Ce que j'aime en France.
D’abord la bouffe, au hasard :
Tête de veau sauce gribiche
L’andouillette
Bœuf en daube
Les tripes à la lyonnaise ou à la mode de Caen
La choucroute
La bouillabaisse
Le cassoulet
Le confit de canard
Le foie gras
Le cantal
Le Reblochon
Le Coulommier
Le beurre salé (Oops, le cholestérol)
La baguette de pain
C’est bizarre d’écrire tout ça avant le dîner, sur un estomac vide… C’est peut être même dangereux..
Les vins c’est moins facile. Là encore, il y a les choses typiques qui ne montrent pas des extrêmes de bonne et mauvaise qualité et ou je suis toujours assuré d’avoir une bonne qualité moyenne. Dans un supermarché, je n’ai pas peur d’acheter un Cahors, Madiran, Sylvaner, Gewurtztraminer ( c’est comme ca que c’est écrit ?) un vin du Jura, blanc, rosé ou rouge.
Quand on arrive au rayon des Bordeaux qui fait 30 mètres de long je prend la fuite. Il y en a à partir de 2€ jusqu’à 40€ et plus et le prix n’est pas une garantie de quoi que soi. On ne sait pas quoi acheter. Graves, Médoc, Haut Médoc, etc.. ? Parfois pour 5€ on a quelque chose de très honnête et parfois pour 20€ on a quelque chose de très moyen.
Le vin il faut s’y connaître. Pour cela il faut avoir une bonne combinaison de :
1- les moyens
2- le palais
3- le temps
Personnellement je n’ai aucun des 3. Je ne pense pas être capable d’apprécier la différence entre un produit à 200€ et un autre à 20€. J’ai aussi le sentiment que la plupart des gens sont plus ou moins comme moi. Si même on a le palais il y a un aspect encyclopédique à la chose. Il faut avoir goûté des milliers de crus de dizaines d’années différentes. Mon père avait un ami qui les yeux fermés pouvait tracer un cercle de 50kms de rayon sur une carte de France et donner l’année du vin qu’il goûtait. So fucking what ? La plupart des gens font les malins et des grimaces en goûtant leur vins mais ne s’y connaissent pas tant que ca.
Tristement je crois que le futur du vin c’est les cons comme moi qui veulent une qualité permanente à des produits de prix moyens et ne veulent pas se compliquer la vie. : le Chardonnex vieilli en fut de chêne qu’il fut du Sud Ouest, d’Australie ou de la Californie ainsi que le Cabernet des mêmes endroits.
Il y a beaucoup de choses et de gens marrants en France.
Même s’ils sont morts ils y a ceux qui sont et seront toujours vivants : pour moi, Michel Serault avant tout le monde, Coluche, Le Luron, Sacha Guitry, Louis Jouvet ( je sais, je montre mon âge..) C’est dommage que Dieudonné soit devenu "bizzare". Je le trouvais fantastique. Il aurait pu devenir un des plus grands.
Les Guignols de l’info je les regardais à Phoénix avec Internet. C’est tout de même une institution nationale.
Autant je trouve Belmondo exceptionnel, autant Alain Delon me laisse totalement froid. Un acteur qui n’a pas été suffisamment reconnu ou récompensé pour moi c’est Jean Pierre Marielle. Jean Reno peut faire et la finesse et le macho. Il est très bien. On pourrait même lui faire jouer des choses beaucoup plus intérieures. Ses plus grandes « œuvres » sont à venir.
Dans le domaine des vieilles pierres. la France est vraiment gâtée. Entre le château de Carcassonne et Versailles, il y a le choix. Carcassonne est pour moi une des plus belles choses qui existe. Versailles me touche moins dans la mesure ou c’est un lieu associé à la société de cour qui a eu une telle influence sur la société Française, en bien comme en mal. Mais que c’est beau. De même une promenade sur la Seine, à Paris, à regarder les vieilles pierres nettoyées c’est aussi un plaisir.
J’aime le côté « demmerde » ou débrouillard des Français, bien qu’il soit en train de disparaître. Il n’ont pas autant besoin de l’être qu’il y a 50 ans. Les gens qui ont encore besoin de l’être de nos jours ce sont les Brésiliens.
C’est un peu con de ramener à 2 pages les impressions et connaissances de 69 années mais je n’ai pas envie d’écrire un livre non plus
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Bernie Baby
Quote of the Week
'I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.'
Thomas Jefferson 1802
Thinking about Bernard Madoff...
