Kraft Heinz CoThe (KHC). 08.02.2017 KHC. 48,: 01:14 2017 02 08 UTC00 Microsoft Corporation (MSFT). 08.02.2017 MSFT. ,. : 01:12 2017 02 08 UTC00 USDCHF. 08.02.2017 USDCHF. : 01:11 2017 02 08 UTC00 raquo Archives de l'auteur: Emile Phaneuf Je viens tout juste de terminer la lecture de la 3 ème édition du livre de David D. Friedman8217 intitulé The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to a Radical Capitalism. Qui a été publié en 2014. Les 1 re et 2 e éditions ont été publiées en 1973 et 1989 respectivement. Le livre tente d'expliquer comment une société anarcho capitaliste pourrait fonctionner à l'avenir et s'appuie sur des exemples historiques pour démontrer comment diverses sociétés ont déjà fourni les fonctions minimales les plus largement acceptées du gouvernement (police, tribunaux, militaires) soit à l'intérieur des frontières Des Etats nations mais sans leur aide ou entièrement sans leur existence. Les sociétés et les systèmes juridiques que j'ai notés dans le livre sont: la période de la Saga (l'Islande médiévale), les gitans de Rominchal (chapitre 49), la loi juive et islamique traditionnelle, d'autres basées sur la loi des féodal (Ch. 49), et la tribu des Comanches Amérindiens (chapitre 52). Dans le cas de l'Islande médiévale, il a duré près de 400 ans comme semi apatride (à partir des années 870 1263CE): les règles juridiques privées appliquées et sans un pouvoir exécutif. Comme si ce n'est pas assez fascinant, un sujet également intéressant abordé était l'analyse économique du droit, que Friedman couvre plus en détail dans un autre livre: Ordre des lois: ce que l'économie a à voir avec le droit et pourquoi il importe. Que j'ai aussi hâte de lire. Ce que je voudrais préciser ici, c'est comment l'approche scolaire de Friedman à l'école économique de Chicago (tirant seulement de ce livre en particulier) diffère des approches de l'école d'économie autrichienne. Je dis approches (pluriel) parce qu'il n'y a pas d'accord unanime sur tous les points au sein de l'école de pensée autrichienne ou tout autre au moins il ne devrait pas y avoir ou les gens ont cessé de penser pour eux mêmes.1 Au collège, Autre étudiant et a fait quelques études indépendantes en économie en plus de cela. Mais ce n'est qu'après le collège que j'ai commencé à étudier l'école autrichienne tout seul. Donc, alors que je lis à travers The Machinery of Freedom. Pour ma propre référence, j'ai enregistré des choses que j'ai notées sur la façon dont son approche de l'économie différait de ce que j'ai appris de l'école autrichienne. Étant donné que des amis économistes m'ont déjà posé des questions sur l'économie du professeur Friedmans, j'ai décidé de la publier ici au cas où cela pourrait être utile à d'autres. En 2010, j'ai également lu environ la moitié de son livre Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life. Mais je n'avais pas lu à ce moment là beaucoup d'économie autrichienne, donc je serais sans réserve pour utiliser le matériel de ce livre dans cette analyse sans le lire à nouveau. Les événements dans lesquels l'approche de Friedman appartiennent à des similitudes avec l'école autrichienne ne sont nullement destinés à dire qu'il est en plein accord avec un économiste autrichien particulier. En fait, si je comprends bien, il est très fier d'être Chicago. De même, en ce qui concerne les événements dans lesquels l'approche de Friedman semble diverger de l'école autrichienne, je ne les signale pas pour les critiquer moi même. Tous les numéros de pages ci dessous correspondent à la 3 ème édition (impression) du livre. Je dois mentionner que, depuis qu'il a été publié à l'aide Amazons Print on Demand, autant que je sache, l'auteur peut apporter des modifications au livre à tout moment sans cette 3 ème édition devenant un 4 ème. Par conséquent, les numéros de page que j'ai fournis ci dessous peuvent également changer. Les événements dans lesquels David Friedman semble partager des similitudes avec l'approche autrichienne de l'économie dans The Machinery of Freedom: Pg. 