‘Blogosphere’
What a word. They’ve taken a contraction and further contorted it to create that…travesty. But that’s what I love about English – its very fluidity. There’s no central authority determining what the ‘appropriate’ word for an object should be. Contrast this approach to languages like French, German and Malayalam (to name a few) which have lanuguage authorities determining what should and shouldn’t enter the vocabulary.
I’m looking forward intently to Palm OS 6. With increased support for wireless networks, a solid graphics API, improved driver model, anti-aliasing, extensible PIM apps, multithreading/multitasking, security and other goodies it should be ‘interesting’ at the very least :) And with the former BeOS team working on it, the OS should be excellent technically. Whether it’ll escape Microsoft’s billions is another matter entirely.
Here’s a question. If I understand correctly, pure capitalism dictates that production flows to wherever it’s the most efficient to produce. The idea behind everything is that capital/labour flow to wherever’s the most advantageous for each one. However, to me, I’d say this equation is somewhat unbalanced. It is invariably easier for capital to flow from one location to another than it is for a labour force to migrate en masse. For example, I claim that its much easier for a company to lay off a 1000 workers than it is for a 1000 workers to move to another country with a higher average salary. By virtue of their size and monetary power, I believe that companies can simply respond faster to changes in business climate than individuals who have their entire lives tied up in one location. This (to me) indicates a fundamental skewing of power in this capital/labour equation. I welcome any disagreement or clarification on this!
Another question on the subject of economics. The idea behind capital flowing freely is that by squeezing more and more costs out, you increase your profit and (perhaps) pass the savings on to the consumer. An example (paraphrased from one by an economist): DVD players are made in Canada at a cost of $400. By outsourcing the production overseas you reduce the cost to $99 – this means that the consumers have $301 ‘more’ to spend. But my question is this – if an increasing number of companies start to follow this trend – who’s going to have the $400 to spend in the first place? Are we supposed to trust that everything will just ‘work out’? That new and more ‘appropriate’ jobs will inevitably appear?
I have even more questions and it’s actually quite hard for me to put them coherently on paper. Why? I’m not sure – but I actually prefer the give and take of a conversation – it allows me to make a statement and based on the reaction/feedback, make appropriate clarifications/rebuttals… I’ve gotta learn though, to put my thoughts succinctly on paper.