Everybody says it's about greed. I don't agree at all. It has to do with pride and cowardice more than anything else. A few years back BM was the smartest, foremost expert on anything financial. He was managing funds which were outperforming others. At one point his funds started to show some losses so he borrowed from the principal of new investors to continue giving the high returns that he had promissed, thinking that within a short time he would have covered his shortcomings. The profit did not return. Years back, he probably could have said:
"Sorry folks, I am not the most intelligent man around after all and we are showing some losses, if you want to pull back your marbles, go ahead."
He did not want to look like a fool so he shut his mouth and took money from new investors to cover his hidden losses. I can understand greed but to fuck peoples just to keep his image is really the pits.
One more time it shows that it takes great intelligence to be a real asshole.
'I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.'
Thomas Jefferson 1802
Thinking about Bernard Madoff...
Everybody says it's about greed. I don't agree at all. It has to do with pride and cowardice more than anything else. A few years back BM was the smartest, foremost expert on anything financial. He was managing funds which were outperforming others. At one point his funds started to show some losses so he borrowed from the principal of new investors to continue giving the high returns that he had promissed, thinking that within a short time he would have covered his shortcomings. The profit did not return. Years back, he probably could have said:
"Sorry folks, I am not the most intelligent man around after all and we are showing some losses, if you want to pull back your marbles, go ahead."
He did not want to look like a fool so he shut his mouth and took money from new investors to cover his hidden losses. I can understand greed but to fuck peoples just to keep his image is really the pits.
One more time it shows that it takes great intelligence to be a real asshole.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Geneva auto show 2009
I went to the Geneva auto show yesterday. You'd never know there is a crisis. I stopped counting the cars above the 200'000$ altitude. There were more than last year.
Here is a picture of the old Morgan 195x vintage. That's a real sport car. You don't go that fast but what a ride..
Here is a pretty interesting 3 wheel scooter. I did not ask the price. Probably more than a full size truck.
Here is a picture of the old Morgan 195x vintage. That's a real sport car. You don't go that fast but what a ride..
Here is a pretty interesting 3 wheel scooter. I did not ask the price. Probably more than a full size truck.
Check out this really COOL Mazda prototype. I WANT ONE !!!
How do you like them space ships. 300kms per hour, 5 miles per gallon and nowhere on earth where you can get out of first gear. Besides there is not enough room for both a passenger and the grocery bags. But damn it, they are pretty
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Economy.
As long as we are in arrogant country talking about the big subjects of this world, why not tackle this one. I probably would not pass economics 101 anymore but, again, PHDs in economics have been using advanced mathematical formulas to tell us that all is well for the last 30 years. In times of crisis, everyone is an economist.
Why talk of Capitalism or Socialism or Communism? Why not look at the economy like a wheel with 3 spokes: Labor, Capital and output, (the production of goods and services). If the 3 spokes of the wheel have the same length, the wheel turns correctly. If one of the spokes is too long or too short, the wheel cannot turn anymore.
The wheel of the economy could not turn during the days of communism because the spoke of labor was too long. The same way in many socialist countries the wheel turns at a slower pace because the spoke of labor is too long. Nowadays for many different reasons the US has created a world economy where the spoke of capital is too long and the wheel does not turn very well.
For many years the US had an economic wheel that turned like a Swiss watch: from the beginnings of the Ford motor company to the mid seventies.
In 1910 or so, Henri Ford decided to pay 5$ per day to his factory workers when the practice at the time was 5$ per week. He thought that with their higher pay they would buy his cars as well. Other employers thought the same way. That’s the way to create growth: To have employees earn enough money to consume. Not by giving big dividends at the expense of employees. For 50 years Americans had the best standard of living on earth.
In those days Fredrick Winslow Taylor wrote in his “Principles of scientific management”:
The principal object of management should be to secure the maximum prosperity for the employer, coupled with the maximum prosperity for each employee.
The words "maximum prosperity" are used, in their broad sense, to mean not only large dividends for the company or owner, but the development of every branch of the business to its highest state of excellence, so that the prosperity may be permanent.
That was social capitalism. And there is nothing wrong with that.
What happened to America ? In my view, it’s not that complicated. In the sixties and seventies the unions became a little too powerful especially in the auto industry. They became fat cats. American cars of the seventies were not good at all and the first Japanese autos easily pierced the wall of the castle. US manufacturers had electronic parts done or assembled in the far east. This exported know how and technology. I think that in the seventies steel workers were getting 18$ per hour when the South Koreans were getting 2$. For me the Unions have been the cause of the “breach in the wall” . Even though they did a wonderful job for the American worker up to that point, they became too powerful and lacked wisdom. Here is an example of the wheel slowing down because one of the spokes is too long. Now the unions are too weak.