44: Critique de Marx Je n'ai pas encore lu les livres d'Eugen von Bhm Bawerks, mais d'après ce que je comprends, la critique de Friedman à l'égard de Marx est la même que celle de Bhm Bawerk. Citant Friedman dans The Machinery of Friedman. Payer les outils aujourd'hui et attendre des années pour récupérer l'argent est lui même une activité productive et que l'intérêt gagné par le capital est le paiement correspondant. Pg. Bien que ce concept soit bien compris dans l'économie néoclassique, pour autant que je sache, il est originaire de Bhm Bawerk.2 Ce concept est essentiel dans l'école autrichienne et est utilisé pour expliquer les taux d'intérêt. Ici, je cite Friedman: Ainsi dix dollars aujourd'hui vaut plus de dix dollars demain. C'est pourquoi les taux d'intérêt existent, pourquoi, si je vous emprunter dix dollars aujourd'hui, je dois rendre un peu plus de dix dollars demain. Pg. 49: La théorie subjective de la valeur Ce concept remonte à Carl Mengers critiques de David Ricardo et les économistes classiques mesure invariable de la valeur. Elle a cependant fait son chemin dans l'économie néoclassique3. 102: Le débat sur le calcul économique socialiste Friedman se réfère aux contributions de Mises au débat sur le calcul économique socialiste et au livre de Mises Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis. Pg. 143: Citation de Rothbard Friedman cite Rothbard sur le gouvernement limité. Il n'appuie évidemment pas l'économie des Rothbards, mais les Autrichiens pourraient être intéressés à le connaître4. 215 6: La dénationalisation de l'argent Tous les Autrichiens que je connais soutiennent la dénationalisation de l'argent (bien que beaucoup soient fortement en désaccord avec certaines des suggestions de Hayek8217 sur le sujet). Étant donné que nous vivons dans un monde de banque centrale et de monnaie fiduciaire, certains Autrichiens soutiennent que, puisque l'argent est contrôlé par des États nations, il devrait au moins être soutenu par de l'or, de l'argent ou un autre argent sonore pour limiter les dépenses publiques. Dont David Friedman semble être en désaccord avec l'approche autrichienne (ou au moins Misesian) de l'économie dans The Machinery of Freedom: Pgs. 166 7: Théorie a priori des droits de propriété Hans Hermann Hoppe a produit une telle théorie. Pgs. 212 amp 277: Produit national brut (PNB) Friedman utilise le produit national brut (PNB). Les Autrichiens n'ont pas tendance à aimer ces statistiques macroéconomiques5. Cependant, j'ai remarqué dans le passé que si vous consultez le Wikipédia de Mises et que vous consultez des pays particuliers (Albanie, par exemple), vous trouverez des statistiques sur le PIB faisant référence à la Banque mondiale. Pgs. 256 amp 263: Concurrence parfaite Friedman utilise le concept de concurrence parfaite. Israël Kirzner fait valoir en particulier que le concept de concurrence parfaite est contraire au sens réel de la concurrence. Voir une des conférences de Kirzners sur ceci ici. Pgs. 259 60: Rationalité et prédiction Le sujet de la rationalité me demanderait d'aller un peu plus en profondeur que ce que je veux ici, mais pour ceux qui s'intéressent à une analyse plus approfondie, voir mon article avec Carmelo Ferlito sur la rationalité humaine et le gouvernement Contrôle. En ce qui concerne la prédiction, les états de Friedman L'hypothèse centrale de l'économie est la rationalité, que le comportement individuel peut être mieux prédit en supposant que chaque individu prend les actions qui réalisent le mieux ses objectifs.6 Autrichiens font des prédictions de leur propre tout le temps (prédire une bulle économique sera Éclatement, par exemple), mais l'accent, quand les prédictions se produisent, est sur les prévisions qualitatives, modèles théoriques sur les conséquences décrétoires de l'interventionnisme.7 Pgs. 281 2: Mélanger le travail avec la terre comme une justification des droits de propriété Friedman est en désaccord avec Lockes mélange travail avec la terre comme une justification suffisante pour les droits