the underlying effort was to create an illusion of financial strength that was not there. And as we dug more deeply into the underlying structure and organization and accounting that was ongoing at the company, we knew there was a problem.

And just parenthetically, four people have been convicted of this.

The former CEO was called an unindicted co-conspirator in the federal courtroom by the federal prosecutor. So, this was a fundamental effort to alter the actuality and to lie to the public.

ZAKARIA: So, do you think that the problems that AIG got into later on stem from some of the same practices that you were trying to get at?

SPITZER: They stemmed from an effort from the very top to gin up returns whenever, wherever possible, and to push the boundaries in a way that would garner returns almost regardless of risk.

And so, to the extent that there is a discussion, did this begin before or after the tenure of Hank Greenberg, it's unambiguous -- unambiguous that the structures and the flaws and the policies began while he was there. That is why the board that he had controlled with an iron fist asked him to leave. It was their decision -- not my decision, their decision -- to ask him to step down, something that was then and is now very unusual.

He has invoked the Fifth Amendment, which, of course, is his right to do. But he was asked to leave by his own board, because they saw the flaws and the problems that have since multiplied and created this monster that can bring down the financial system.

Back then I said to people, AIG is at the center of the web. The financial tentacles of this company stretched to every major investment bank. The web between AIG and Goldman Sachs is something that should be pursued.

And as I have written...

ZAKARIA: Meaning what? Meaning that a lot of the money that we the taxpayers gave AIG has ended up being paid to Goldman Sachs...

SPITZER: Precisely. And...

ZAKARIA: ... and other companies.

SPITZER: The so-called counterparties to these very sophisticated financial transactions.

When AIG initially received $80 billion -- a decision that was the consequence of a very brief meeting of the president of the New York Fed, the secretary of the Treasury, perhaps Chairman Bernanke and arguably, some reports say, the chairman of Goldman Sachs -- $80 billion, virtually all of it flowed out to counterparties, $12.9 billion to Goldman Sachs.

Why did that happen? What questions were asked? Why did we need to pay 100 cents on the dollar on those transactions, if we had to pay anything? What would have happened to the financial system, had it not been paid?

These are the questions that should be pursued. Look, bonus is a real issue. It touches us viscerally. The real money and the real structural issue is the dynamic between AIG and the counterparties.

ZAKARIA: Because those payments are in the tens of billions of dollars. The bonuses are a few hundred million.

SPITZER: The bonuses we think are $164 million, give or take -- huge money. I mean, nobody should diminish that. These counterparty payments, tens and tens of billions of dollars.

ZAKARIA: And it, to your mind, it seems as though this taxpayer money may have been recklessly and unwisely paid off?

SPITZER: Well, it may be that a case could be made that it should have been paid.

But at a moment in our nation's history when everybody is being asked to bear a piece of the burden -- everybody -- people are being told work four days a week, not five. Sales taxes are going to go up.

Contracts are being broken and renegotiated for workers across America.

Our 401(k)s and our savings have been depleted by the recklessness of Wall Street.

For Goldman and the other counterparties not to be able to say, we can make do with only 50 cents on the dollar, 30 cents on the dollar, after we've already given Goldman a $25 billion cash infusion, they are sitting on vast amounts of cash on the sidelines -- which is their right, but they're going to invest it in due course, based upon their judgment -- for them, on top of all that to get another $12.9 billion in the dark without questions, after a meeting of this sort, is fundamentally wrong. And that is the nature of the inquiry that should be raised.

ZAKARIA: Is there, as far as you know, a congressional inquiry into these monies?

SPITZER: I do not know if there is or isn't. I certainly hope that Barney Frank, who is the chairman of the right committee, will do so.

He's a brilliant guy, a spectacular legislator and lawyer. I have absolute confidence that if he pokes at this, he will get to the bottom of it.

He is somebody -- there are many on Capitol Hill who are beating their chests so loudly, you know it's just a cover-up of their neglect and failure over the last decade. They sat there and watched and did nothing, as they clearly should have known that we were building a system that was a house of cards. And they enjoyed it and prospered from it, and there was a symbiotic relationship between them and Wall Street.

Barney Frank is not one of those. Barney Frank will ask the right questions, and I hope he does.

ZAKARIA: Was the regulation -- was the regulatory regime in place strong enough? And I'm thinking particularly of the New York Fed, which was headed by Tim Geithner, of the SEC?

Where do you see the flaw having been over the last few years?

SPITZER: Here's my answer to that. The regulatory system was structurally flawed, but that's not why this happened.

After the last round of scandals -- Enron, et al. -- we passed Sarbanes-Oxley. And we said, aha, we've solved the problem. Now we have another set of scandals.

There are enough laws, enough regulations on the books for smart, aggressive regulators and prosecutors to make all the cases. What was missing was judgment. And you can't legislate judgment. You can't regulate judgment.

Either the people who are the regulators will walk into a bank and say "Your leverage is too great. We are going to take actions to pull it back," or "This type of investment is flawed," or they won't. You can't pass a law that says, you must use sound judgment.

Bubbles have been there through history, through over-regulation and under-regulation. This is a question of judgment and of failure of judgment.

