cool global BIZ

BOOKS: Fusion Entrepreneurs: Cross-Cultural Execs & Companies Revolutionizing the Global Economy by Edward Iwata

 

Updated Sept. 2012:  Fusion Entrepreneurs: Cross-Cultural Execs & Companies Revolutionizing the Global Economy, a new e-book by award-winning American journalist Edward Iwata, can be found at Amazon's Kindle Store, Apple's iTunes and iBookstore, Barnes & Noble, Diesel eBookStore, Kobo, Mark Coker's Smashwords, the Sony Reader Store, and other e-book retail and library channels.*  Fusion Entrepreneurs is distributed by Smashwords, an independent e-book distributor in Silicon Valley.  Thank you for reading and supporting all digital and traditional authors, bookstores, and publishers.  Readers keep our craft alive.  

 

(Cover art by Edel Rodriguez, an acclaimed Cuban American artist/illustrator whose work can be found in the Smithsonian Institution, private galleries, the New Yorker, Time magazine and the New York Times.)

 

* Note:  If you're new to e-books, ideally you'll need an e-reader device or tablet (an Amazon Kindle, a Barnes & Noble Nook, an Apple iPad, etc.) from your favorite e-book retailer. Or you can download free reading "apps" (small software applications) from the stores right into most laptops, desktop computers, and mobile devices.  This will let you read e-books bought from those stores.  Like anything else, this is only confusing the first time for non-techies.  After you get hooked, it's smooth as butter.

 

Are U.S. Trade Restrictions with Russia and Cuba an 'Economic Dead End?'

 

"The Blues" by HannaNik (Hannah Nikkanen), under a Creative Commons license on flickr. Nikkanen is a journalist based in Helsinki, Finland.

 

HOW TO BALANCE economic growth with human rights in semi-democratic nations and dictatorships? The question of the 21st century will be the question of free trade vs. liberty.

A New Era of Globalization, Cross-Border Business & Cultural Diversity

 

 

"Tower of Babel" by Peter Brueghel the Elder, from Wikimedia Commons under a Creative Commons license.
 

CoolGlobalBiz is an independent, non-partisan blog that explores the nexus and cross-border fusion of business and culture. Links to CoolGlobalBiz can be found on Guy Kawasaki's online news directory Alltop (economics or small business) and other sites. Every few generations, we're rocked by economic and cultural upheaval, from the Industrial Age to the Information Age. Now we're at the cusp of another major epoch, an era of quickening change, innovation and global diversity. The seasons are turning, turning. This ain't your Daddy's economy. The world: curved or flat? No matter, the convergence of business and culture won't wane. For better and worse, the new world is here.

Founded by Edward Iwata, a California-based journalist, former USA Today business writer and author of Fusion Entrepreneurs: Cross-Cultural Execs & Companies Revolutionizing the Global Economy.

 

Global Currency War? Whither the Almighty U.S. Dollar? Any Other Deep Thoughts to Ponder as We Wander Through the Valley of the Shadow of -

 

Chief economist Steen Jakobsen of Saxo Bank AS warns about the U.S. dollar's outlook during an interview on Bloomberg Television's "The Pulse" with Maryam Nemazee. Video courtesy of Bloomberg (May 2, 2011).

 

Editor's note: This post was published late last year, but I'm re-posting it as the bruised and bloodied U.S. dollar continues to decline in global stature. The demise of the greenback will loom large in coming months and years, particularly during the 2012 U.S. presidential race, as candidates debate the economy, overseas jobs and trade deficits.

  

YOU KNOW, EARLY in any crisis, the contrarians always get ignored. Like the robot in the old Lost in Space TV show, they see Danger! Danger! Danger!, while others shrug and pooh-pooh the problem. Then the crisis smacks us, and contrarians can only yowl and yank out their hair. It happened in the tech dot.com collapse of 2001. It happened in the Enron era of corporate scandals. It happened with the mortgage meltdown. Or take the debate over global currency, please. Those good ol' contrarians have warned for years that one day, globalization could lead to the U.S. dollar losing favor. That one day, our almighty coin might no longer be coin of the realm. That one day, BRIC nations might not fear the greenback, and a currency war and monetary chaos could break out, like so many zits. You don't have to be Warren Buffett or even Jimmy Buffett to ask: Has that day arrived?

(Photo, above) Cast from the TV series Lost in Space (1965-1968), created and produced by Irwin Allen ©CBS, at Wikipedia.com.

  

Japan's Economy Likely to Recover Without Lengthy Downturn, According to the OECD

 

A BIT OF ECONOMIC hope here. Japan's battered economy likely will recover over the next year-and-a-half in the wake of the country's earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster, according to the OECD's Economic Survey of Japan 2011 released today. The survey says that a downturn should not last long, as government reconstruction picks up, as business and trade returns to normal, and as Japanese consumers start spending again. The OECD projects that the economy will slow to 0.8% this year, then see 2.3% growth in 2012.

 

As Fidel Castro Steps Down, Will Raul Castro Bring More Economic Reform to Cuba?

 

CoolGlobalBiz, April 19, 2011

MANY QUESTIONS, AS Communist Cuban leader Fidel Castro steps down on Tuesday. Will Cuba adopt a Chinese or Latin American model, and let trade and its economy bloom? Will brother Raul Castro keep introducing Western-style market practices? Will the Cuban military loosen its hold on businesses? Will the United States export more than medicine and agricultural goods? Cuba watchers have speculated for years about the fate of the island nation, barely 200 miles from American shores. Maybe change will come now.

(Photo, above) Fidel Castro in Washington, D.C., in 1959. Photo courtesy of U.S. Library of Congress, on wikipedia.

 

• Associated Press, "Cuba approves economic change at Party summit" by Andrea Rodriguez and Peter Orsi and "New entrepreneurs in Cuba get mixed results" by Paul Haven.


• AmericasQuarterly.org, "Amid Castro’s Proposed Reforms, Skeptics Remain."


• International Business Times, "Communist Cuba to allow private property."


• Guardian.co.uk, "Young Cubans unsure where to turn for decent jobs" by Ivet Gonzalez.


• USA Today, "Cuba's economic fate up in air" by Edward Iwata.

 

 

A Golden Age or Gloomy Era of Globalization? -- World Economic Forum's Global Risk Report

 

 

"Global Warming" by db (Dave Burnham), under a Creative Commons license on flickr.

 

CoolGlobalBiz, Jan. 14, 2011

WE'RE AT A global turning point, with forces that are converging and diverging at a frightening pace. Or, as the World Economic Forum and risk-management companies have found in a new "Global Risks 2011" report, we face "a 21st century paradox: as the world grows together, it is also growing apart  . . . Globalization has generated sustained economic growth for a generation. It has shrunk and reshaped the world, making it far more interconnected and interdependent. But the benefits of globalization seem unevenly spread – a minority is seen to have harvested a disproportionate amount of the fruits." Not your pleasant bed-time reading. Among the greatest threats to global growth and stability:

  

• Economic disparity and the worsening gap between rich and poor countries and peoples.
  
  
• Complex and difficult global governance on all issues, from trade to climate change.
  
  
• The $1.3 trillion "illegal economy," including corruption, organized crime and other black market activities.
  
  
• "Macroeconomic imbalances," or economic risks such as trade and savings imbalances, currency volatility and fiscal crises.
  
  
• Shortages of water, food and energy that could lead to social and political conflict and irreversible environmental damage.
  
  

Source: World Economic Forum, "Global Risks 2011" co-edited by Kristel Van der Elst and Nicholas Davis.