The nail in the coffin came with the age of Reagan. He killed the unions in general when he fired the air controllers on strike in 1981 . This was significant in the way employers dealt with employees. Imperceptibly, from this day on, American employees were not human beings anymore they were tools and they were treated as such. At the same time came the years of “trimming the fat”. Perhaps rightly so. Unfortunately many did not stop at the fat, they cut into the muscle as well. All the big companies were cutting off the non productive staffs. CEOs who fired a few hundred folks without any absolute reason were hailed as heroes and the shares went up. The words “maximizing share holder’s equity” became carved in the stones of all American corporations. 2 things were happening at the same time that destroyed the American standard of living. The first one was the shift of the profit from the employee to the stock holder and the second is the competition from the Far-East and the combination of both.
The USA have all the basic resources they need right at home. In the sixties or so, they could have say no to imports, kept the technology at home and live in a nice and safe economic world. The only reason we opened the borders was to “maximize the shareholder’s equity” of some companies.
Could we go back to protectionism? Probably not. In some industries it could perhaps be done if at the same time there were measures to help that industry start anew. In so many cases it would be very complicated. In the manufacture of a semi conductor chip the size of a finger nail, six or seven different countries can be involved. The silicon of the chip is grown in one country it is etched in another one, it is cased in plastic in the far east and the gold for the bonding of the legs comes from another place. Still I am sure that little by little some if not all industries could be repatriated with a combination of protectionism and industry/job creation incentives. Do we really need Wal-Mart 10$ plastic pairs of shoes from China that will last 3 months ? I guess yes if one working 40 hours a week earns 1200$ per month. Besides all this precedent “blablabla”, something should be said about the stock market in general. At the end of the day, it is the worst enemy of corporate America. Essentially, it dictates the way companies should be run. The shares go up or down according to the results or the forecasted results of the quarter, 6 months or year. Therefore profit and sales must always be up; at all cost. Because of that, managers are afraid of taking risks or thinking far ahead and planning for the future. They are also tempted to show profit which is not there.. Since they have too much to lose, the independent auditors increasingly roll over when told to. That’s another thing that should be changed. Why not by law force a change of auditors every 3 or 4 years at big corporations.
As long as we are in arrogant country talking about the big subjects of this world, why not tackle this one. I probably would not pass economics 101 anymore but, again, PHDs in economics have been using advanced mathematical formulas to tell us that all is well for the last 30 years. In times of crisis, everyone is an economist.
Why talk of Capitalism or Socialism or Communism? Why not look at the economy like a wheel with 3 spokes: Labor, Capital and output, (the production of goods and services). If the 3 spokes of the wheel have the same length, the wheel turns correctly. If one of the spokes is too long or too short, the wheel cannot turn anymore.
The wheel of the economy could not turn during the days of communism because the spoke of labor was too long. The same way in many socialist countries the wheel turns at a slower pace because the spoke of labor is too long. Nowadays for many different reasons the US has created a world economy where the spoke of capital is too long and the wheel does not turn very well.
For many years the US had an economic wheel that turned like a Swiss watch: from the beginnings of the Ford motor company to the mid seventies.
In 1910 or so, Henri Ford decided to pay 5$ per day to his factory workers when the practice at the time was 5$ per week. He thought that with their higher pay they would buy his cars as well. Other employers thought the same way. That’s the way to create growth: To have employees earn enough money to consume. Not by giving big dividends at the expense of employees. For 50 years Americans had the best standard of living on earth.
In those days Fredrick Winslow Taylor wrote in his “Principles of scientific management”:
The principal object of management should be to secure the maximum prosperity for the employer, coupled with the maximum prosperity for each employee.
The words "maximum prosperity" are used, in their broad sense, to mean not only large dividends for the company or owner, but the development of every branch of the business to its highest state of excellence, so that the prosperity may be permanent.
That was social capitalism. And there is nothing wrong with that.