When I was attorney general, people said, "Oh, you're using this crazy little statute," the Martin Act in New York, "to bring all these cases." The Martin Act had a simple anti-fraud provision. That's all we used.

The federal government has exponentially more regulatory power than we did. What was lacking was the judgment, the tenacity, the desire to rein in a financial system that was spiraling out of control.

ZAKARIA: How do you think President Obama is handling this crisis?

SPITZER: Well, I think he is doing stupendously. I mean, I'm a huge fan of his. I think we all have to be and should be, if only because he has been thrust into a dynamic that is almost impossible.

He is trying to put out not 500 small fires, 500 forest fires simultaneously. And he is addressing them sequentially, trying to keep a political coalition together. But it's very hard.

And I think one of the largest, most difficult tasks that he has is to control the outrage that is brewing in the public -- sympathize with it and garner it, but use it to get good policy, not policy based upon anger.

Populism, if we go to the other extreme -- and we had libertarianism masquerading as capitalism for the past 30 years. That didn't work.

And we knew it wouldn't work.

I'm worried that we will go to the other extreme and end up with rank populism. That could be just as dangerous.

And it's very hard to craft the reasoned policies that make the market work without losing the support of the public. That's what he's trying to do. It's a very difficult task.

He is a brilliant communicator and a brilliant leader, and I think we all have to hope that he succeeds.

ZAKARIA: Do you worry about this kind of populist anger when you watch the outrage over the bonuses?

SPITZER: Yes, yes. The outrage is legitimate, but it is being fomented by sort of a faux populism by many on Capitol Hill who saw this coming, who knew this was going on.

And so, I look at them and I say, "Come on, guys. You're supposed to be more mature. Express the anger, but then say, how do we solve it? Don't just throw more oil on the fire."

And I am worried about that. And I'm worried that it will be destructive to our capitalist system. And I've said since the very beginning, that my energy was directed at preserving and protecting capitalism.

The libertarians didn't understand it. Populists don't understand it. But capitalism is what we want to preserve.

ZAKARIA: A simple legal question. If you were in a position where you could do something about it, what would you do about the bonuses?

Legally, what strategy would you employ?

SPITZER: I think I might go back to a very old tort theory of unjust enrichment -- contract theory, tort theory -- and say, you know what, guys? There's a theory in the law that says -- a couple of theories -- one impossibility saying, AIG just doesn't have the money to pay you. And absent the federal infusion, it wouldn't have it, so we can't pay.

And second I would say, unjust enrichment. You simply don't deserve it. It's an equitable argument. Some courts might go for it, some courts might not.

But as a practical matter, as the president of the United States, I think I would call the CEOs into the Oval Office. And I would say, "Guys, this is untenable. We're all going to have to suck it up a little bit and show the American people that we know what it means to be part of a community, and share the sacrifice. Let's see if we can't solve this without the legal wrangling."

And I bet he could. I have no doubt that President Obama could do that.

ZAKARIA: And we will be back with Eliot Spitzer right after this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ZAKARIA: You know there are a number of people watching who are going to say, Eliot Spitzer doesn't have credibility to talk about these issues, because of what happened over the last year with your own behavior.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAKARIA: And we are back with Eliot Spitzer.

Eliot, you've spent a lot of time looking at Wall Street, battling with them often. What do you think is the fundamental thing that got us into this mess?

SPITZER: Recklessness, greed and a misunderstanding of what capitalism is all about, and a belief that financial services alone could generate wealth.

Financial services doesn't really generate wealth. Financial -- the capital markets are designed to raise money and then apportion it to industries that are creative, whether it's biotech or automotive, or anything else.

Financial services should be a conduit. Instead, we became enamored of the products themselves. And what resulted was this enormous bubble in assets, ginned up and supported by a financial services sector that, because of a series of improper incentives, got us to where we are right now.

ZAKARIA: And what should have been done? Should there just have been a lot more attorneys general like you kind of battling this?

SPITZER: We had one who was enough, I thought. But it was...

ZAKARIA: But should there have been a different kind of regulation? How should this have been prevented?

SPITZER: There should have been a very different regulatory framework. Not in the sense that we needed more words in the books. We needed more aggressive voices at the SEC, the FTC, the OCC -- this welter of federal agencies -- people who came to Wall Street and said, "Wait a minute. That leverage is crazy."

And it was -- it's kind of odd, because everybody derided leverage in public, but in private, participated to the hilt. And when you look back at these deals you say, this was crazy. We needed regulators who said it. We needed wiser voices on Wall Street.

This was sort of a disease that got into the bloodstream and the DNA of Wall Street leadership.

Now, there were some who were spectacular who disagreed with it, who said, "Wait a minute, guys. We can't afford this."

The more traditional, old-fashioned investment bankers -- you think of Felix Rohatyn, who said, "Wait a minute, guys. This doesn't work."

And...

ZAKARIA: Right, right. Or Warren Buffett or Paul Volcker...

SPITZER: Or Warren Buffett. Well, I love Warren Buffett. We all do. He also invested in some of these vehicles that had the leverage, but I think he always was a voice of modulation.

