My whole life I’ve always been more concerned with the personal or business mission at hand rather than the tools used to get it done. There are a lot of ways to accomplish a goal but it’s far more important to understand WHY you’re going for it in the first place.

For example, in the late eighties while bored one day in college, I scribbled on a piece of paper the then population of the world (it was about 5 billion). Then I wrote down the population of the USA (then about 250 million). I divided one into the other and came up with 5%. I had an immediate realization in my late teens that 95% of everything that happens happens someplace else. That may sound funny today in our highly interconnected world, but in 1988 on the shores of Lake Erie that was a fairly big realization for a teen whose world generally went maybe 30 miles in any direction. In that time there was no global news, no web, no social media, and certainly no phone calls in multiple time zones each day. It was just three main channels on TV and news at six and eleven.

It was at that moment sitting in Buffalo, NY without ever having traveled overseas that I decided to make it my life’s professional focus to get involved in international business. That realization became my “Why” and since then everything I’ve done has orbited that rationale. A year later I was living in Rome, Italy – a decision that changed my life forever for the good.

In that vein, here is a really excellent video I recently discovered from Simon Sinek that takes a great shot at explaining what differentiates successful people or companies from all the rest. It’s an idea so simple that at first you’ll say to yourself “anyone could come up with that” – but as you’ll see and recognize, the most influential people and companies in the world own that space not because of What they do, or How they do it, but precisely Why they do it. It is the “Why” that makes you leap higher and farther. It is the “Why” that is the core energy that propels you to reach farther, motivate, inspire, and influence others, and otherwise write a much bigger story that what you do or how you do it. People don’t follow you because of what you do, they follow you because of why you do it, the underlying reason and message. They do it for themselves.

Pay particular attention to the last two minutes which really nails it.

Rush – Secret Touch

For some I can completely understand where this might seem like just a wall of noise, but that’s just it – it IS a wall of noise and it’s organized chaos. It’s amazing that three guys can write and play music like this. From the bluesy groove at the beginning it launches off a cliff straight into 4th gear with the 1-2, 1-2-1-2, 1-2-1-2, 1-2-1,2,3,4 – 1,2,3,4 push. Then to be able to melodically sing over this sort of playing is a superhuman feat. At 3:27 the song breaks into the mid-part to 3:55 and then at 4:09 it grooves on a guitar run over a punch bass and kick drum all over 4/4. Listen for the guitar playing the melody over all of this. At 6:23 it starts the trippy groove to the outro and fade. This is what I mean about “dense” – all this stuff is going on at the same time and overlapping into a single piece. Dissect it and you have pieces, blend it and you have a piece of work. It’s like cooking – you add in all the ingredients and layer them in – same thing happens in some kinds of music. Just kick back and let’s this performance take you for a ride.

Now check this one out….

Incognito – Expresso Madureira

Just a funky funky groove cover of the Banda Black Rio track. It’s starts of with a fat guitar chord progression and solid 4/4 kick beat and immediately layers in the horn section. Listen to all the elements separately if you can isolate them with your year. Focus on just the hi-hat for instance, or the keys, or just the bass groove. Then around 2:10 hear how they punch the horns with the kick drum. At 2:32 the band settles into a slick groove where they feature the keyboard solo but the bass and drummer also take short pops at solos underneath the keyboard player who’s going off. The band build this section to a crescendo and releases the tension at 3:55 (check out the drum fills here). Then at 4:30 the trombone takes over and brings the song to full party scale. There are reasons why music makes you feel the way you feel – whether it’s a groove, or major 7th versus a 9th – you don’t even have to know what those are to understand that changing one small thing changes the whole palette of the song – and you’re reaction to it. Bands work on this stuff for live gigs because it makes a difference. If you know how to do it you can take an audience for a ride.

And finally…

Pat Metheny – Third Wind

This piece is really a three-part tune stung together. For any Metheny fan this is a classic from one of the most defining periods of time from the group. If you listen to the piece you’ll hear the first part sets the tone with a Brasilian infused back beat and the main hook melody that builds up to the soaring guitar lick at 1:39 and the band doesn’t miss a beat. From there check out how the solo goes blues over the piano comping. The band takes it to 3:14 where they break it down to what sounds like a afro-brasilian tribal thing – it’s got a little trance like groove happening where then the whole band takes turns throwing in their individual little bits – beats, melodies, color, texture – it’s all in there. At 4:58 the set the stage for part 3 with a hook that almost sounds like it’s telling you a story. From 5:28 to 5:40 it transitions to the final section.

Check out the underlying beat holding it all together. At around 6:01 the guitar comes back in with the theme that the rest of the band responds to. When I say “dense” this is a great example of dense music – there are about 5 different things going on in here at this point between rhythm and lead. At 7:10 it takes off into the phenomenal (again) organized chaos that it addictive if you’re a performing musician. The freedom to freestyle jam in the middle of a tune like this while keeping it all moving forward is one of the coolest places to be as a musician.

By the end of this song I dare you to not be able to hum the final hook for the rest of the day.

If you want to enjoy parts 1-4 of this theme – visit this link.

Having just seen last year all of the occupy demonstrations, my wish for the new year is that more people worldwide, and especially in the USA, will realize that the economic problems we are seeing in the world stem not from Capitalism but from Government and government intervention in what should be free markets.

While I get the beef the occupiers have, I have it too (anger at crony business for example), but so many people have their anger focused on the wrong place.  It is ignorance in the most caring sense of the word.

The occupy crowd (and the population in general) should not be upset at Capitalism or at the too easily contrived “fat cats”, they should go to the source of the problem which is Government.

Markets naturally self-regulate.  Why?  Because Buyers and Suppliers of anything have to both agree before any product or service can be bought or sold.  If one or the other cheats, lies, or otherwise doesn’t offer value they will naturally be eliminated or otherwise ignored.   The good and the bad word gets out.

The minute an outside party to the transaction gets involved and alters the relationship (screws with the free market) it is no longer a free market but a manipulated market.  Look around – do you not see Government intervention and manipulation in markets almost everywhere?  Housing, Health Care, Food, Labor, Stocks, Banking and on and on.

Look at the United States – we have a Constitution, a founding document of the nation that sets forth not what the Federal Government can do but rather what it cannot do.  This is somewhat unique to the USA and what has up until now set the USA apart from the rest of the world by levels of degrees when it comes to economic productivity.  The first job of the government is to protect your liberty, life, and property rights, and the first job of the President is to defend the Constitution.  We have a Congress that passes laws that regularly interfere  with your liberty and property rights and a current President that routinely tramples on the Constitution.

The problems we’re seeing in the USA and in many parts of the world are not stemming from Capitalism – on the contrary – its the lack of Capitalism that is pushing everything down.  When Capitalism flows freely the markets would take care of themselves.  If Government would get out of the way of interfering in markets so many of the nations economic issues would naturally resolve themselves.  Resolving economic issues leads to resolving many social issues.

Do you really need a far-away Federal bureaucrat deciding for you what you should buy, when, and for how much?  If you support this sort of a world, maybe there are a few countries for you where you could relocate, but the Constitution in the United States lays out the terms and conditions of the country.  It is clear that many people also confuse the role of the Federal government with the role of the States (ex. Dept of Education).  So many people lose their minds when you say we should get rid of the Federal Dept of Education – but think about it, what business does the government have being in the business of educating children?  That is not a role of the Federal government.  (As a side note, if you think about it again, you’ll realize why the Federal government like to have a hand in education.)

So while nobody like crony capitalism (hardly a free marketplace either), the occupy Wall Street Crowd and most Liberal Democrat voters have their arrows and frustrations pointed in the wrong place.  They should really take a clearer look at from where these problems stem and if they want to occupy something they ought to direct their energy at voting out people in the Federal government that are creating the policies.   The Federal government is the entity creating the problems then coming forth with “solutions” for the problems they create.  Enough – just vote out the wrong people and do your best to vote in the right people.  When you elect people like Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid, Dick Durbin, Barack Obama, and the like, you get what we have now.  I’ll even throw in George W. Bush because he too abandoned free market principle as she said “to save the free market“.

So in this theme, spend 15 minutes checking out the above insightful video from Peter Schiff who went down to one of the occupy protests to see if he could have a dialogue with the people there.  You can see in the video that the crowd wants to just spout out quick slogans or blame zillionaires for making too much money, but Schiff sympathizes with them, calmly shoots straight with them, and shows them that their anger really needs to be put squarely on Washington DC and the politicians who create policies that do not let markets self regulate.  He is fair in his analysis and I hope here in 2012, in what is easily the most critical election year of your lifetime, more people everywhere understand that free Capitalism is the solution, not more Government.

Remember that at least in the USA the government governs at the consent of the governed.  How many Americans no longer consent to the current state of the Federal government and will vote out the wrong people this year?

Video from Reason.tv

On the way over there by foot you get to pass all the cafes that are starting to open up and you only hear the church bells overhead, the hushed voices from the street and the sound of all of the cucchiaini (little espresso spoons) stirring the shots in the tazzine.  I had a few hours before the Castello even opened so I walked down passed Piazza Cavour, crossed the Tiber and made my way down Via di Panico toward the Pantheon.  I wanted to go back and check out the famous Cafe di San Eustachio.  I practically had Rome to myself for two hours that morning – when I arrived to the Piazza del Pantheon was completely empty except for a couple of pigeons and some garbage men.  It must be odd to be a garbage man in Rome because it’s like working in a living museum – I bet they don’t even look twice anymore.  I hope I’m wrong because these garbage men have the best route in the world if you think about it.