What happened to America ? In my view, it’s not that complicated. In the sixties and seventies the unions became a little too powerful especially in the auto industry. They became fat cats. American cars of the seventies were not good at all and the first Japanese autos easily pierced the wall of the castle. US manufacturers had electronic parts done or assembled in the far east. This exported know how and technology. I think that in the seventies steel workers were getting 18$ per hour when the South Koreans were getting 2$. For me the Unions have been the cause of the “breach in the wall” . Even though they did a wonderful job for the American worker up to that point, they became too powerful and lacked wisdom. Here is an example of the wheel slowing down because one of the spokes is too long. Now the unions are too weak.
The nail in the coffin came with the age of Reagan. He killed the unions in general when he fired the air controllers on strike in 1981 . This was significant in the way employers dealt with employees. Imperceptibly, from this day on, American employees were not human beings anymore they were tools and they were treated as such. At the same time came the years of “trimming the fat”. Perhaps rightly so. Unfortunately many did not stop at the fat, they cut into the muscle as well. All the big companies were cutting off the non productive staffs. CEOs who fired a few hundred folks without any absolute reason were hailed as heroes and the shares went up. The words “maximizing share holder’s equity” became carved in the stones of all American corporations. 2 things were happening at the same time that destroyed the American standard of living. The first one was the shift of the profit from the employee to the stock holder and the second is the competition from the Far-East and the combination of both.
The USA have all the basic resources they need right at home. In the sixties or so, they could have say no to imports, kept the technology at home and live in a nice and safe economic world. The only reason we opened the borders was to “maximize the shareholder’s equity” of some companies.
Could we go back to protectionism? Probably not. In some industries it could perhaps be done if at the same time there were measures to help that industry start anew. In so many cases it would be very complicated. In the manufacture of a semi conductor chip the size of a finger nail, six or seven different countries can be involved. The silicon of the chip is grown in one country it is etched in another one, it is cased in plastic in the far east and the gold for the bonding of the legs comes from another place. Still I am sure that little by little some if not all industries could be repatriated with a combination of protectionism and industry/job creation incentives. Do we really need Wal-Mart 10$ plastic pairs of shoes from China that will last 3 months ? I guess yes if one working 40 hours a week earns 1200$ per month. Besides all this precedent “blablabla”, something should be said about the stock market in general. At the end of the day, it is the worst enemy of corporate America. Essentially, it dictates the way companies should be run. The shares go up or down according to the results or the forecasted results of the quarter, 6 months or year. Therefore profit and sales must always be up; at all cost. Because of that, managers are afraid of taking risks or thinking far ahead and planning for the future. They are also tempted to show profit which is not there.. Since they have too much to lose, the independent auditors increasingly roll over when told to. That’s another thing that should be changed. Why not by law force a change of auditors every 3 or 4 years at big corporations.
Monday, March 2, 2009
North Korea
I have tried to understand what it is that Kim Jong Il wants. and I really don’t have much of an intuition. Besides the strategic/tactical moves and positioning there is a psychological dimension. I imagine a man overly dominated by his father Kim Il Sung. He never had a chance to accomplish any thing on his own before taking over the North Korea business. So he is there like some other folks inherit a few billions from their daddy. He has to keep the store alive, no matter what, but does not seem to have anything new to ad or create.
I think he is craving for some type of recognition. Nobody wants to talk to him directly and the perpetual fight about his darling bombs reinforces his paranoia. Actually all he wants is for his daddy to tell him: “ Son, you are doing a good job” .
Short of that, direct contact with heads of states would probably soften his stand. He would finally be able to look at himself in the mirror. As a matter of fact, if I recall correctly, when Clinton’s secretary of state visited with him we got further that we ever did. To tell that he belonged to the ax of evil certainly was not a clever thing to do.
Will somebody take the poor bastard to lunch ?
I have tried to understand what it is that Kim Jong Il wants. and I really don’t have much of an intuition. Besides the strategic/tactical moves and positioning there is a psychological dimension. I imagine a man overly dominated by his father Kim Il Sung. He never had a chance to accomplish any thing on his own before taking over the North Korea business. So he is there like some other folks inherit a few billions from their daddy. He has to keep the store alive, no matter what, but does not seem to have anything new to ad or create.
I think he is craving for some type of recognition. Nobody wants to talk to him directly and the perpetual fight about his darling bombs reinforces his paranoia. Actually all he wants is for his daddy to tell him: “ Son, you are doing a good job” .
Short of that, direct contact with heads of states would probably soften his stand. He would finally be able to look at himself in the mirror. As a matter of fact, if I recall correctly, when Clinton’s secretary of state visited with him we got further that we ever did. To tell that he belonged to the ax of evil certainly was not a clever thing to do.
Will somebody take the poor bastard to lunch ?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