And we needed more of that and, frankly, less of the sort of, you know, hotdog, cowboy mentality that leveraged everything up, sent it out so that people would structure deals without retaining any of the ownership.

If you want a technical answer, all of the securitization that was done, where you had the rating agencies, you had the originators who would originate loans they knew were bad, securitize them, get AAA ratings, securitize it out into a market -- they didn't maintain any ownership.

So, a simple rule could be, if you securitize a stream of debt, you've got to retain 10, 15, 20 percent, so you are at risk. You evaluate deals very differently if you are actually at risk, rather than merely selling it to somebody else.

ZAKARIA: And that could have been part of the regulation.

SPITZER: Absolutely. The power of the federal agencies to do this stuff was unlimited.

And any time I hear the SEC say, we didn't have the power to do this or that, forget it. They had more people, more power, more money than was necessary. What they lacked was the creativity and the will.

ZAKARIA: In a sense, this is almost a greater failure of Washington than Wall Street.

SPITZER: Well, there have been debates -- Washington, Wall Street.

It's one of those debates where, of course, both were at fault.

Now, I happen, having been on the government side, to have a slightly more aggressive view of what government should do, perhaps.

And I believe that Wall Street was at fault for fostering an ideology, and imposing an ideology, or buying its way into an ideology in Washington that said, "Let us alone. We will self-regulate."

So, Wall Street created this notion of self-regulation, sold it to Washington with all of its tremendous capacity through fund raising and intellectual capital. Washington was happy enough to succumb to the temptation.

Self-regulation was a mirage. It was an abject failure. Some of us were saying, it always will be a failure.

So, Wall Street is to be blamed for creating the notion, Washington is to be blamed for buying into it. Who's more at fault is sort of a puerile debate, but I think both parties.

ZAKARIA: What about the media, CNBC? You actually know Jim Cramer. You know all the parties involved.

SPITZER: Full disclosure. Jim is a great and close friend. And I think he took his licks from Jon Stewart last week. And Jim said on the show, "Yes, we have to have done better."

And I think the media -- writ large. I mean, forget CNBC. I think the entire media -- print media, TV media, et cetera -- did not ask the hard questions as these deals were being structured, as the bubble was inflating.

We turned the Wall Street masters of the universe into these icons, who bestrode the universe and made no mistakes, when I think a more inquisitive attitude would have said, "Wait a minute, guys. This won't last."

And so, I think, yes.

We're all at fault, which is why the search for villains is emotionally satisfying, not terribly useful. The better effort is, OK, what do we learn? What do we do going forward?

ZAKARIA: Now, a lot of people look at your prosecutions, and they say, "Look. This was very unfair, very selective. You would threaten these companies, therefore plunging their stock price. In many cases you didn't get convictions. If this is the model, it's not going to work. It's unfair."

SPITZER: Well, I think they're wrong, needless to say. But I think if you look at the cases, the analyst cases where we highlighted -- you referred to the Merrill Lynch case where, at the end, we got Merrill, Goldman, Bank of America -- all the major firms, all of the bulge-bracket firms -- to agree to an entirely new structure of doing analytical work, which was necessary for the integrity of the marketplace.

Whether it was insurance, mutual funds, analytical work, on and on, each of the major areas we looked at, we sought to craft a solution.

ZAKARIA: But your real leverage was that, once you go out in the public, their share price starts dropping and...

SPITZER: No question about it. And I'll give you a real example of that, and you can evaluate it as you wish, with Merrill Lynch.

They wanted us to settle. They would have paid some money. But they said, you must keep all the evidence secret."

And I said, no, my job as a public prosecutor is to explain to the public what the problems are in Wall Street. I said, that is the only way we will get a remedy. And I said, we must present this to the public. It may be right, it may be wrong.

And we didn't do this to hurt individuals. And we took out the names of most of the individuals. But we said, the public has to understand why the market is flawed.

And I think it's fair to say we, several years ahead of time, were saying, be careful, beware of what is going on here. I'm not pretending to see everything. I'm not pretending to be smarter or better than anybody else, just saying, wait a minute. We have seen a problem that, if not addressed, will be the downfall of the market.

ZAKARIA: But you got very few convictions.

SPITZER: No, we -- well, first of all, most of the cases were civil cases. And there was a reason for that. I did not believe in taking one individual and making him the subject of all the venom. I said, this is a civil issue. Resolve it with the company.

I tried very hard not to vilify individuals, because it wasn't a mid-level executive who was the problem. It was the whole structure.

And that's why the global deal was with all the banks.

We didn't say to individual X, you're the problem. That's a mirage. That is an emotional, as I said, an emotionally satisfying effort, but it would not have solved the problem.

ZAKARIA: And we will be back with Eliot Spitzer right after this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SPITZER: I never held myself out as being anything other than human. I have flaws, as we all do, arguably. I failed in a very important way in my personal life, and I have paid a price for that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAKARIA: And we are back with Eliot Spitzer.

You know, there are a number of people watching who are going to say, Eliot Spitzer doesn't have credibility to talk about these issues, because of what happened over the last year with your own behavior.

What would you say to them?

SPITZER: I would say to them that I never held myself out as being anything other than human. I have flaws, as we all do, arguably. I failed in a very important way in my personal life, and I have paid a price for that.

