Observe Business

This post supposed to be a cogent analysis of the hunger problems facing North Korea, and how most famines are man-made. A Nobel prize in Economics have been awarded on this topic, to Indian economist Amartya Sen.

But instead it has degenerated into trying to find pictures of giant bunnies on the big bad web.

It all started when I saw this photograph of a monster rabbit.

Huge rabbit

Some old guy in Germany had sent a bunch of ‘Giant Gray’ rabbits over to North Korea. The North Koreans apparently thought a rabbit breeding program would provide a cheap, abundant source of protein.
The North Koreans are desperate enough to try anything, I think. But my curiosity is what the greater Internet thought about this. So I turned up a myspace page about a giant rabbit, and a website that debunks hoaxes. I also found a really funny video of some roosters putting the smackdown on a pair of brawling bunnies.

I think a better solution for the North Koreans would be to try to grow lentils since they are high in protein. Rabbit meat has 21% protein by weight, while chana dal, a lentil whose Latin name is Cicer arietinum is high in protein, is 22% protein, higher than rabbit.

I am quite distressed by now, so I think the best solution for a protein and food starved nation is to throw itself at the mercies of the USDA. This US agency will be glad to provide tons upon tons of Government cheese, enough for the North Koreans to turn themselves obese, like their South Korean brothers.

Unable to write a decent piece of prose

This could be a huge story: an online software provider decides to buy 40,000 licenses. This is the kind of story that propels a small company towards an IPO.

Webguild.com, a website with 73,000 unique visitors per month, put up an article that dumps on Google, saying that GE picked a competitor’s product.

But there are several glaring problems with this story.

I tried Zoho’s project software and found it having several nitpicky problems. I don’t like their simplistic help interface. I don’t like the way they write their English, which is too wordy and obtuse. Their software also loads slowly.

This article says GE picked Zoho’s software but it leaves out several critical details. The first is, if I was GE, I would not let my information stay offsite on Zoho’s servers. I would ask for a dedicated server onsite in my data center. So, is this what happened? If so, is this a new offering for Zoho targeting to the Fortune 500?
It also does not point out the biggest difference between Google’s offering and Zoho’s offering: price. Google’s products are FREE while Zoho charges money.

Easy Peasy Japanesey

Global Warming has received massive publicity in recent times. While there is considerable debate on the causes of the warming, or even if it is real, there is a lot of ‘something needs to be done’ going around. The ‘Kyoto Protocol’, which is a very complex negotiation that tries to deal with this. Al Gore won a Nobel prize for bringing attention to this issue. The solutions proposed are many and complex.

But according to this article from Sep 10, 2008 in the Los Angeles Times, here is one easy solution to Global Warming: Just paint all the roofs white! Roofs account for 25% of all global warming activity. If they reflected the light that falls upon them instead of absorbing it, then the earth would heat up just that little bit less.

Doctor made from Lego

Medical care is one of America’s biggest businesses, but it is different in several respects: there is little or no price comparison or price shopping done. There is very little objective review of providers, like yelp.com or zagat.com. The providers sometimes use their industry associations such as State Medical Boards to legally prevent any release of derogatory information. See the Las Vegas Sun, the Charlotte News-Observer, the Oakland Tribune, RedOrbit, and the Los Angeles Times.

But we now see an example of business principles entering this field. According to this WSJ article, American hospitals are now offering to price-match foreign hospitals. This is huge, as one of the biggest reasons for going overseas is price. Remove that incentive, no reason to leave the country.

GM Management drives company into the ground

GM’s CEO Rick Wagoner, who has destroyed more shareholder equity than most CEO’s in modern history(73 billion lost since end of 2004), has now decided to try and stick the American taxpayer with the bill.

I see no reason to bail out GM. If we give GM 25 billion or 50 billion or whatever it wants, what will GM do with it? Are they going to build better cars? Are they going to design something nicer? Are they going to come up with a labor contract that makes sense? Are they going to turn a hidebound bureaucracy into something more nimble and responsive?

No, they won’t. The biggest reason is that the management at GM will not change. And this is the same management that has driven the company into the ground.

(Update: Philip Greenspun over at his Weblog says pretty much the same thing, but much more eloquently)

Many dermatologists have made small fortunes by deploying little machines from Cutera that remove body hair. These doctors charge up to $3,000 for a procedure that costs less than a tenth of that amount.

The holy grail is to have a home based device that will let you zap off your own hair. There is now such a device, called the ‘Epila’. They have a lot of reviews on Amazon…but it is not available there. Their absence makes their product suspect. If you were a legitimate product, you would want it on Amazon.

The company distributing this product promises a money back guarantee…but you have to ship it back to Canada at your expense. You also have to pay a $50 administration fee plus for shipping, insurance and tax. The website is run from Australia, it seems.

I am already leery of putting this thing close to my body. This company is displaying questionable business tactics, how good could their products be?

Epila return policy

Of course, there is a logical reason for not having a presence in the USA: if you don’t have a presence in the USA, you can’t be sued in an American court.