Global Wandering

Disintermediation is one of those difficult words I have to look up every time I hear it. On the other hand, it’s fun to say and there aren’t any words that apply take its place. It means to cut out the middleman.

Disintermediation has been happening for years with the advent of the Internet, both in the for profit and not-for-profit sectors.

Two of my favorite disintermediation sites are Prosper.com and Kiva.org.

Prosper allows you to make loans directly to individuals, cutting out the bank. Interest rates are set using a Dutch auction. I’ve been making loans for about six months now. While many of the loan requests are for debt consolidation, the most interesting requests for me are from entrepreneurs. Most people starting a business will never get access to venture capital, or know angel investors who can invest in their budding enterprises. That’s why so many people fund new businesses with credit cards.

Prosper provides a new funding source. Examples of businesses I have lent to include Trust Love, started by a woman who is marketing her original character creations, a baton teacher who needed transportation to get to the after-school programs she leads, and a guy who is expanding his Internet café and video game arcade. These are high risk loans so the key is to spread small amounts among many opportunities. That’s the beauty of Prosper. Dividing a $3,000 loan among 60 lenders is the same thing Wall Street has been doing for years in securitizing and packaging credit card debt, auto loans, mortgages, etc. Only this is on a much smaller scale.

While you earn interest on loans issued through Prosper, loans made through Kiva don’t earn interest. These are microfinance loans to individuals in developing countries. Kiva partners with local microfinance organizations in various countries who screen applicants. Borrower are typically entrepreneurs needing a short-term loan to expand their businesses. It is a wonderful tool for fighting poverty.

Posted by jd at 9:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

LaPriel escaped with Bret to Sedona, Arizona this week. Since Breanna is being hometaught for a few months, that leaves me to be headmaster.

I'm a grueling instructor. Today we did art. Rigorous art.

This evening I was feeling so good about my teaching abilities I insisted Camden watch this video with me. Cam just turned 15 in November, which in Idaho means he can get his driver's license. In fact, he's been driving since he was 14 and a half. I don't know why they let kids begin driving at such an early age. Perhaps so they can quit school and start working on the farm sooner.

After watching this video, I feel better about the whole thing. Now we will just send him out driving wearing the delightful British safety outfits discussed in the video.

Posted by jd at 6:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I like to think I’m a reasonably informed person, but I must admit I hadn't given much thought to Zimbabwe until today.

Here are a few facts:

1. The country has been independent since 1980, if independence is defined as being free of colonial rule. During its “independence” period Zimbabwe has been ruthlessly ruled by one man, Robert Mugabe, who like many African dictators that promised democracy at the beginning of their tenure has found it easier to maintain power through force and patronage.
2. Like most paranoid leaders after they and their cronies have plundered the national wealth for personal gain and pushed their countries to near collapse, Mugabe points a finger of blame at everyone but himself.
3. A massive land redistribution scheme has essentially halted all agricultural and economic production. Inflation now runs at 1600% per year. Unemployment is at 80%. GDP real growth rate is -4.5%.
4. 1.6 million of the nation’s 6 million children are orphans, which is the highest ratio in the world.
5. Life expectancy is 39 years.
6. 1.8 million inhabitants out of a population of 12.2 million are infected with HIV/AIDS.

It is appalling what one man can inflict upon so many people. Yet the pattern isn’t unique. Zimbabwe is not currently in the media spotlight, but at the present pace of disintegration that will quickly change.

Posted by jd at 9:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

1. Susan Orlean’s profile of origami artist Robert J. Lang in this week’s New Yorker. I never knew origami creations could be so intricate.

2. This video of a time-lapse trip through the Panama Canal. I discovered it using StumbleUpon.

3. Research by Ap Dijksterhuis on effective decision making highlighted in the February 2007 issue of Harvard Business Review. His research conclusion was to “Use your conscious mind to acquire all the information you need for making a decision - but don't try to analyze the information. Instead, go on a holiday while your unconscious mind digests it for a day or two. Whatever your intuition then tells you is almost certainly going to be your best choice. This seems to expand the conclusions of Malcom Gladwell’s popular book, “Blink”.

4. These photographs of a light bulbs burning out.

Posted by jd at 8:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The environmentalist Derrick Jenson wrote an essay in the May/June 2006 issue of Orion magazine entitled Beyond Hope.

He described hope as “a longing for a future condition over which you have no agency….it means you are essentially powerless.”