I have spent a year with my family, with my wonderful and amazing and forgiving wife and three daughters, and have rebuilt those relationships, and hope to do that as time goes on.

I also feel that, to the extent, if I'm asked, and I can contribute to a very important conversation, I will do that as well. That is our right, arguably our obligation as citizens. I will do what I can, and with full awareness and heaviness of heart about what I did.

ZAKARIA: But it wasn't just a personal failing. There were also legal issues involved...

SPITZER: Well, those were not pursued by those who decided to pursue them.

But I have made no excuses. I have not shirked, and I will not do so. I failed. I resigned my position, because I said this is the appropriate step for me to take.

ZAKARIA: Do you feel like you wish, watching all this, you were back in office doing something about it?

SPITZER: Well, obviously, I, first and foremost, hope that we can solve the problems, because the future of our economy -- and without overstating it, our nation -- is at stake here. If I can contribute, I will do so in whatever way I can.

Obviously, I care deeply about these issues. They were central to what I did as attorney general. And so, I read the papers and say, sure, these are issues that I feel deeply about. But I am where I am, because of my own conduct. And as I said, I make no excuses.

ZAKARIA: Do you imagine you could ever be back in government?

SPITZER: I don't think about it. I don't worry about it. I focus on a family, on the issues. If I write an occasional column and speak occasionally, that is all I'm doing.

ZAKARIA: Eliot Spitzer, thank you for coming on.

Ending global poverty is serious business

2009-03-02T09:42:00.000-08:00

Chinese MBA programs, MBA diaries

2009-02-19T06:58:00.000-08:00

MBA talk from Financial Times

An interesting take on Africa

2009-02-15T13:59:00.000-08:00

...Her resources..and exploitation...

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/12/14/world/africa/20081215-africa-resources-graphic.html?ref=africa

What is good for America...

2009-01-26T07:09:00.000-08:00

Venture Capital is good for us all. Right?

Source

Venture capital funds invest in new or unproven enterprises. These funds come in the form of equity that is invested in new companies. While this equity usually commands a preferred return to compensate for the risk of backing unproven companies, venture capital funds do not earn any return unless there is a financial "exit" for the organization as a whole in which all shareholders benefit. Until that exit (which can take many years), the venture capitalists (VCs) stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the founders and management of the companies they back, for better or worse. If the company fails, the VCs typically lose all. If the company is successful, the VCs make a return -- but so do the other shareholders.

Venture capitalists bring managerial and technical expertise to the companies they invest in. They bring experience and open their Rolodex. They find multiple ways to be helpful, to promote the companies' varied agendas. But VCs don't manage the companies directly. They are minority shareholders who act as advisors to the brilliant innovators, the individuals whose ideas will create whole new markets or transform existing ones.

The U.S. has the most developed and sophisticated venture capital industry in the world. The industry has helped build significant companies in technology (Compaq, Yahoo, Google), biotech (Genentech), health care, medical devices, financial services (eTrade), retail (Home Depot), renewable energy and pretty much every segment of the economy.
...
Big companies have been shedding jobs for years. In the current economy, big companies are jettisoning employees at a furious pace. These companies are not going to be hiring any time soon. When the economy picks up, they'll find ways to stay lean. The only source of new jobs (apart from the government, and that's another story) will come from start-ups and existing small businesses. We need a lot of new businesses to pick up the slack. We need more venture capital. Read More

This is One Laptop Per Child

2009-01-06T03:24:00.000-08:00

http://laptop.org/en/vision/project/index.shtml

I just ordered mine last week. Look forward to getting and using it. Unfortunately, the give one, get one program closed on December 31st, so you can no longer order an XO laptop for yourself. (Not sure why they do this.)

Servants, slaves, workers?

2008-12-29T01:12:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone, congrats on living it up in 2008. This story is about the secret lives of Nigerians. Read, comment if you like. This new year, reflect on how living standards are rising (and must continue to rise) for yourself, for Nigerians, and for people around the world. Never call any living thing stupid again. Peace and love.

House maids in America

Shyima Hall, 19, discusses her domestic enslavement Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2008, in Beaumont, Calif. Shyima was 10 when a wealthy Egyptian couple brought her from a poor village in Northern Egypt to work in their California home. She awoke before dawn and often worked past midnight to iron their clothes, mop the marble floors and dust the family's crystal. She earned $45 a month working up to 20 hours a day. The trafficking of children for domestic labor in the United States is an extension of an illegal but common practice among the upper class in Africa...The sentence: Three years in federal prison for Ibrahim, 22 months for his wife, and then deportation for both. Read more

In US etc, I would "Report. Report. Report." In Naija, what to do? I mean, how many parents in Naija treat their own kids so cruelly, let alone relatives, let alone their omo-odo.
To get involved with an organisation against child slavery, visit www.restavecfreedom.org or at least buy the book.