Noodling my way through the backstreets of this are back over toward the Tiber to cross the bridge in front of Castello Sant’ Angelo. When I arrived I made my way straight to the top terrace.  Amazingly no one else came up there for 30 minutes and it was only me on the top terrace of the Castello with a 360 degree view of Rome spread out before me.  On this trip I was interested in collecting a few very specific views of the city that I had never had before to see if I could take in the lay of the land from a new perspective.  I will say that this terrace is a must-visit terrace for anyone going to Rome because it perfectly lays out how St. Peter’s is positioned sort of perpendicularly to the rest of the city.

I spent about 40 minutes up on the roof of the Castello before coming back down at about 10am and making my way back to the hotel.  I was fried.  I had been going non stop for two days on foot in Rome and realized after being up a 6am and crossing Rome again on foot before 10am that I needed to catch at least 2 more hours of sleep.  On the way back the city was now much more alive (even though there was a lazy aire about the place).  I stopped off at a small bar in Piazza Cavour for a Prosciutto Schiacciata sandwich that was the best you could ever imagine.  Schiacciata means “flattened” and this is a classic stand-up food in Italy.  Here’s the difference between eating a sandwich in the USA and one in Italy.  In the USA people want to cram as much stuff into the sandwich as possible – ham, turkey, cheese, roast beef, olives, peppers, and on and on….  In Italy they zero in on the one main ingredient of the sandwich whatever it is (in this case prosciutto) and you dive into it and really taste THE ingredient your supposed to taste instead of a mish-mash of 7 or 8 things.  In Italy food is really and truly about essence.  It’s zen.

While sitting at the bar a couple of guys came in for un caffe’.  It’s amazing to watch this simple act of walking into a bar and making the smallest of coffees last long enough to have a meaningful conversation.  It’s like watching a ritual – walk up to the bar, order the shots, turn the cup, stir in the sugar, swirl it around, kick it back, talk.  Repeat until coffee is gone and you lick out the stained sugar crystal and head out the door.

After a much needed two hour power nap and a fresh shower I was juiced for the rest of the day.  This afternoon I wanted to go hit up the top of the Monumento Nazionale a Vittorio Emanuele II.  Not that I really cared about the monument because generally speaking I could care less about these sort of things – what I was after was the view from the top which in 20 years I don’t think has been accessible.  The city of Rome had apparently changed this because I saw people the day before strolling on top of it.  Heading back through Piazza di Popolo I stopped off at the Police and Military exposition that took over the whole piazza.  All of these different modes of Italian law enforcement transportation were on display from an old Fiat 500 to a helicopter to a what else? …  a police Lamborghini.  I mean come on – imagine you’re speeding down the Italian highway and you’re pulled over by a cop driving a Lamborghini, that’s not even a fair fight.  Only in Italy would they even dream of painting up a Lamborghini as a cop car, and it was real (and the seemingly big hit of the open air expo).

Today was the hottest of the three days and there is a trick in Italy when walking in the city that holds in the heat – just find a church and go inside for a few minutes.  Churches are always chilled and have an odd quality of air in them that brings down your temperature a few notches before you head out again.  Walking down Via del Corso and looping between the left and the right sides of the side streets, I made the time to go back to Piazza di Spagna because when you’re in Rome this is a sort of must-do .  This is probably THE iconic locale in Rome that people think of when they think of Rome and it was looking good.  The steps were as usual full of backpackers and hippies, but it’s still fun to go hang out there for a little while and take in the scene.

Rome was full of street performers doing their thing including these four guys that just spent the day sitting on the street in these silver masks collecting money.  It’s kind of an odd way to make money and usually I think people give money to street performers that actually DO something – but the shot was too funny not to take.

Walking all the way down to the end of Via del Corso I made it to Piazza Venezia and onto the Monumento Nazionale a Vittorio Emanuele II.  It was pretty cool to be able to finally walk up on the wedding cake (it looks like a wedding cake) and around back to the elevator to go up to the top.  The funny thing was the guy that had the unenviable job of working the elevator.  He was telling us that he had the world’s worst job – all day long all he does is stand on his feet and ride the elevator up and down for hours on end and with no air conditioning.  He told us “questo e’ un lavoraccio” (this is a shitty job).  Once on top I have to say the views were amazing and it gave me a vantage point of Rome I had never seen before.

After hitting the roof I ended up at the cafe on the backside of the monument.  It’s actually on the monument and has a setting you can’t believe facing the Roman forum and Colosseum.  The patio was full of Romans all taking their apertifs of Caffe Shakerato and Aperols.  Just as a side note… click here to see how a shakerato is prepared – they’re great in the summer.

The thing you notice however these days in Italy with the Euro is you always feel like you’re burning through cash – and I’ve come to the conclusion that it is because you actually are burning through cash.  When you buy something small – say a cappuccino, it’s 3 Euro – you pay with a 10 Euro note and you get back only coins.  You buy something for 11 Euro, you pay with a 20 Euro note, you get back only coins.  By the end of the day you’re walking around with no cash but a pocket full of coins.  Even though the coins are worth the same as the cash, you feel like you’re wiped out every day because Italy (Europe) consumes your cash money  It’s sounds funny but it is real.  The Italian and the Europeans blow through cash from just daily living.

After a visit along the Roman Forum and Coloseum I was ready to hit the hotel for a shower and a break.

Later that night I met up for dinner with a third old friend in Rome, Selena who I had not seen in over 20 years.  She works for perhaps the most famous Italian jewelry company and is in charge of throwing all the parties for the whales to come and buy high-priced jewelry and watches.  She was telling me they have a budget of something like $2 million just to through parties all over Europe and they fly in big time customers into places like Monte Carlo for their six and seven figure spending jaunts.  It’s the full 007 treatment – boats, hotels, casinos, privilege.  She has a killer Rolodex of who to call across Europe for special events but she’s bored – says she’s been doing it for so many years now and working in Italy may seem glamorous but there are a lot of politics in Italy – it’s hard to grow a career and even harder to get paid well.

Then she was telling me about Italian men.  She says that Italian men want mother-wives to take care of them like bambini and that in reality Italian men talk the talk but don’t walk the walk.  She was telling me that by and large Italian men in Italy start all kinds of business ideas but don’t finish most of them because in the end they want the sure thing – the “busta paga” (monthly stipend).  Over dinner of Cacio e Pepe and Carbonara (two insanely rich but simple Roman pastas) she was also telling me that the Socialists in Europe are ruining Europe – from Italy to Spain to Belgium she is living in the real world of what happens when countries elect Socialists into power.  The quality of life for the very people the Socialists claim to want to help goes so far down they cannot even recover, and the people who vote in the Socialists just buy into the promises without ever understanding the consequences of what really happens.  I get the sense that many Italians are frustrated to no end with the Italian government and the Euro.  They miss the 80′s and 90′s when life in Italy was more frizzante.

On the flight out of Rome the next morning up to Frankfurt, Alitalia only had men serving as hosts, from the guy waiting for us at the front door of the plane with his sunglasses and folded arms, to the four guys serving on board (all tanned) and with names like Stefano, Gian Luca, and Antonio that served biscotti with the question “dolci o salati?” (sweet or salty?).  On the flight it was a nonstop promotion for the new Alfa Romeo Giuletta from a guy who looked like a bald soccer player who couldn’t emphasize enough how cool the curves on this car were as he drove along the mountain switchbacks of some seaside Italian village.   Next to me were two Germans who had no flair at all.  It was clear that I was leaving the land of loose and heading into the land of the stiff.  The whole body language changes when you move from Italy to Germany, and it only serves to confirm what I already knew – do Germany for business and leave Italy for fun.

Day 2 is here.

Day 1 is here

Going into 2012 and looking back on the past few years, I have to say that I am grateful that we still have entrepreneurs in the USA, and more of us (especially the occupy crowd) should also reconsider just how lucky this country is that so many people start businesses.  The funny thing about starting a business (I too have done this and it is NOT easy), is that when you’re starting up you have to struggle and fight for every inch, every client, every deal but when you make it somehow “everyone” thinks it was overnight and that life is then so easy.  The whiners don’t see the years of toil, sweat, worry, sleeplessness, risk, and tuna sandwiches – they only see the “today” and think somehow it’s not fair.

Entrepreneurship is hard and it’s not for everyone, but at least be thankful for those who trail blaze instead of vilifying them.  The occupy crowd whines about how things aren’t fair while they drink lattes and make cell phone calls.  They don’t have a clue about fairness.  You know a place where everything’s fair?  North Korea.

The President (and many other leaders) so often preach about the honor of public service, even to the point where they propose special school loans that an be forgiven if you choose to go into public service.   Why not flip this around and offer loan forgiveness for those that start businesses and employ others?  That’s public service.  People that start companies are pillars of public service – not the guy at the DMV.

In the next round of Congressional and Presidential elections I hope we get back to electing into office representatives that understand  that this country can be stronger and more stable through entrepreneurship, and we put in place a general attitude that thanks those that start companies and employee others rather than punish them with over the top regulation and taxes.   Imagine a country with no entrepreneurs.  What would you have?  How would you grow – hell how would you eat!   