“When we realize the degree of agency we actually do have, we no longer have to "hope" at all. We simply do the work. We make sure salmon survive. We make sure prairie dogs survive. We do whatever it takes. When we stop hoping for external assistance, when we stop hoping that the awful situation we're in will somehow resolve itself, when we stop hoping the situation will somehow not get worse, then we are finally free–truly free–to honestly start working to resolve it. I would say when hope dies, action begins.”

His definition implies hope is just a longing and not a particularly useful quality.

Contrast this negative view of hope with a more positive definition put forth by Harry Hutson and Barbara Perry in their book Putting Hope to Work. They state, “Hope is an orientation to a positive future that engages our heads, hearts and hands.” In the February 2007 Harvard Business Review, they describe five elements that must be present for hope to exist:

1. Possibility
2. Agency
3. Worth
4. Openness
5. Connection

Jenson believes hope is bereft of agency while Hutson and Perry believe hope cannot exist without agency.

I favor the latter definition. True hopelessness is not having choices.

Posted by jd at 6:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Mags survived her first professional bath, manicure and trim today. Afterwards, she took out her displeasure on her favorite wrestling partner.

On another topic, Idaho is not known for its hardwoods. Native trees are conifers, aspens and cottonwoods. The cottonwood next to our house is home to a beautiful owl, who can be heard hooting through the night (The first few nights I heard this I swore pigeons had taken roost on our roof).

Due to the lack of hardwoods, there aren't many squirrels. I'm convinced the few squirrels that do live hear aren't particularly bright. It was rare in Ohio to see a squirrel as roadkill. They were too smart. Ohio squirrels would walk along telephone wires to cross the street or if they had to cross on the ground they would at least make sure there weren’t any cars.

Not here. I’ve seen more dead squirrels than live ones. I was reminded of this as I drove home from the vet with Maggie. There are four hardwoods along a winding road about a quarter mile from our house. I’ve never seen squirrels in these trees yet every three months a new pair of dead squirrels lies in the road. Such was the case this afternoon. They always die in pairs. It’s a shame and a mystery. It’s almost as if the squirrels migrate to the trees and then realize there isn’t anything to eat so they get careless as they go foraging for food⎯whatever that might be since there aren't any nuts.

Posted by jd at 7:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Nameless Yucatecan Road

I’ve sat down for three days in a row to update this blog, and I just don’t have anything to write. Life is calm. The weather has warmed so the kids have been outside floating hand made boats in the snowmelt that streams down from the canyon above our house. No more cross country skiing until it cools and snows again.

Maggie our puppy is acclimating to our family. She hits the paper 90% of the time and sleeps through most of the night. She’s a happy little creature, and the best part is she doesn’t bark.

The most interesting thing I’m currently reading is Martin Meredith’s The Fate of Africa. I just shake my head in disbelief as I read. So many have suffered because of the corruption and shortsightedness of a few inept leaders.

I’ve been studying French using Rosetta Stone software to prepare for my trip to Paris in May with my daughter Breanna. Their philosophy is to teach languages in the natural way children learn to speak, through listening and sight as opposed to a bunch of grammar rules. Ten weeks into the course I am confident I will be able to say if need be, “The boy jumps.” I am confident my pronunciation is correct because the analyst that works for me is a Quebec native so when I periodically interrupt our conversations by mentioning in French the boy is jumping again, she indeed understands.

The photo above and the one below are two of my favorites from our recent trip to Mexico. There is something magical about rock walls.

Chunchucmil, Yucatan

Posted by jd at 9:14 PM | Permalink

Sentinels and photo by Camden

The local paper carried an editorial from a retired forest service worker who felt the frenzy over global warming was a snow job. He wrote that we shouldn't try to solve global warming until we know "for sure" that it's a problem.

I wrote the following letter to the editor in response:

Jim Gerber's editorial (Is global warming a snow job?) makes me wonder if while working for the Forest Service he actually had to see flames before being convinced there was a forest fire. Everyone should weigh the global warming evidence for themselves by reading The Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change's (IPCC) latest report where they state "most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic [i.e. human caused] greenhouse gas concentrations."

The IPCC is not some left wing environmentalist group, but a well respected global panel established in 1988 to provide a "comprehensive, objective, open and transparent" review of the latest in climate research.

It will be impossible to know with absolute certainty that global warming is human induced, but we make decisions every day without absolute certainty including believing in God and/or the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Gerber states we shouldn’t seek to correct the global warming problem until we know “for sure”.

What statistical level of certainty does “for sure” represent? If it is at the 100% confidence level then we will be waiting for a very long time. As for me, "very likely" is sufficient enough evidence to act.

Snowman with more things to worry about than global warming by Bret

Posted by jd at 3:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)