VC

2008-12-10T19:17:00.000-08:00

In Naija, Yahoo is THE internet brand. People don't really know gmail, hotmail, etc. Many computers have yahoo.com as their homepage. Yahoo's firing workers nowadays, the recession being a fine excuse. If the company went under, don't worry we'd still use the verb yahoo, the adjective yahoo-yahoo, the noun yahoozee, ...
(I just paused to cycle my arms as in the dance to the horrific, addictive yahoozee song)

Last week I lent my first <100dollars for a FUTY student's business idea. Wish us luck. The second part of this post is from the company website of John Doerr, famous Venture Capitalist.

MESSAGES THAT INSPIRE
“Where you live should not decide… whether you live or whether you die.”
-- Bono
“I strongly believe that we can create a poverty-free world, if we want to.... In that kind of world, [the] only place you can see poverty is in the museum.”
-- Muhammed Yunus
“ [Green's] opponents... named it liberal, tree-hugging, girly-man, sissy, unpatriotic, vaguely French… I’ve been trying to redefine green as the most capitalistic, patriotic, geostrategic, pro-american... green IS the new red, white and blue.”
-- Tom Friedman
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”
-- Margaret Mead

Haha

2008-12-05T10:49:00.000-08:00

Source

Sub-prime problems hit Japan...
Following the problems in the sub-prime lending market in America and the run
on HBOS in the UK, uncertainty has now hit Japan .

In the last 7 hours Origami Bank has folded, Sumo Bank has gone belly up and
Bonsai Bank announced plans to cut some of its branches. Yesterday, it was
announced that Karaoke Bank is up for sale and will likely go for a song, while
today shares in Kamikaze Bank were suspended after they nose-dived.

Samurai Bank is soldiering on following sharp cutbacks, Ninja Bank is reported
to have taken a hit, but they remain in the black. Furthermore, 500 staff at
Karate Bank got the chop and analysts report that there is something fishy
going on at Sushi Bank where it is feared that staff may get a raw deal.

……but looking on the bright side, growth at the Shitake Bank has mushroomed.

Bank Of Industry: Miniloans, Microloans?

2008-11-25T07:07:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone! Time to pretend that I posted in November!
Here's a link to what everyone is talking about out here:
BANK OF INDUSTRY
They'd lend money (on the order of one million naira) to entrepreneurs, with a co-operative system in lieu of a large collateral requirement. That means cash for capital can't be an excuse for not starting a business here in Nigeria. Tell everybody.
It turns out, surprisingly, that twenty-somethings also lack BUSINESS IDEAS. I don't lack ideas, so maybe I should sell mine :) to hundreds of people who have the smarts to develop them.

Category:AppropriateTechnology

2008-10-31T05:24:00.000-07:00

Which of these technologies do you particularly like?

I live in an ever-sunny place now that has limited electricity supply. Most people hand pump their own water or buy from "mairuwa." Really fast internet is really rare here. Granted, all this lives alongside nature and beauty.

The best things in life are free

Future of Biofuels in Africa...

2008-10-21T11:03:00.001-07:00

Local renewable fuel production is reducing poverty and strengthening markets across the continent. An emerging international market in biofuels— fuel typically derived from plant biomass— presents a unique opportunity for African growth and development. While bio-fuel production can have serious implications for food security and the sustainable management of land resources, with smart policies and actions these obstacles can be overcome to ensure long-term socio-economic and environmental benefits.

For Africa, bio-fuels can be a tool for development that can help create domestic energy supplies, improve rural livelihoods, and put Africa in line to become a global player in the emerging renewable fuel markets.Members of the European Union agreed earlier this year to a goal of using bio-fuels to meet 5.75 percent of their transportation fuel needs by 2010. China is requiring a 10% ethanol blend in 5 provinces of the country by 2010 and the Energy Bill that just passed the Senate floor, likewise, includes a bio-fuels target for the United States of up to 7.5 billion gallons blend by 2012, and Canada with a 3.5% bio-fuels target blend by 2010. It is policies like these, driven by concerns about energy security and climate change in industrialized countries that are propelling the bio-fuels industry to record levels of growth.The ethanol industry has seen production worldwide double since 2001; bio-diesel has similarly expanded dramatically, more than tripling production since 2005.

Brazil, for one, has dominated the spotlight because of its impressive 30-year transition since the mid-1970s from foreign imported fossil fuels to domestically processed bio-based fuels made from sugar cane.Now a question that many people are asking is if Brazil’s story can set an example for other countries in the developing world. Does Africa stand to take advantage of this emerging market? Or will it be left on the sidelines of yet another global industry in the modern era? Bio-fuel production, unlike manufacturing and high-tech industries, is rooted in agriculture development, where the required resources and capability strength is abundant in Africa. With a greater land mass than the United States, Brazil and India put together, tropical climatic zones that have year-round growing seasons, and a large labor force—more than half of the population lives off farming—the continent has many of the right ingredients to become a global supplier of bio-fuels.With oil prices showing no sign of abating, ethanol and bio-diesel are increasingly cost competitive.

For Africa in particular the introduction of a bio-fuel industry could have a broad range of positive economic impacts. The opportunities are endless: creating secondary or supplemental income for farmers, improving rural communities, building domestic foreign refinery capacity, creating jobs, offering diversifying agricultural food production, helping meet domestic fuel demand, and the possibility of energy export, among others. High energy crops like sugarcane, corn, and cassava, produced in excess and known for their high starch content, a key requirement for ethanol production, have been found suitable for production in Africa. Also, peanuts, jatropha, and palm oil, crops that could produce diesel from their oil using a low-cost technology mechanism, grown under Africa’s favorable climatic condition could add to the opportunity for development.