I am grateful for those among us that took the chance to start companies that ultimately went on to employ so many.  That is what we should be encouraging in this country.  So this holiday season and into the New Year, let’s hold entrepreneurs up with reverence and put gratitude where it belongs – in the hands of those that make lifestyle possible for so many others.  If you ever start a company you’d want the same treatment.

They say these two phrases a lot and it is all so reassuring and you can just sense how in control the italians are in any situation – until there IS a problem – then they hit you with the many reasons there was no problem until __________ (fill in the blank) happened and how they were is control of everything until some unforeseen thing cause whatever was supposed to happen not happen.  This is very Italian and if you’ve had any significant experience with the Italians in Italy you’re laughing right now because you fully understand this.

This was one of the first things I overheard this morning as I was enjoying an early caffe latte and cornetto, laughing to myself that I wasn’t on the receiving end of that non c’e’ problema.

Today was the first full day in Rome and I was going to meet up with a couple of my main friends from back in 1989 who are both Roman to the core.    I wasn’t going to meet them until later that day so I had time to start the day at Pincio, a terrace overlooking Piazza del Popolo.  The cool thing about Pincio is you can get a good sense of the layout of the city from up top from Piazza Venezia to the Left all the way to St. Peters directly across.  It’s a good place to start almost any trek in Rome.  From Pincio you can also walk along a high ridge over to the topside of the Piazza di Spagna and cut through over to Via Veneto.

That morning I had only come up to Pincio for the view though and after heading back down to the Piazza del Popolo, I crossed the city on my way to Campo dei Fiori, a small open air market I used to go to on some mornings for fresh fruit or breakfast.  On the way there I crossed through Piazza Navona to see how things looked these days.  I only noticed two differences from the place I knew – Cafe de Colombia was now gone (too bad) and with the huge Gucci banner covering one of the buildings it was clear that someone figured out they could sell ad space in one of the most visited places in the city.

One of the things I was looking to pick up in Rome was a new Moka for making stove top coffee.  I had remembered that Campo dei Fiori also sold some housewares so I was happy to see a few stands selling this sort of stuff.  The small streets around Campo dei Fiori are really better than the main piazza anyway which is a little touristy at times.  The little streets there are quiet and to some degree even have a local, “not much going on here”, type of vibe.  You see people going about their daily lives picking up groceries, reading the paper, sweeping the front stoop, and you can smell the early kitchen aromas at 9am from the residents preparing lunch for a few hours later.

The great thing about Rome and in fact most of Italy is the local markets and food shops.  In Italy you have to search for a bad meal and in part much of that is because they have great ingredients.  From fresh grown vegetables and fruit to incredible cheeses, what most in the USA would consider a hard to find or an expensive treat, the local shops in Italy deal in as daily fare.  Even though it is considerably more costly today that it was back when I lived here in 1989 and was spending in lire (a far more interesting money than the Euro because it had it’s own personality and everyone was a “millionaire”), these ingredients are part of life in Italy and if you can’t afford it you figure out a way to afford it.

After roaming around the back streets I crossed back over the Tiber to get into St. Peters.  It was a beautiful sunny day but there was a massive line to get into the church wrapping around 3/4 of the entire square.  Let’s just say I didn’t waste 2 hours of my short trip back to Rome waiting in that line.  There are now airport style x-ray machines to enter St. Peters (maybe it’s been this way for a while) and it’s all business.  What’s not changed is the look of disappointment on people’s faces when they wait in line and get all the way to the front only to be told they can’t enter the church because their shoulders or knees are exposed and that would be a sign of disrespect. Almost as if by miracle there are people right there on the spot ready to sell you a shawl.

In May this isn’t a huge deal but in the summer I’m sure the faithful from around the world have a hard time with this.  What also hasn’t changed are the Vatican tour guides that seemingly all have the inside track to the right store where if you buy something from that particular store they can make sure your purchased get blessed at the Vatican before it is delivered in holy form to your hotel room later that same day.  Living in Rome and seeing the business side of Vatican City was one of the more eye-opening formative experiences in my life when I was a resident there.

I’ll never forget years ago my Roman friend Daria Z (the one I was to meet up with this same day for lunch) told me as a Roman she tries to avoid St. Peter’s as it’s almost always a logjam of people and traffic.  For many Romans the Vatican is like maybe Niagara Falls for the people in Western New York, it’s always there and maybe once in a while you go that way.

I met up with Daria right at the opening of St. Peter’s Square on Via della Concilliazione and we took off in her little Italian car up to the Gianicolo (where there are more great views of Rome).  We ended up picking up her mom and driving to the complete other side of town near the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore to eat at one of her mom’s friend’s cafes.  On the way we passed this car with the windows open and the drive happily singing to himself what might be the most Roman of all expressions “Mortacci vostri, mortacci vostri…”.  In English we don’t have an expression that quite captures this phrase but the closest thing might be “your crappy dead relatives” or perhaps “I curse your dead relatives” –  and the “vostri” part of that means all of them because on other occassions they use the singular “mortacci tua”.  In any event, it was funny to drive by a guy singing this as if it were just on the radio.

At lunch the absolute coolest thing we had (and something I didn’t even know existed) was Caffe al Pistacchio, which is a Sicilian way of taking an espresso that has a base of white chocolate and smashed pistachios and turns your espresso emerald green.  It is ridiculously good.  You can see what was left of it in this photo.

Some may think doing routine things in Rome would be silly but I was more interested in these three day in seeing daily life than I was some monument.  I headed on foot next to the Stazione Termini Train Station.  I didn’t have any trains to catch but I hadn’t seen the place in a long time and I really only wanted to hang out in daily Roman life.  That and I also was going to meet up with another one of my good friends from Rome, Renato, a partner in one of Italy’s biggest law firms not so far from that area.

The great thing about having friends in Rome (or any city really) is you see the place on a completely different level.  After heading over to Renato’s law firm we jumped on his moto and shot across the whole city to go grab a drink near my hotel and catch up a bit.

We ended up back where I started my day in Piazza del Popolo at Bar Rosati for a San Bitter.  It’s too bad we don’t really drink bitters in the States because even though it is an acquired taste (think non alcoholic Campari), it is a great drink.  Bar Rosati has been there forever and I don’t think it’s the kind of place you go on a daily basis because it’s in a very packed Piazza but you go for the view (below) as the outdoor cafe is right in front of the two churches on either side of the Via del Corso.

My friend Renato told me there was a party later that night at one of his friends house and invited me.  When I got there I noticed parked police cars and a security booth on the corner and entrance to the next door neighbors home.  While waiting there for my friend to arrive, I asked the cops what was with all the security.  They told me that the house behind them was the residence of the Israeli Ambassador to Italy.  Later my friend told me “questa strada e’ la strada piu’ blindata di Roma” (this is the most armored street in all of Rome).  Nice.

The party had a sort of “Eyes Wide Shut” feeling, there were 15-20 couples there, all well dressed, to hear a recital from an incredible piano player from the Academia di Santa Cecilia and she played this amazing piece of music called “La Jota Aragonesa” with a nice dissonance in all the right places.  The house belonged to a friend of his who is the head of an investment firm in Rome and after the recital we ended up on the roof for cocktails and food.

I learned that evening that most of the crowd in Italy has only the propaganda view of Barack Obama.  Many of the Italians only heard the “marketed” version of the American President and were unaware of the real story.  I can imagine this.  Truth be told how many Americans really  know anything about Italian politicians other than the 10 seconds they might get on TV once in a while.  One of the women at the party said to me about Obama with absolute confidence … “Vuole che tutti stanno bene, Michelle e’ bella e anche la famiglia” (Obama just wants everyone to be well and both his wife and family are beautiful).  That’s the marketed image of Barack Obama that so many people see overseas and they’re just not getting essence of what’s taking place in the USA currently.   In our conversation she was astonished to hear the other side of the story.

Back to the hotel.  There was one more full day to go.

Day 1 is here.

Day 3 is here.

For a while now it has seemed to me that in the USA (and perhaps to some degree in other countries) the two main political parties, Republicans and the Democrats, have been using almost the exact same language to describe the other party and themselves.  Republicans come to the arena with the idea of less government and less taxation while Democrats generally show up with the idea of larger government and higher taxes. Then there is the Tea Party that comes in to the Right of Republicans and advocates MUCH less government and MUCH less taxes. These are very different schools of thought but nonetheless when I hear Republicans and Democrats talk, they all seem to be packaging themselves and the other side using virtually the exact same language.