de propriété. Il révise la justification de Lockes et affirme qu'en mélangeant le travail à la terre, on acquiert la propriété de ce que le travail produit parce que l'on possède son propre travail, mais cela ne justifie pas la propriété de la terre elle même. Friedman admet que sa version révisée de l'appropriation lockeenne a ses problèmes.8 Le livre de Stephan Kinsellas contre la propriété intellectuelle est également critique de Lockes mélanger la terre avec le travail. Mais Kinsella semble être en désaccord avec Friedman sur le point de posséder un travail: il n'est pas nécessaire de maintenir la vision étrange que l'on possède le travail pour posséder des choses que l'on occupe d'abord. Le travail est un type d'action et l'action n'est pas propre, c'est la façon dont certaines choses tangibles (par exemple les corps) agissent dans le monde9. Kinsella cite un article de Tom G. Palmer: occupation. Pas de travail. Est l'acte par lequel les choses extérieures deviennent la propriété.10 Bonus: Rothbard et la banque (pas dans le livre) Afin d'être juste au travail de Professeur Friedmans, je lui ai envoyé un email avec un brouillon de ce blog avant de le publier afin qu'il Pourrait corriger les malentendus que j'aurais pu avoir sur ses idées. Il a répondu avec un désaccord particulier qu'il a avec Rothbard qui n'a pas fait à la machine de la liberté. Je cite ici sa réponse par courrier électronique: Un désaccord avec Rothbard concerne la façon dont un système monétaire privé fonctionnerait. Je m'attends à ce que ce soit une réserve fractionnaire, ce que Rothbard a soutenu, je pense que de façon irréaliste, était nécessairement frauduleux et devrait donc être illégal. Mais la position de Rothbard n'est pas, je crois, partagée par tous les Autrichiens, peut être pas par la plupart. Pour ceux qui s'intéressent à des détails plus détaillés (du point de vue des réserves anti fractionnaires), voir le chapitre 11 (Une note critique sur les banques libres de réserve fractionnelle) du livre de Jess Huerta de Sotos The Theory of Dynamic Efficiency. Huerta do Soto fait remarquer dans une note de bas de page que l'intérêt récent pour la banque libre et le développement de l'école bancaire gratuite de la Réserve fractionnée découle du livre publié en 1976 par Friedrich A. Hayek intitulé La dénationalisation de l'argent: l'argument raffiné (p. 311). Points qui ne rentraient pas dans les catégories ci dessus: Pgs. 265 7 amp 320: Droits de propriété intellectuelle (DPI) Il semble exister un consensus parmi les Autrichiens pour ne pas considérer la propriété intellectuelle comme une propriété légitime (en raison de sa rareté artificielle) et donc ne pas soutenir le privilège monopoliste de l'État. J'ai tendance à être d'accord. Dans le livre Contre la Propriété Intellectuelle. L'auteur Stephan Kinsella écrit que David Friedman analyse et semble endosser la propriété intellectuelle sur des bases juridiques et économiques, un cadre institutionnel utilitaire. Friedman ne se prononce pas en faveur ou contre les DPI dans The Machinery of Freedom. Il analyse certains coûts et avantages des droits de propriété intellectuelle au chapitre 54 et conclut ce chapitre en déclarant que l'intérêt des lois sur la propriété intellectuelle ne relève pas du champ d'application du chapitre. Cependant, il renvoie les lecteurs à deux livres: contre le monopole intellectuel par Michele Boldrin et David Levine et son propre livre Future Imperfect. Qui comprend une discussion sur la façon dont la protection de la propriété intellectuelle peut être fournie par d'autres moyens, par exemple par contrat. En outre, dans le dernier chapitre de The Machinery of Freedom (ch. 66), Friedman propose une solution de marché basée sur le cryptage pour identifier les auteurs originaux du travail. Pg. 13: Utilisation du terme souveraineté du consommateur Celle ci n'a en fait rien à voir avec l'économie autrichienne, sauf que Mises a utilisé le terme souveraineté du consommateur dans Action humaine 11, donc je sais que les Autrichiens qui ont lu Human Action pourraient être intéressés de savoir que Friedman L'utilisait également dans The Machinery of Freedom. Rothbard était fortement en désaccord avec ce que ce terme impliquait.12 William Harold Hutt (pas un Autrichien) l'a inventé dans les années 1930. 