Some African countries have already begun to respond to this opportunity. Senegal, an oil-importing country in West Africa, is at the forefront of these efforts. Led by President Abdoulaye Wade, Senegal has joined forces to form a ‘Green OPEC’ alliance with 14 other non-oil producing countries in Africa under the title of Pan-African Non-Petroleum Producers Association (PANPP). In partnership with Brazil and India, their goal is to exchange knowledge and technologies for the development of a bio-fuel industry. The collaboration has resulted in several investments on projects in Africa, including one with excess of $1 billion over the next six years to construct eight new ethanol plants by Ethanol Africa, a South African company with established knowledge and experience in bio-fuels.

South Africa has taken important steps to implement a policy-wide initiative promoting bio-fuel production in Africa. It recently introduced a 6-billion-rand (US$828-million) plan seeking to use bio-fuels to meet up to 75 percent of its energy needs by 2013. The program will establish an E8 & B2 bio-fuel industry using mostly soybeans for diesel, and maize and sugarcane for ethanol, (crops already produced in excess), with a proposed blending of up to 5% bio-diesel and 10% bio-ethanol.

New policies also propose achieving a liquid bio-fuel average market penetration of 3.4% by 2013 without utilizing surplus agricultural capacity. The program expects to create up to 55, 000 new jobs, contribute up to 11% towards GDP, and add about R1 700 million annually in national domestic product. With limited subsidizing of energy crops for bio-fuel production, proper price regulation standards, government support for domestic production, removal of import tariffs, involvement of government agencies to coordinate and enhance productivity, and promotion of international collaboration, South Africa hopes to become a major player in the bio-fuel market.Namibia, a country in East Africa, has attempted to develop bio-fuels through planting and harvesting jatropha, but the institutional and economic risks involved have hampered further development.

Namibia has also made other attempts at renewable energy production using bio-fuels: a planned project seeks to utilize 6% of its mostly degraded land to grow woody shrubs for production to meet domestic energy needs, reduce poverty, and cut down on environmental degradation. The derivative from the production process could be used for animal feed, as charcoal products, chipboards, and as bush blocks.Similarly, in Mozambique, a two-year program, sponsored by the Global Environment Facility-Small Grant Program and the GAIA Movement with co-financing by Ajuda de Desenvolvimento de Povo para Povo, plants Jatropha around degraded land in rural areas to address deforestation, enhance economic living standards of rural dwellers, and provide domestic fuel capacity for rural communities in what has been termed “fuel fences.” It has been found that the crop simultaneously guards against erosion and encroaching deserts, as well as produces a fruit that can be converted in bio-diesel with simple systems costing less than USD 2,000. The project recruits and trains select groups of farmers to develop and sustain a viable jatropha market in Mozambique. These projects are seen as opportunities for Africa to become major players in the bio-fuel market.Even oil exporting countries have embarked on the trail in making investments for bio-fuel production; Nigeria in partnership with Brazil expects revenues of about $150 million from investments in the production of ethanol from cassava and sugarcane. Nigeria currently produces about 30 million tons of cassava a year with expected production of about 50 million liters of ethanol a year.

Despite these early advances, however, there are concerns and obstacles to widespread production of bio-fuels. These concerns relate to food security, building technical capacity, climate change and environmental impacts, and economic implications.

Food Security
The debate over the impact of bio-fuels production on food security raises the concern that bio-fuel production will affect food production by creating food scarcity, encourage high food prices, and compete for use of the soil’s natural resources. Concerns that from FAO data for 2001-2003, of the 853 million malnourished people in the world, 206 million are in sub-Saharan African countries imply that competition of food production with bio-fuel production will further exacerbate the access and availability of food. Bio-fuel advocates argue, though, that these problems can be mitigated through smart and effective policies that provide fair and equitable access to food, ensure availability, maintain stability in prices etc, and utilize the natural resources available and required for food production. A system that make use of land that is unused or unproductive, rotational crop production techniques, and improved agricultural processes for higher crop yields could also address these problems and challenges to food security.

Building technical capacity
As Africa is dominated by small subsistence farmers in rural areas, trained and knowledgeable farmers who utilize modern technology for agriculture production is deficient. Policies and actions that build on subsistence farmer collaborations, government agencies’ involvement, and infrastructure that supports small to large scale production of bio-fuels could be enacted. Also, increasing government funding for research and development, instituting a program body to coordinate, oversee, and regulate bio-fuel production, and promoting international collaboration to further enhance growth in this field is encouraged.