Language is important to keep in mind in a time when anybody can manipulate almost anything to be in favor of or against even using the same set of data:

Look at these words and try to tell me if they are used by the Republicans or Democrats when describing the other:

decay… failure (fail)… collapse(ing)… deeper… crisis… urgent(cy)… destructive… destroy… sick… pathetic… lie… liberal… they/them… unionized bureaucracy… “compassion” is not enough… betray… consequences… limit(s)… shallow… traitors… sensationalists…

endanger… coercion… hypocrisy… radical… threaten… devour… waste… corruption… incompetent… permissive attitudes… destructive… impose… self-serving… greed… ideological… insecure… anti-(issue): flag, family, child, jobs… pessimistic… excuses… intolerant…

stagnation… welfare… corrupt… selfish… insensitive… status quo… mandate(s)… taxes… spend(ing)… shame… disgrace… punish (poor…)… bizarre… cynicism… cheat… steal… abuse of power… machine… bosses… obsolete… criminal rights… red tape… patronage

Now look at these words and tell me who is describing themselves:

share… change… opportunity… legacy… challenge… control… truth… moral… courage… reform… prosperity… crusade… movement… children… family… debate… compete… active(ly)… we/us/our… candid(ly)… humane… pristine… provide…
liberty… commitment… principle(d)… unique… duty… precious… premise… care(ing)… tough… listen… learn… help… lead… vision… success… empower(ment)… citizen… activist… mobilize… conflict… light… dream… freedom…

peace… rights… pioneer… proud/pride… building… preserve… pro-(issue): flag, children, environment… reform… workfare… eliminate good-time in prison… strength… choice/choose… fair… protect… confident… incentive… hard work… initiative… common sense… passionate

Who said what?  If you bend toward the Republican/Conservative school of thought you likely thing the first set was said by Republican about Democrats and the second set by Republicans about Republicans.  If you lean towards the Democrat/Liberal mentality you probably see those words in set one as perfect describers of the Republicans and the second set as a valiant choice of words to describe the Democrats.

In the end it’s marketing and packaging.  In order to cut through the noise you have to have a solid understanding of reality, or what works and what doesn’t at it’s most basic level.  More importantly when it comes to politics I think what you really need to understand is the concept of unintended consequences because politicians are big on pushing ideas that often in the end actually have the opposite effect of what they intended because they forget to factor in human behavior.  I let you try to figure out which party I’m generally talking about.

By the way – have you ever taken the world’s smallest political quiz?  Takes 30 seconds.  I’d bet no matter what you think you are you all come down on the same result.

As we were landing at Fiumicino airport it was great to see again the Italian countryside by air – it’s such a different look than all other places – terra cotta roofs, green hills, and smoke rising from some of the farms where they’re burning cypress wood.  Just after landing and picking up my luggage I started walking over to the “niente da dichiarare” door when a street clothed Italian cop pulled me over to ask me if I had anything to declare.  I thought I’d have some fun straight away because the Italian are fun to mess with) and so I told him I was walking through the nothing to declare line – because I-had-nothing-to-declare.  If I had had something to declare, I would have walked through the other line.

He wasn’t amused.  He asked for my passport, looked at my name and asked if I spoke Italian.  I told him I did.  He asked “you carrying any cigarettes?”  No.  ”Any alchohol?”  No.  ”Nothing to declare?”  I told him… “Te l’ho detto non ho niente da dichiarare”.  ”You sure you don’t have any cigarettes?”  I’m sure.  ”Va bene, vai...”   Welcome back to Rome.

Day 1:

Once checked in and footloose in the city, the first thing I did was go to the very first take out pizzeria I saw and got a few squares of pizza with tomatoes and arugula.  You can’t imagine how good this is.  This is why I was here – flavor and texture permeates everything in Rome.

I was staying near the Piazza del Popolo, which has always been my favorite spot to start a walk in Rome because you get a great perspective of direction from this spot.  In Piazza del Popolo there were many foreigners who were walking around mesmerized just being in this city.  Rome has a weird affect on people visiting  - it’s visual and aural overstimulation – it stuns them.  Visitors walking in Rome (especially for the first time) have this look on their face like they can’t actually believe they’re there.

You know what you see in Rome?  Life.  People interacting on a totally different plane – the hands, the clothes, the cadence.

It was about 4pm by the time I set out for a first evening’s walk and I decided my destination that night would be Trastevere for dinner.  I walked through time almost tracing the roads I lived in every day over two decades ago down Via del Corso with the indimenticabile smell of diesel in the air.  I’ve always associated diesel with Rome in a nice sort of way.  Passing by the Pantheon I heard in the air what has to be one of the best tango songs in the world, Libertango was hovering over the piazza played live by some anonymous bandoneon player.  All around was the thick Roman dialect that just drips with a certain roughness that you can only appreciate once you can recognize the differences in regional Italian accents – trust me here, the Roman accent is very cool.  It’s a mix of catwalk and redneck depending on who’s doing the talking.

I made my way all the way across the city this evening from Piazza del Popolo straight through Via del Corso, Piazza di Spagna, over toward the Pantheon for a quick stop in a classic spot – Giolitti.  Giolitti is a bar/gelateria that is a bit overpriced and by now even a bit too touristed, but in any event when you have three days in Rome and you happen to be near the Pantheon you stop by Giolitti per una coppa.  The scene in the surrounding streets on a nice May evening is an odd mix of cobblestone, sunlight, and surrealism.   Rome is not a huge city but there is a certain grandness about it that simply doesn’t exist in any other European city – not even in any other Italian city.

It was getting late in the afternoon by now and I still had a solid hour to walk before making it to Trastevere.  I continued over to Piazza Navona and toward the back side of the Capitoline hill before turning to head across the Tiber River to Trastevere.  The sky was blue, the sunlight perfect for shooting photos, and the air was classic Roman springtime.

The cool thing about the Capitoline Hill is the view you get to the Foro Romano – it’s a dead center eye line shot from there to the Colosseo and one of the best places to take in a view that has existed longer than you can imagine.  When you look over the Forum you can’t help but see that in some ways the ancient Romans had their act together more than the modern Romans.

I crossed the Ponte Palatino and approached Trastevere from Piazza in Piscinula down the Via della Lungaretta.  One of the things I came to Rome for was Suppli’, a Roman “thing” that is essentially  a cousin to the Arancino – a hot ball of cheese surrounded by rice and tomato sauce then formed into a ball, breaded and deep fried.  On the way to dinner I walked past a small little bar that had a stock of these ready to go.  I stopped in, ordered two or three and sat at the bar for the appetizer thinking to myself “you’ve got to be kidding me” – simple simple simple and ridiculously good – but only here can you get this.

One of the main reasons I wanted to make it to Trastevere that evening is because one of my favorite spaces in Rome is the Piazza di Santa Maria in Trastevere, a medium size square with a small church that has a golden mosaic on the  front that shimmers when the lights come on and the sun goes down.  Although there are usually many tourists here this piazza retains a certain quality that is unique, it’s right out of a old movie and a visually incredible place in the evening.

My goal that night was to find a local joint in some back street that could serve up the classic Roman primo Bucatini all’Amatriciana, a pasta dish made with guanciale (hog jowl), onion, san marzano tomoatoes and a touch of pepperoncini.  Bucatini look like the kind of pasta you’d make with a Play-Doh machine when you press the Play-doh down with the handle and the long fat strings come out – and if you go to Rome this is a must-have dish.

After scratching the food itch for dinner and refueling it was time to head back to the hotel along the river.  I decided to cross back over and move along the Tiber in order to be able to check out the Castello San’t Angelo at night (something I never once did in a year of living in Rome strangely enough).  This is the place that is attached with underground tunnels to the Vatican residences and was used to defend the city and Popes.  Today you can still enter it and check out the insane view from the rooftop terrace (which I planned on coming back to do first thing Sunday morning).

By now I was bushed – transatlantic flight, wired on espresso, full on pasta, 7 or 8 mile walk across the city in only a few hours, mezzo-litro di Rosso, some 200 photos, and a late night arrival back at the hotel.  I needed sleep because I had two more full days to dive deeper into the city.  Rome is the bomb.

Day 2 is here.

Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over | NASA, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.

Original video and credit here (as well as fly over descriptions) thanks to Michael König

Q. To tee up this Q & A with some context, can you tell me what your company AHALife.com is all about?

A. AHAlife.com is an online discovery destination where consumers can learn about – and purchase – unique products and gifts from around the world, collectively curated by global influential tastemakers from Daniel Boulud to Tim Gunn.  We offer one new luxury item every day to our members, who sign up for free to receive to learn about our exclusive products.  We showcase a range of lifestyle products, but all are united by their exceptional workmanship, provenance and aesthetic.  We believe in the importance of story-telling, highlighting the inspiration, creative process and what makes our curator’s finds truly unique.

Q.  What led you to start AHALife.com?  Was there an AHA moment for you the gave birth to the idea?

A. The AHA! moment came to me when I was living in Sweden.  I’ve had the opportunity to travel and live all over the world and am constantly discovering unique products that should be globally available.  Designers and brands designer, it is extremely difficult and expensive to expand their brand and products globally.  I wanted to create a discovery destination and platform for people to be able to buy the best the world has to offer.  I wanted to create a destination across your entire lifestyle…versus forcing the consumer to have to go to different categories.  Time is the new luxury and people want to cut through the noise on the internet.  AHAlife.com is all about cutting through that noise and clutter and working with the most influential tastemakers and experts to discover and make available treasures of the world.

Q.  What makes AHALife a real business instead of just a cool idea?

A.  Since the company launched its site in September 2010, AHAlife has grown its subscriber base by almost 10 times.  We’ve created a sustainable platform that is a destination for the most discerning consumers to find the best unique lifestyle products the world has to offer.  It is very difficult and expensive for a mono-brand to drive high quality awareness and traffic to their site.  We aggregate the most discerning and influential individuals to come to one place, AHAlife, to discover, learn about and purchase.  Over time, as we grow, we will have more and more of an impact for our brands. We are on an incredible growth track right now.  The biggest potential for us is in the global market, and we haven’t even scratched the surface, we will be shipping internationally in the beginning of December.