1 Dans son introduction à la 2 ème édition, l'édition des érudits de Murray Rothbard est l'homme, l'économie et l'État. Joseph T. Salerno cite Rothbard de la préface de l'édition révisée (p. Xlviii), publiée en 1993: Il est devenu évident ces dernières années qu'il existe trois paradigmes contradictoires au sein de l'économie autrichienne: le paradigme originel misesien ou praxéologique, auquel Le présent auteur adhère au paradigme hayekien en mettant l'accent sur la connaissance et la découverte plutôt que sur l'action praxéologique et le choix, et dont le principal exposant est aujourd'hui le professeur Kirzner et la perspective nihiliste de Ludwig Lachmann, une approche institutionnaliste anti théorique du subjectiviste anglais keynésien GLS Manille. Bhm Bawerk8230 avait déjà examiné à fond la relation entre le présent et l'avenir en posant la question suivante: pourquoi un débiteur est il prêt à payer les intérêts des créanciers pour un prêt au delà de rembourser le montant du prêt lui même? Les biens futurs ont une valeur inférieure à celle des biens actuels et le résultat est une différence de valeur entre le présent et l'avenir: entre prêt et remboursement. Menger a refusé de réimprimer ou de traduire ses idées originales sur la loi de l'imputation, l'analyse marginale Et la théorie subjective de la valeur. Eugen Bhm Bawerk et Friedrich Wieser ont été chargés de les diffuser. 4 Note: Dans l'Annexe II de The Machinery of Freedom, Friedman énumère l'Institut Ludwig von Mises dans la section Organisations et Instituts. Il mentionne que L'Institut Mises a tendance à suivre les vues de Rothbard et, peut être en conséquence, à critiquer le mien (p. 352). 5 Voir Man, Economy, and State p. 491: Beaucoup d'écrivains sont tombés dans le piège de supposer qu'ils peuvent, de manière similaire, additionner la valeur de capital entière de la nation ou du monde et arriver à une figure significative. Cependant, les estimations de la capitale nationale ou de la capitale mondiale n'ont absolument aucun sens. Le monde, ou le pays, ne peut pas vendre tout son capital sur le marché. Par conséquent, de tels exercices statistiques sont inutiles. Ils sont sans référence possible à l'objectif même de la capitalisation: estimation correcte du prix du marché potentiel. Note: Ive encore utilisé GDP amp GNP dans mes propres écrits et connaître d'autres Autrichiens qui font trop. Quelque imparfaite qu'elle soit, elle nous donne encore un petit nombre à regarder et comprendre que l'économie américaine est énorme par rapport à la Corée du Nord. 6 L'accent est le mien. En outre, comme économiste et anarchiste du marché libre, Friedman ne prétend évidemment pas que les économistes devraient considérer les hommes comme parfaitement rationnels pour que leur comportement puisse être prédit, de sorte que les économistes ou les législateurs employés par le gouvernement peuvent intervenir sur le marché . (Pour souligner à nouveau: je ne critique pas Friedman ici). Mais pour beaucoup d'économistes, la rationalité et la prédiction servent précisément cet objectif. Pour citer le livre de Nassim Nicholas Talebs, The Black Swan: Si vous croyez au libre arbitre, vous ne pouvez vraiment pas croire en la science sociale et la projection économique. Vous ne pouvez pas prédire comment les gens agissent. Sauf, bien sûr, s'il y a un tour, et ce tour est le cordon sur lequel l'économie néoclassique est suspendue. Vous supposez simplement que les individus seront rationnels à l'avenir et donc agissent de façon prévisible. Il existe un lien fort entre la rationalité, la prévisibilité et la traçabilité mathématique. Un individu rationnel exécutera un ensemble unique d'actions dans des circonstances précises. Les acteurs rationnels doivent