Climate Change and Environmental Impact:
The threat and danger of rapid deforestation to enhance bio-fuel production is an environmental concern. A case in Uganda reported in the dailies, detail how the government made a decision to lease land to developers to harvest sugar for bio-fuel purposes at the risk of destroying wildlife without regard of the effects on the indigenous communities. Local protests and public outcry did little to curtail these activities. But, with proper management and planning, under the certain policies certain crops can be grown and certain land used for bio-fuel production that will not result in huge deforestation, while also promoting healthy GHG emission levels and economic benefit.Economic

Implications
Underinvestment or overinvestment in bio-fuel production could be a problem for developing nation economies in Africa as it might significantly drain their budgets without returning benefits from investment. Studies show that in most oil-importing countries in Africa, like Guinea, the government spends up to 8% of GDP on oil subsidies due to the high oil prices, channeling these investments to bio-fuel production can bring economic benefits for rural development. Also, the challenge of unstable governments in developing countries further exacerbates insecure investment infrastructures and capital investment development. Policies and actions that encourage FDI with incentives, opening of the markets for competition, and guaranteeing secure investments could create new jobs, encourage investment, boost national revenues, and empower rural communities.

The problems and challenges that face bio-fuel development in Africa can be resolved or mitigated through proper management and strong policies. Africa stands at the threshold of success in this field as it is endowed with a wealth of natural resources, knowledge and technology ability, investment capability, and development opportunity to become a major player in the bio-fuel market. The further development of bio-fuels in Africa lies on the responsible and motivated leadership of African governments.

Derivatives, and Math

2008-10-10T21:58:00.000-07:00

The New York Times reports that

George Soros, the prominent financier, avoids using the financial contracts known as derivatives “because we don’t really understand how they work.”

(Read More...)

Nor do I.

The world may be more curious in future to learn the true properties of derivatives, so that the knowledge can be applied to:
1. how they should be valued
2. what they evolve into over time, system wide
For a starter (non-mathematical), I liked Financial Derivatives and the Globalization of Risk (2004, by Edward LiPuma). The basic ideas were that world markets are more linked now, since derivatives got popular, and that we don't understand well how or how much.

Basically, Wall Street needs more mathematics.

The most important article I've read in ages is on the International Mathematics Olympiad. (Read the article.) The author decries that Math has is not embraced more by Americans.

Nigeria finally started running National Olympiads. The level of mathematics required to pass this exam is NOT AT ALL COMPARABLE to that required to tackle the International Competitions. Still, getting the channels/infrastructure for math competition in the country is a start.

It is very important for us to develop *excellent* engineers, technicians, and scientists. This, along with: 1. Power Supply and 2. Ensuring Wealth from Agriculture would be my priorities if I ran this part of the world ;)

Naija Proposed Railway Show Cased

2008-10-06T16:27:00.000-07:00

Fish farming gist

2008-09-27T18:36:00.001-07:00

I was at the Launching of Aquaculture Best in Lagos in August. It's a trade magazine on raising fish. No, I'm not becoming a farmer (a cultivator of minds perhaps) but I'm surprised how many fish farmers I know. And now that I've moved into agricultural country in Adamawa's Upper Benue River Basin...

One plot of land, twice the food
Combined rice/fish cultivation is a highly efficient agricultural practice - yet its potential remains largely untapped
11 May 2005
Source FAO.org
For as long as there have been rice paddies, farmers have been capturing and raising fish in the water along with the rice. Indeed, few plant-animal combinations are more suited for growing together to improve nutrition and alleviate poverty, says a new book on the subject jointly published by FAO and the Malaysia-based World Fish Centre, Culture of Fish in Rice Fields.

This interview with one of the book's editors, FAO's Matthias Halwart, looks at the ways that rice/fish production contributes to food security in Asia -- and what potential the practice holds for other regions.

Q. What is rice/fish farming?

Basically, fish are raised in a flooded rice field and farmers harvest both the fish and the rice. But while the term "rice/fish" is often thought to refer only to the simultaneous culture of rice and fish in one paddy, it in fact includes other methods, like the rotational system, where a crop of rice is followed by one of fish, or systems in which fish are raised in ponds adjacent to the rice, with water resources shared between the two. It's an extremely efficient way of using the same land to produce both carbohydrates, in the grain, and animal protein, in the fish.

Q. Are there other advantages?

Well, to feed the fish you can simply rely on the aquatic plants and animals naturally occurring in the field. Supplemental feed doesn't have to be purchased -- it's often agricultural by-products normally found on a farm -- vegetable matter, manure, etc.

And the fish help control weeds by eating or uprooting them, and also feed on insect and snail pests. Interestingly, pesticide use on rice/fish farms is greatly reduced, if not eliminated. Although this is motivated by wanting to protect the investment in the fish, it really is a good practice both for farmers and the environment because scientific evidence shows that in nearly all cases insecticides are not needed in tropical irrigated rice.

The fish may also play an important role in the nutrient cycle of the rice field, increasing its fertility while reducing fertilizer requirements.

Q. What does this mean for farmers and their families?

The practice has great potential for food security and poverty alleviation, especially in more remote areas.

Adding fish to the field not only results in new yields of fish protein and reduced input costs -- it actually produces better yields of grain. The book cites several studies that illustrate how this plays out. In Bangladesh, the net return from rice/fish farms was over 50% greater than in rice monoculture. In China, the increase ranged from 45 to 270%, and growing fish with rice was almost three times more profitable than just growing rice alone.