Q.  I understand you come from Beijing.  What was your path to NYC?

A.  I was born in Inner Mongolia, raised in China and moved to the United States when I was 8 years old.  I grew up in Seattle, and attended MIT studying computer science, electrical engineering and management.   After graduation, I took an investment banking job at Goldman Sachs. While I was at Goldman, I worked on several deals in the luxury space.  I was fascinated by the industry dynamics and a little after a year at Goldman, I resigned to co-found a private equity luxury advisory firm with the former CEO of Donna Karan, Marc Jacobs and Oscar de la Renta.  After several years investing and advising brands in the luxury space, I moved to Sweden to become the COO of Casall; a premium fashionable active wear brand.  It was AHAlife that brought me back to New York City.

Q.  Many Chinese love exclusive products.  Would the AHAlife concept work in China?

A. As an emerging luxury market the Chinese consumer has a natural appreciation for brands and quality.  In the next five years, China’s luxury goods consumption will reach $ 14.6 billion, making it the world’s largest luxury consumer. This incredible growth is driven by consumers constant appetite for history, heritage and knowledge of exclusive products. AHAlife will do well in China for these reasons as we provide a constant stream of unique high quality merchandise with a story.

Q.  What is the hardest part about being an entrepreneur?  What’s your daily challenge?

A.  The most difficult part of being an entrepreneur is having so many ideas and figuring out how to prioritize.

Q.  What’s next for AHALife?  Anything interesting planned for 2012?

A. Stay tuned! Our main focus will be to grow internationally as well as expand to more offline partnerships.  We are opening our first boutique in the SLS Beverly Hills Hotel later this year in partnership with SBE group!

Q.  I ask this question of all global travelers like yourself – What is your favorite airport, hotel and restaurant in the world?

A.  Amsterdam Schiphol, Peninsula Hotel in Kowloon, Hong Kong, Gou Bu Li Bao Zi in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia

Shauna Mei is the founder and CEO of AHAlife.com

Thanks Shauna for taking the time to participate in this Q & A session and best to you and AHALife.com

Today all over the news we’re being told that the world population has reached 7 billion people.  That got me to thinking about what are the chances that you’re born in any particular country.  What are the chances that a baby born today will land in the USA, or Denmark, or Bangladesh?

This of course is an event of sheer chance.  When I travel overseas I think about the little kids in whatever country I find myself in and am always amazed at how their entire future is determined by where they first appeared on Earth.

A baby born today has a 19% chance of being born Chinese, and 17% chance of being born in India, and 4.5% chance of being American.   A baby born today has about a 41% chance of being either Chinese, Indian, or American.  Think about that, almost half the world’s population falls into those three countries.

After those top three it falls of quickly into the 4% and under levels.  You have (had) almost no chance of being born in a country such as Chile or Sweden (and many others).  The chances of the next baby being born in South Africa is about .73%. In Libya it is less that one tenth of one percent (.092%)!

Here’s the world population breakout with percentage of population by country.

The funny thing is most people go through life not seeing farther than the village they’re born into.  Today however with immediate inter-connectedness what happens 10,000 miles from your home is on your handheld device in seconds.

Kids born today will grow up in a world where the amount of knowledge and information they have to digest and process is so over and above what those of us that got to experience life “pre-personal techology” had to consume.

Sometimes it seems that with so much information coming in from all sides that the world is moving faster than ever, but I think I might disagree there.  If you were to right now go spend a few weeks living in the countryside of Colombia or Romania or a host of other countries,things still happen at a very slow speed – by and large the “outside” world doesn’t event enter into the scene.

I once spent nine months living pretty much in the countryside of Italy and mostly out of touch with the news during that time.  When I came back to the “real world” nothing really had changed and I wasn’t any worse for it.  On the contrary, the time away from the news cycle meant I was able to simply enjoy each day and focus on whatever it was I wanted to do without useless distractions from the news that in reality had no affect on my life in any way.

In the big scheme of things, I don’t think that things are actually that much different in most of the world today than how they’ve been for the past 50 years – it’s just that we know about it now.  When a train runs off the tracks in India we’re almost immediately told about the disaster on the news.  Trains ran off the tracks in far aways places also decades ago but it wasn’t newsworthy in Omaha – and vice versa.

I wonder if the current and next generations will use the emerging technologies to truly filter out what really has no practical informational use in their lives allowing them to get back to what actually matters to them individually and to their immediate family and community.

In the meantime I am using today’s technology to show my kids little by little how lucky they were to be born where they were born.  They’ve discovered Google Earth.

Photo Credit : Trey Ratcliff, stuckincustoms.com

There is this myth out there that Conservatives are only for “the rich” and Liberal Democrats are always fighting for the “working class”.   Even though Liberals claim to be for the poor, or as they say the “less priviledged” and the “less fortunate”, it seems to me that Liberal Democrats don’t give a damn about the poor.  If they did, they wouldn’t continue to push policies that keep people down.

The policies that Liberals have put in place – and continue to push for do nothing but keep the poor poor.  When it comes to economics, Liberal policies and ideas do absolutely nothing to help the poor because all these policies do is maintain the poor.  Liberals are extraordinarily hypocritical – If anyone is for the “rich”  and priviledge it’s Liberals – just as long as they’re one of them.  Barack Obama is a perfect example – he’ll deride fat cats all day long then go meet them for dinner to collect cash.

But something Liberals tend to bring up over and over is this concept of the “Social Contract”.  Liberals want to engage in a system where people that have earned something are somehow obliged under some nebulous “social contract” to give up a portion of their wealth to others that don’t have wealth.

Look at Elizabeth Warren talking about this.  She’s just outraged that people that have produced something of value for their fellow men have not given a hunk of their wealth to the people.

She claims that “you built a factory out there?  good for you!“

But then she says she “wants to be clear” talking to the presumed factory owner:

“You moved your good to market on the roads that the “rest of us” built.”

“You hired workers the “rest of us” paid to educate.”

“You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the “rest of us” paid for.”

Then she goes on to say..

“Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea, God bless…keep a big hunk of it, but part of the underlying “social contract” is you take a hunk of that an pay forward for the next kid that comes along.”

Are you kidding me?  First of all who is Elizabeth Warren to decide on behalf of anyone what “hunk” of their business they can keep?

Second of all, just what “social contract” is in place anyway?  A contract implies two or more parties coming together and AGREEING to terms of which all parties CHOOSE to participate.  Forcing one party to hand over some “hunk” of their efforts, brains, ingenuity, or otherwise when they have not agreed to do so is confiscation and there is no “social contract”.

Third of all she keeps saying “that the rest of us paid for“.  Really?  Has she seen who is paying Federal taxes in the USA?

Liberals love to tell you all about the rich and how much money they make, that it’s “disproportionate” and not “fairly distributed“. The somehow always forget to include the part of how much in Federal income tax is paid by the people that produce the wealth.

According to the IRS a few years ago the Top 50% of income earners pay 96.54% of all income taxes.  Last reviewed in 2010 it went up to 97.41%.  Here is the data (click the matrix for full view):

So if we are going to discuss income earned then we also need to discussed taxes paid.

With that in mind, let’s come back to this concept of a “social contract”.  Liberals always want to come at this this from only one direction.

• What about the social contract that people should do everything possible to help themselves first before leaning on society to help them?

• What about the social contract where people who can’t afford health insurance rearrange their priorities to not purchase cool toys before taking care of the basics?  Sure it’s expensive but these are choices in life.  Part of the social contract is not obliging your fellow citizen to cover your butt because you chose not to.

• What about this concept of the social contract where people use their Electronic Benefits Card to party down.

• What about people getting off this idea that someone else is going to pay for their mortgage and gasoline:

• What about the idea of all American citizens paying something in taxes even if only a little.  When 50% of the country’s population pay absolutely nothing in Federal income taxes, they , as Ms. Elizabeth Warren likes to say so much are living in a society that the “rest of us paid for“.

The “Social Contract” is a two way street. If people of means would agree to “hand over” a hunk of their earned wealth, would it be too much to ask that those on the receiving end not abuse it and do everything possible to stand on their own two feet as best as possible?

The person that started his or her factory and did well did so because he or she delivered something of value to their fellow man who chose to purchase it in the free market – and yes Ms. Warren, the roads those product were delivered on were paid for in a much larger part by the same people that had the ideas, built the factories, and even employed others.

In short, the productive people of this world not only provide value to their fellow citizens, not only provide jobs to their local communities (and sometimes long distance communities), not only indirectly create whole new economies in the towns where they place their factories and offices, but they also paid almost all of the costs of putting the roads there, educating the workforce, and paying the taxes that provide local police and fire protection.

I have watch Elizabeth Warren’s announcement video and in all sincerity it’s pretty good, and she’s welcome to do what she thinks is right fighting for “working families” and fighting big lobby interests, but to attack productive people saying their goods were delivered on roads paid for “by the rest of us” is just factually incorrect.  The people setting up factories and other business are just as much a part of the working class as anyone – maybe even more so as there is no 9 to 5 in the world of the entrepreneur.

For Elizabeth Warren to come at this any other way is only to stir up false rage in some attempt keep class warfare alive.  Good luck up there in Massachusetts.