There are less obvious benefits, too.

Q. Such as?

A wet rice field has a surprisingly great biodiversity, which is a rich source of edible organisms. One study in Thailand found that one vegetable and 16 different animal species were being harvested in a single rice field. Another in Cambodia reported that over 100 different plant and animal species -- for example, shrimp, crabs, shellfish, turtles, frogs, even insects and snakes -- are being collected by farmers and used in rural households for food or medicine. All these rice-associated aquatic species are important for the nutrition of rural people, containing proteins, minerals and fatty acids essential for a balanced diet.

Q. Despite the benefits, this practice is still largely limited to Asia...

That's right. The adoption of rice/fish farming has been low, for various reasons -- even in Asia. China has 1.2 million hectares used for rice/fish farming, but that is less than four percent of its irrigated land area. In other parts of Asia, perhaps only one percent of irrigated land is being used this way. One exception is Madagascar, with almost 12% of rice land being integrated with fish. And other countries, for example Guyana and Suriname, are now making efforts to popularize this integration.

Q. Why isn't rice/fish farming more widespread?

A rice field is by design intended for rice production, and conditions are not always optimum for fish, so shifting over requires work -- and investment. You need to increase the height of dikes, dig trenches and ponds, construct weirs and methods for moving water, add fish screens. That's one hurdle.

And policymakers haven't really appreciated its potential. Rice/fish farming is often considered a novelty that does not merit consideration in national rice production strategies. In our book we conclude that a fundamental shift in attitudes towards rice/fish farming in the traditional rice production sector is required.

43 things

2008-08-18T10:09:00.000-07:00

Check out 43things. I love it.
More gist later.

Ki lo n happen? Lifestyle report from Nigeria

2008-07-24T03:49:00.000-07:00

Hi all, I've been in Nigeria for over a week now. Based in Lagos for the next month and elsewhere in Nigeria for the next year ;) Also spent a few days in Abuja - the administrative capital of Nigeria since 1991. It was my first time in Abuja since December 1995.

What do you want to know?

In my eyes, Lagos has changed even visibly for the better. Enjoying this trip more than usual. All that extra oil money going to turn some frowns upsidedown.

Abuja is a city now - close to a million people. When I last visited 12 1/2 years ago, the capital was two hotels and highways and gorgeous landscape. Seriously romantic it was ;)

The Pursuit of HappyNess, Chris Gardner, is going to be in Nigeria next weekend. You watched the movie, right? The wealthy motivational speaker will be conecting with Naija and promoting his book of the same name.
It's all happening close to home in Lagos on the 1st of August, and at the Abuja Sheraton on the 2nd of August. Just had to tell you right away.

I just read my second copy of True Love West Africa ever. Bought it 'cos I noticed a friend's name on the cover. What can I say? Get a subscription. It's good stuff.

If Lagos is the financial capital of Nigeria, and Abuja is the administrative capital, where is the technology capital? I'm working on building it, so stay tuned. P.S. come on over.

Isn't it the truth?

2008-07-09T22:09:00.000-07:00

This book is 13 years old, the message in it has become more popular now, yet read it to see how the current world of work is changing and must change...
at deoxy.org

"Our measures of growth are deeply flawed in that they are purely measures of activity in the monetized economy. Expanded use of cigarettes and alcohol increases economic output both as a direct consequence of their consumption and because of the related increase in health care needs...It is now well documented that in the United States and a number of other countries the quality of living of ordinary people has been declining as aggregate economic output increases."

Closely related to these ideas is YES! Magazine

I have to see for myself what I'm selling

2008-06-30T03:47:00.000-07:00

To lead a products company successfully, you can go to business school, or you can just read this EMAIL RANT BY BILL GATES. Comments?

This is a good time to recommend a couple of excellent little products I've noticed. We take the big ones for granted, of course, Google, Microsoft (I LOVE Clip Art, and those document templates for writing letters, resumes and all that)...

The first is Weebly. Make a free website. Site looks nice. No ads.
The second is cbox. Nice clean chatbox/shoutbox on your webpages. Customize colour, size, etc. No user logins or payment required.

Where the rich folks at?

2008-06-28T21:07:00.000-07:00

World now has 10 million millionaires
North America is still home to the most millionaires, with a third of the world’s wealthiest, but their ranks are growing fastest in Brazil, China and India. By the Associated Press. (Read More...)

Much Respect to Dubai

2008-06-27T21:15:00.001-07:00

Premiere architecture dynamique au monde à Dubaï
by allcurious

The Da Vinci Tower (also known as Dynamic Architecture Building) is a proposed 313 m (1,027 ft), 68-floor tower in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The tower is expected to be architecturally innovative for several reasons. Uniquely, each floor will be able to rotate independently. This will result in a constantly changing shape of the tower. Each floor will rotate a maximum of one full rotation in 90 minutes. The entire tower will be powered from turbines and solar panels, and five other buildings in the vicinity will also be provided with electricity. The turbines will be located between each of the rotating floors. They will generate 1,200,000 kilowatt-hours of energy from the movement of the floors, and the solar panels will be located on the roof. Construction of the Da Vinci Tower is expected to be completed in 2009.