Q. I’ve seen your speeches and have heard you presenting facts and sounding the alarms.  However it seems to me Europeans (politicians and citizens alike) just trod along as if the house is not actually on fire.  Is anybody listening to you over there in Europe where it counts?

A. No one is listening at all – except the majority of the electorate. A rift has opened up between politicians and people on the issue of the EU. Almost every time there is a referendum on closer integration, in pretty well any country, people vote ‘No’; yet their parliaments are usually in favour by around 80 per cent. Britain is typical. According to most opinion polls, roughly 60 per cent of voters want to leave the EU, but that position is shared by only 3 per cent of MPs. Why the division? Because politicians make the mistake of believing that, since the Brussels system has been kind to them personally, it must be good for their constituents. As Upton Sinclair once observed:’It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends upon not understanding it’.

Q.  Why do the Eurocrats insist on bailing out Greece?  Do they really think that the Greeks are going to change their view of the world or their behavior simply because some Eurocrat in Frankfurt or Belgium demands they do so? (or the Italians, the Spanish and so forth) or is something else going on here?

A. The priority here is not to bail out Greece, but to bail out the euro. The people in Greece don’t believe that they’re being rescued. They understand perfectly well that the bailout money will go to European bankers and bondholders, but the repayment will come from ordinary Greek taxpayers. No wonder they are protesting. They – and the Irish, and the Portuguese – are being sacrificed in order to keep the euro going.

Q.  What’s the worst that could happen if we simply dissolved the Euro and went back to Francs, Drachmas, Lire, Guilders, and Marks ? – They were more romantic anyway.

A. More romantic and more efficient, since they allowed each country to set its interest rates and exchange rates according to its own needs. There are some technical difficulties in returning to national currencies – people would rush to put their savings in whatever money they thought less likely to devalue – but a partial and orderly unbundling of the euro is clearly a lesser evil than the generational poverty which keeping it going implies.

Q. What’s so good about Socialism?  Why is it that proponents of Socialism refuse to see its inherent problems?

A. Socialism has always struck me as being more about intention than outcome, about showing what a nice person you are rather than affecting real change. The survey that said it all was the one that showed that people who wear awareness ribbons and wristbands are less likely to give to charity than people who don’t. There’s always been an element of that in socialism. ‘Whaddaya mean, why don’t I give to charity? I’m already calling for higher taxes!’

Q.  Two of the best things to come out of the ascent (and failure) of Barack Obama is that more and more Americans are seeing (many for the first time) what it really means to have a man like this as President and many are now revisiting the question of exactly what is government supposed to do and what is it not supposed to do.  It reminds me a little of what happened in Spain with the Socialist Jose Luis Zapatero and his Socialists getting hammered in elections.  Is this a sign of hope for all of us?  Are the voters of the world finally realizing that Socialism simply doesn’t work or are we doomed to fight this charade forever?

A. I’m afraid it’s cyclical. Right-of-Centre governments generally win office when the other lot have left the treasury empty. They then patiently rebuild the nation’s credit, whereupon the electorate says: ‘Great – crisis over. Let’s have those nice, caring Lefties back again’.

Q.  Speaking of Obama, in 2008 Barack Obama won the American Presidency with millions of followers thinking he would deliver utopia.  Europeans swooned over him even thinking America had finally come to its senses and placed a “reasonable” man into the White House.   Not that is matters at all in our elections, but out of curiosity how do you think Europeans see Obama today now that he’s actually been in the White House for almost three years?

A. All American presidents end up being unpopular with the European Left. The same charges are thrown at Obama that were thrown at all his predecessors: the US is still in Afghanistan, Guantanamo is still open, the climate change treaties still unratified etc etc. The truth is that no country wins popularity by emulating its critics. You win respect by outperforming them. Or, at least, you did until your present leaders decided to spend, tax and borrow the US to ruin.

Q.  An England question.  England used to be a polite, mannered place with proud people.  Is it just my impression or does England seem rougher, more cynical, more tabloid.  What has changed in British culture over the past 25 years?

A. We’ve never been as polite as Americans think. We’re an earthy, violent, Hogarthian people, whose manners are simply a way of keeping our native bellicosity in check. One thing that has changed, though, is the expansion of welfare dependency. It has made us less independent, more whiney, less responsible. I hope, though, that that’s a remediable problem, and the current government is doing some useful things to free people from the squalor of reliance on benefits.

Q.  What open advice would you offer to American voters that think the European model of social welfare is the way to go?

A. It’s fine in the short term: long vacations, maternity and paternity leave, generous welfare entitlements. What’s not to like? The trouble is that, after a couple of decades, the money runs out. That’s the point we’ve reached now. In 1974, Western Europe accounted for 36 per cent of the world’s GDP. Today it’s 25 per cent. In 2020 it’ll be 15 per cent.

Q.  It seems to me Europe is cannibalizing itself.  With birthrates across Europe in decline, what kind of Europe are we looking at one or two generations from now?

A. We face a choice between massive depopulation and massive immigration. The former option needn’t be as calamitous as people think. Yes, the ratio of pensioners to working people will become harder to manage, but it’s much easier for a 70-year-old to carry on sitting in front of a computer screen than it was a hundred years ago for a 70-year-old to carry on mining coal. And, once that demographic bulge has passed, I can see advantages in Europe drifting back to the population level it enjoyed in the early twentieth century. My own constituency in South East England has become very crowded. Property prices are ridiculously high, people are having to commute for longer and longer, there is massive demand for schools and hospitals, the green spaces are disappearing under concrete. I could live with a slight easing of the population pressure!

Thank you Mr. Hannan for taking the time to sit for the Anthidote.com interview.  Poignant comments and please keep pushing.

Daniel Hannan is a writer and journalist, and has been Conservative Member of European Parliment for South East England since 1999. He speaks French and Spanish and loves Europe, but believes that the European Union is making its constituent nations poorer, less democratic and less free.  His latest book is “The New Road to Serfdom – A Letter of Warning to America“

Sam Harris wrote a piece on August 17 on his blog entitled “How Rich is Too Rich?“.  It was a genuinely thoughtful piece with some great points but he lost my hope when he used the line “how much wealth can one person be allowed to keep“.  Allowed?  By whom?

And what about the other side of the “How Rich is Too Rich” coin such as “How Much Stealing is the Right Amount?” or maybe “How Much Waste is There in Government” or even “How Lazy Can You Be?

When it comes to private individuals generating wealth (even one dime) by performing a legal service or selling a legal product, the profit generated after belongs not to society but to the individuals and stakeholders that took the initiative to make it happen.

If we want to start throwing around the “allowed” word the very first place we should put that word is with the federal government.  We should not be asking how much Steve Jobs should be allowed too keep, but rather how much should the government be allowed to have from the taxpayers generating the wealth.

The US Government holds its position at the consent of the governed, and people are mad because government is using billions of dollars in taxpayer money to go way beyond the core purposes of government.  By and large Americans don’t have a problem with the concept of paying taxes, they have a problem with paying taxes when the tax revenue gets squandered.

Taxpayers who have trouble making ends meet are not thinking about Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, or anyone else like that, they’re thinking about their mortgage, their gas bill, groceries, medical bills, and other items that they could purchase if they only were “allowed” to keep more of their income.

They get mad because of the sheer waste all around them, such as this $600,000 gurgling toad sculpture.  How many tax paying households had to chip in to pay for this?  Don’t you think whatever monies were taxed and redistributed to purchase this commissioned work could have been put to better use by the people that earned that money?  There is an almost limitless supply of examples of government waste we could discuss – here’s 50.  It’s government that is “allowed” to keep too much money not individuals.

Sam posits a question and gives his answer.

“How many Republicans who have vowed not to raise taxes on billionaires would want to live in a country with a trillionaire and 30 percent unemployment? If the answer is “none”—and it really must be—then everyone is in favor of “wealth redistribution.” They just haven’t been forced to admit it.”

What about framing the argument this way?

How many Democrats who have vowed to raise taxes on anyone making over $250,000 would want to live in a country where employment goes to 30% because business owners limited to $250,000 in income have no incentive to grow past that – because anything over that amount would simply be confiscated?

Which do you think is a more likely scenario?  Clearly the second because nobody is close to an individual wealth of a triilion bucks, but we have all kinds of Democrats wanting to raise taxes on people who generate over $250,000 in income.

In Mr. Harris’ blog post, he brings up the news about Warren Buffett’s op-ed wherein he mentions he’s taxed at a lower rate than his secretary (and that many Conservatives pretend not to find this embarrassing).

This is comparing apples and oranges.  One is capital gains taxation and the other is ordinary income taxation. Mr. Buffett could always choose to pay himself ordinary income.  Why doesn’t he?  Mr. Buffett instead of pledging his billions to the Gates Foundation could choose to disperse with his wealth in some other way that’s not maybe as tax efficient.

Moreover, as this article points out, even if you flat out took all the money the super wealthy had you wouldn’t even put a dent in the problem. The root issue is not how much private people earn, it is the amount government spends.  This tired argument of taxing the hell out of rich people simply because they have it does not solve the problem.  Government must shrink.

And anyway, does anyone need a trillion dollars?  Of course not, but that’s not the point.  The point is does a need on my part create an automatic obligation on everyone elses?  If the answer is “yes”, then those people answering that way are in favor of stealing, they just haven’t been forced to admit it.

The problem we’re facing in the USA (and indeed the world) is that for many people the answer is “to hell with property rights, I want my stuff”.  They call this “social justice”.  But what is “just” about taking from your neighbor simply because you deem him to be more than satiated?

We’re all looking down the barrel of ugly arguments and scenarios these days not because of productive, job-giving, wealth creating entrepreneurs, but because of government fools who get in the way of free markets efficiently delivering solutions to people.  The very people government claims to help and champion are the very people that get wiped out by government.

Are free markets perfectly efficient?  No but they are far more efficient and “fair” than centrally planned economies where a few people pick winners and losers and there are only but a few winners. Remember fairness is a two lane highway.

In the USA we do have “crisis of inequality” and on a global level it’s even worse, but government interference, corruption, and waste only exacerbates the problem.  Americans (and likely most people in rich countries) do not want to live in a society with huge “inequalities” in wealth but the difference between Conservatives and Liberals is how we achieve that.  One could also easily point out that we have a crises of inequality in effort put forth by many people.

Offering 99 weeks unemployment checks or incremental welfare subsidies for every baby you have while on welfare only keeps people down when they might otherwise get up on their own.

The brutal truth is some politicians would have it no other way.  Until we elect people that limit government to what it is supposed to do instead of all of these superflous programs it won’t change too much.

If there is one place we should be pointing the “how rich is rich” question it is not at private individuals, it is at government.

Photo by Stuck in Customs

Q.  So that I can tee this up properly, would you mind first telling us what is OneTaste so we have the right context.

A. OneTaste is a company redefining the way women (and men) relate to female orgasm and pleasure.  We teach a practice called Orgasmic Meditation, a partnered sexuality practice focused on the female genitals for 15 minutes. Through this practice, people experience deeper intimacy, sensation and connection to their partners, bodies,sex and orgasm.

Q. How do most (many) people think of orgasm versus what it can be with a little deeper attention and understanding?

A. Orgasm, as it exists in our cultural mindset is one small moment (what we at OneTaste call climax) often the end goal of a sexual experience.  We think of “having” an orgasm, rather than noticing the sexual, or orgasmic energy that permeates the whole experience.  At OneTaste, we think of it not as something to have, but rather something to be inside of.  Orgasm is the energy that creates the sexual experience.  The climax is only one small part of the whole. Another way to look at it would be to consider climax as a spark and orgasm as the fire that spark is born from.

Q. Tell me about a world where people took the time to really focus on this area – say the way they block out time for the gym or dining?

A. I LOVE this question.  Our sexuality, just like any other part of our human experience, should be given care, time and attention.  We do this for our intellect in the form of work, creative process, reading and other hobbies.  We do this for our physical body in terms of eating, exercising and sleeping.  Some of us do this with our emotions by hiring a coach or seeing a therapist.  Our sex should be no different; it is key to our experience as humans and yet we keep it hushed up, in the dark, full of taboo and shame.

If people were to take on OM as a practice, the world would look just about the same, only a brighter – a  better version of what we experience now. The world would go from black & white to color. So, imagine the way you feel after a great makeout, where your senses are more awake, your critical self is a bit more at rest and your willingness to be more a part of the present moment  is amplified – and extend that into all moments of your life. Imagine everyone feeling like this all the time. What you might find is that all of the distractions (food, drugs, shopping, arguing, isolation) we use to dull our senses, because we feel disconnected, would begin simply, quietly to fall away, because they would no longer be necessary.

Q. For some reason if I quickly think about four words right at this very moment I come up with Stress, Release, Breathing, Health.  Why do you think I associated these words immediately?

A. It’s likely that you tuned into me, if such a crazy thing is possible. These things have unquestionably been my focus of late. I’ve been working with Dr. Sara Gottfried, an amazing Harvard trained MD and together we’re looking at this epidemic of low vitality caused by stress in the culture and how the release of hormones through orgasm can remedy its myriad symptoms. Perhaps the word breath comes to mind because in my mind’s eye, when i see a woman having her first OM, it’s invariably some version of watching her exhale in a way she hasn’t been able to exhale for years. Finally she can let go of something she hasn’t known how to let go of.

Q. I’d like to ask you to give a piece of advice to four groups of people.  Young couples, single women, single men, and long-time married couples. Is it the same commentary for all of them or slightly different?

A. OM is like the secret ingredient that when added to almost anything can make it better.  While I may recommend different OM “regimens” to people in these different categories, always based on their particular desire, OM is neutral yet powerful enough to help couples of any age to deepen connection, learn about the other person and create a bond that is fuller and richer.

For single men, I would say that there’s nothing more powerful than learning to be a friend to women. It’s a skill that benefits you whether you’re single or coupled. So, rather than all of these fancy new fangled ways of finding a partner, I would suggest that you learn how to be a friend. Genuinely, the best way to learn to be a friend to a women is to be an ally in her opening her sexual power. If a man is willing to be an instrument in this way, the level of intimacy between him and a woman will transcend any particular type of relationship. When my first OM partner introduced the practice to me, he simply said “I have a mindful sexuality practice I’d like to share with you.” He went on to describe how I would take my pants off, but his clothes would stay on. That we would both place our attention on my orgasm for 15 minutes and afterwards would talk about the experience. Finally that he would expect nothing in return. For me, this was radical and undeniable. It was my first experience of this kind of friendship.

If I could say one thing to women, it would be “ask”. It would be to recognize the depth of desire that exists in your body and recognize that it won’t go away through lack of use or pretending it’s not there. And then, muster whatever courage you can and set about to asking for what you want. It may be a clunky mess, possibly embarrassing, but eventually will turn out to be the key to your power. In this, you’ll want to practice the four stages of having – Knowing what you want, asking for what you want, receiving what you want, and acknowledging what you receive.

For young couples I often see a tendency to want to “protect” a partner from what is true for you. There is a truth that exists in our minds that we often keep from our partners – they are thoughts we think at night in bed, alone in the shower, driving to work.  We all know them – the moment when someone flirted with you and your temperature rose; or how your partner  touched you in a way that you didn’t like, but you pretended it turned you on. In my opinion, the practice of relationship is ultimately to know your partner and to be known by them – and this entails revealing the truth of those moments. It is a practice, something we’re always working at, not a static linear experience. These moments that invite truth telling will either be your tools or your weapons.They will either be what you use to construct a lifelong relationship or build walls against intimacy.

For long married couples: my experience is that people who have been married for a long time often suffer from a lack of novelty; it’s not that the novelty doesn’t exist, but the eye that once saw it has grown dull. My suggestion to couples in this place is to start small in discovering the lover inside of your partner that you’ve forgotten. At night, before you go to bed, simply exchange one secret desire with each other. Say nothing afterwards, but thank you. Your partner shares one, you say thank you.  You say one, your partner says thank you.   No more, no less.   Then, rest well in the knowledge that you are re-creating intimacy. From there, you have a whole new range of play and turn on to work with. Truth is the ultimate turn on.

Q. I was going over your website http://www.onetaste.us - What is the “oral tradition of extended orgasm?

A.   There have always been groups of people throughout cultures that know things about the human experience that aren’t expressed in a conventional context.  Extended orgasm is possible for everyone, but is rarely discussed, let alone taught, in any kind of real way that can improve people’s lives and well being.  I am lucky to have come across these teachings in my life and want everyone to benefit from what I know – and that is that orgasm can be a life changing practice that deepens and enriches all parts of who we are.  I took 10 years to practice and integrate this knowledge into my own life – the synthesis of which I present in my book “Slow Sex”.

Q. Can you give me an anecdote of a person or a couple that you’ve seen transformed (or at least awakened) by what they learned in this arena.

A. Hormones can be a wonderful but flighty friend. Practice is your loyal companion who will see you through thick and thin. A couple whom I recently worked with had been married for 4 years. While the beginning of their relationship had been ignited with heat, over time they began to feel  like strangers to  each other. Outside of the intoxication of their early days together, they couldn’t find their common interest and connection. Without the rush of attraction and bonding hormones, they felt dull. The OM practice provided an arena through which they could come together and deliberately cultivate connection, heat and intimacy.  They found a sustainable way to keep their connection alive and potent.

Q. What’s the worst that can happen?

A.  The worst that can happen is that people try OM with an exact expectation.  OM does a LOT to awaken sex drive, create more intimacy and have women (re)connect with their sexual selves.  However, going into any practice – yoga, sitting meditation, martial arts – with a goal can often not have you see all that you are gaining from the experience outside of your goal.  Take yoga for example:  If your sole purpose is to do a perfect handstand and all your practice goes into perfecting and strengthening your arm muscles and core strength to get to that handstand, you may miss the flexibility you’ve gained in your hips, or how your hamstrings have elongated, how the back pain you used to have has suddenly disappeared.  Even so, the most you have to lose is 15 minutes, so why not try it and see?

Thanks Nicole for being interviewed here on Anthidote!

Anyone selling a property right now in the USA is dealing with such a dysfunctional real estate market that it’s almost impossible to see how it’s going to break free.  The government has got the real estate industry so messed up it’s sad.

In any marketplace, buyers set the price.  You can ask whatever you want for a product or service but in the end it is always buyers that determine the price.  No buyers, no sale.  But currently in the USA, buyers by and large are not setting the pricing of real estate, appraisers are – and this is not working.

Because of the fiasco of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, TARP, and financial institutions lending money to people who had no ability to repay it, the US real estate market took a severe blow over the past few years wiping out enormous amounts of wealth and equity.

Since then the government has put in place a mind-boggling array of new rules and regulations for lenders that almost nobody can understand and which are doing nothing to help break loose the stagnant values of homes.  The people who established the first round of rules that got the market into this mess have put in place even more rules that are keeping the market in shambles.

What do I mean?

A family wants to sell their home for $525,000.  A buyer comes to the home, likes it, puts in an offer for $500,000 and Buyer and Seller agree.  Buyer goes to lender for a a mortgage.  Lender sends in the appraiser who comes in at $375,000.  The lender tells the Buyer that they’ll do a mortgage but not for more than $375,000, and more likely not for more that $300,000 (80% appraised value), so if the Buyer wants to purchase the home he has to come up with $200,000 cash.  Not going to happen.

So what does happen?  The deal dies, the seller doesn’t sell, the buyer doesn’t buy, the agent makes no commission, the bank lends no money and makes no interest, the family is stuck, and everything just stagnates.

Where’s the problem.  Due to the bailout deals in the past few years, one of the new rules is that lenders now must send out the appraisers when buyers want to purchase property.  Almost nobody is allowed to deal direct with the appraisers, least of which the real estate agent trying to close a deal.

Very often the appraisers are coming from 50, 60, or 100 miles away to evaluate some property in a part of town they barely know.  On top of that, the appraisers income has been cut in half because while he used to be able to earn maybe $400 for an appraisal, now he only earns about $200 because some clearing house that ordered the appraisal for the lender takes a big cut.  All new government rules.

Now the appraiser comes to the property, takes some photos, looks around, measures things and looks at comps.  The comps stink.  What’s the appaiser do?  He mostly goes with the comps.  Why?

1. It’s safe

2. He can’t be blamed for coming in to high or too low.

3. He doesn’t really care, he’s not making the kind of money he used to anyway.

4. He truly has no idea right now how to properly justify the value of a property anymore outside of the comps….so appraisers just continue to mostly go with the comps.

Well if we now have a country full of homes that used to be worth something (and intrinsically still are) but are near other properties that had owner issues, we are never going to break out of the real estate funk unless buyers, and not appraisers, start making the market.

If a Buyer wants to buy your home at the price you want to sell it, you’d think there’d be a deal.  No way, not in 2011.  The bank sends in the appraiser and kills the deal.

Of course there is a place for appraisers, but ultimately Buyers have to determine the price of property otherwise there simply is no free marketplace.  With appraisers only or mostly going with comps, everything simply remains stuck when it doesn’t have to be that way.

With all of the talk in the USA about the debt ceiling and pending devastation if we don’t lift it, let us remember a few things.  The Congress makes the laws and the President decides what he wants to sign or not.  Yes the USA has raised the debt ceiling before, but the problem this time is that in the past 18 months Presdient Obama has spent trillions of dollars and has pushed the country to the extremes of what it can handle. He says Bush spent to much (which he did) and then proceeds to quadruple down on Bush’s spending.

President Obama caused all sorts of additional debts and damage (his spending) then comes to the citizens of the country lecturing us on how we have to get our fiscal house in order – all the while he continues to spend and resist cuts (real cuts). 

As I write this, the US House of Representatives has passed a measure to cut and cap spending and balance the budget.  If that Bill makes it to the President, the choice is his and his alone to sign it or to not sign it.

If nothing happens and the USA does in fact hit the debt ceiling, it is not the beginning of the problem – it’s actually the beginning of the end of the problem because it will be at that point that the USA has no choice but to start actually cutting spending.  The law of tha land will be the debt ceiling level and if Obama chooses to exceed it on his own or otherwise, he bears the responsiblity.  When Obama comes out and says that seniors won’t get their checks, or that military people won’t get paid, this is a.) his choice and b.) blantant pandering.

The President can CHOOSE to start cutting useless spending and keep critical spending in place.  He can easily make sure the interest on the debt gets serviced first, that medicare and the like get covered, and that military families are covered – but unfortunately the programs for Cowboy Poetry that Harry Reid thinks are so critical (see above video) are just going to have to go.  That and the literally tens of thousands of other wasteful programs that government has no business being in.

As far as I’m concerned, the House has done it’s job and has passed a bill that cuts spending.  If we go to the brink, it will be because the President of the USA wants to.  He comes to the American people everyday telling us about the looming catastrophe, but when he is presented with a solution to avoid it he refuses it.

Thank you Ross for taking the time to be interviewed here on anthidote.com

Q. I love your travel photos.  It seems to me the scope for shooting travel is so much wider than the bandstand.  What do you like most about shooting travel and life as opposed to shooting gigs?

A. Well for start you haven’t got idiots trying to jump on  you after three songs,even if you’re meant to be there for the whole show.With Travel you deal with different forms of light,which make the scope for photography far more interesting.  At a show what do you get? Someone leaping around with a bit of coloured light on them.  It’s just not the same.

Q. I notice you have an affinity for SE Asia.  What is it about that part of the world that pulls you in?  Do you think the people back home have any clue how interesting the life in SE Asia is?

A. It’s a strange one to answer because to an Australian SE Asia is just not that interesting. I had an Australian friend tell me this. Yet Asia, because of the weather,h as much more interesting light, clouds.  I find it quite exotic.

Q. I was in Dubai not so long ago.  Quite a place.  How would you explain or describe Dubai to someone that’s never been there?

A. Dubai is a fascinating mixture of the traditional and the futuristic.  One minute your in a bustling back street market or lost in the desert, the next your on the monorail flying through the city which looks like the set of bladerunner or having a cocktail at the bar of the tallest building in the world. It never gets boring there.

Q.  When you shoot travel – what are you looking for?  Landscapes?  People?  Scenes?  Local stories in imagery?  Do you plan or do you “shoot from the hip” as it were?

A.  Not so much people,more colours.  I quite like when there’s no one around.  It makes things more abstract.  You go to some historical building you don’t want to see thousands of people milling around.I really have no plan when I go somewhere to shoot because apart from sun, weather there are no time constraints.

Q.  With a lifetime of musician and live gig shots under your belt, how would you describe the view from the stage out to the audiences when you find yourself shooting from the stage out?  Geddy Lee described it as “total elation”.  Do you get a glimpse of that or it is just a day at the office?

A.  Well, I suppose,doing what I do it’s the latter.  Although I must say if you walk on stage with Metallica for the first couple of numbers you realise how insane and incredible the view is.

Q.  What is your favorite airport, hotel, and restaurant in the world?

A.  Singapore Airport has a good vibe and easy to get around.  Sunset Marquis in LA is a great hotel because when I go there I feel at home.  The SoHo House in LA is a great restaurant but you have to be a member to get in.

Thanks again Ross for sitting for the Q&A.

Ross Halfin is one of the world’s best photographers.  He’s best known for his work as a rock photographer and his travel work is even better.  You can see some of his travel work here.

Today is the 4th of July. This year it seems to me more people than ever are actually remembering what the 4th of July really is and why we wanted independence from a kingdom.  Since the election of Barack Obama it seems that we’re being sucked into a path back towards a kingdom, a place where a centralized power simply dictates what’s is and what shall be but for now has to do so with only the appearance of following the rules.

When Rick Santelli flew off the cuff in February 2009 about making a Chicago Tea Party he had no idea what he had tapped in to when he spoke those words.  Why did that resonate so much with Americans?  It was because he was genuinely pissed off and so were tens of millions of Americans that were watching their country start down a completely un-American path.  It was (and is) because America promises only three things to those who live here and those that want to come here – Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

That’s it.  That’s all you are promised here and thankfully so.  You have a right to your LIFE.  You have a right to your LIBERTY.  And you have a right to pursue whatever it is that makes you HAPPY as long as it doesn’t interfere with the first two.  Inside liberty I would also put property rights.  Your property is your property.  Period.  There can be no uncertainty here.

The United States signed a Declaration of Independence because it wanted to be free from tyranny of the British Empire.  In fact the exact phrase in this Declaration is:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Think what it took to draft that document in the 1700′s.  Think about the sheer vision that group of people had to have to form such a foundation for a country.  Those men could have easily just taken control of the new USA and made it into their own family business like so many other countries.  Instead, they provided for a way to put the seat of power in the hands of the people being governed.  They provided that a government has any powers whatsoever only by the consent of the governed.

We (Americans) are not entitled to anything else outside of Life, Liberty, the pursuit of Happiness, and property rights.  There are plenty of countries in the world that offer government sponsored health care, education, and social “benefits”.  That’s nice but that’s not the USA, nor should it be.

You are not entitled to health care (because if you were you would have to force somebody to provide it – and that would go against their liberty).  You are not entitled to a home.  You are not entitled to an education.  You are not entitled to anything outside of your Life, your Liberty, and your pursuit of your own Happiness.

There is no reason for us to emulate France, China, Venezuela, or revert back to the way they do things in the UK.  The overwhelming social “benefits” of those countries are doing nothing short of strangling the people in those countries.

On this 4th of July 2011, let us really remember what today represents.  The very foundation of this country was a total and complete rejection of tyranny and of government control over the lives of private individuals.  We are to be free people, not subjects of the state.