être cohérents: ils ne peuvent pas préférer les pommes aux oranges, les oranges aux poires, puis les poires aux pommes. Dans l'économie orthodoxe, la rationalité est devenue une veste droite. Les économistes platonifiés ont ignoré le fait que les gens pourraient préférer faire autre chose que maximiser leurs intérêts économiques. Je ne serais pas le premier à dire que cette optimisation a mis en arrière les sciences sociales en la réduisant de la discipline intellectuelle et réfléchie qu'il était en train de tenter Une science exacte. Par la science exacte, je veux dire un problème d'ingénierie de second ordre pour ceux qui veulent faire semblant qu'ils sont dans le domaine de la physique, dit envie physique. En d'autres termes, une fraude intellectuelle. 8 Friedman admet qu'en parlant en tant qu'économiste, je trouve que les règles impliquées par cet argument sont inefficaces. Mais ils fournissent au moins une justification pour faire respecter une forme de droits de propriété foncière qui est compatible avec la vision libertaire des droits (page 282). Ni les entrepreneurs, ni les agriculteurs, ni les capitalistes ne déterminent ce qui doit être produit. Les consommateurs le font. Si un homme d'affaires n'obéit pas strictement aux ordres du public qui lui sont transmis par la structure des prix du marché, il subit des pertes, il fait faillite, et est donc retiré de sa position éminente à la barre. D'autres hommes qui ont mieux réussi à satisfaire la demande des consommateurs le remplacent. 8230 Ils rendent pauvres les gens riches et riches. Ils déterminent précisément ce qui doit être produit, en quelle qualité et en quelles quantités. Ce sont des patrons égoïstes impitoyables, pleins de caprices et de fantaisies, changeants et imprévisibles. Pour eux rien ne compte autre que leur propre satisfaction. La souveraineté est la qualité du pouvoir politique ultime c'est le pouvoir reposant sur l'usage de la violence. Dans une société purement libre, chaque individu est souverain sur sa propre personne et sa propre propriété, et c'est donc cette auto souveraineté qui obtient sur le marché libre. Personne n'est souverain sur quiconque actions elses ou échanges. Étant donné que les consommateurs n'ont pas le pouvoir de contraindre les producteurs à occuper diverses professions et travailler, ceux ci ne sont pas souverains de ces derniers.8221 Projet de livre de David Friedman8217s: Systèmes juridiques très différents de nous (sur daviddfriedman) Vous connaissez peut être le travail de Daniel Kahneman8217s. Il est psychologue, mais il détient un prix Nobel d'économie pour toute une vie de travail qu'il a fait avec le défunt Amos Tversky. Une de leurs contributions importantes au domaine de la psychologie est la démonstration que l'aversion à la perte est une tendance beaucoup plus forte que d'acquérir des gains. En d'autres termes, si vous voulez réussir à influencer quelqu'un pour faire quelque chose, vous avez beaucoup plus de chance en leur disant ce qu'ils perdent en ne le faisant pas qu'en leur disant ce qu'ils gagnent en le faisant. En fait, selon certains comptes aversion à la perte est dit être environ deux fois plus puissante tendance que l'acquisition des gains. Encadrer dans la religion: 8220Avez vous entendu les bonnes nouvelles? 8221 La plupart d'entre nous, au moins en Amérique, ont eu des évangéliques frapper à notre porte pour diffuser la bonne nouvelle.8221 Mais si vous remarquez, ils passent généralement beaucoup plus de temps sur les conséquences de N'acceptant pas une certaine croyance qu'ils ne le font 8220 bonnes nouvelles.8221 Je pense que ce que la plupart des gens décrivent le ciel composé de sons, même pour la plupart des gens, d'être un peu ennuyeux: robes blanches, tenant la main, chant chansons église, etc, Portes et rues d'or. Mais même en offrant une description beaucoup plus désirable de ce que pourrait être le ciel au lieu de la façon dont je l'ai décrit, il est encore moins probable de convertir les non croyants que toute description de l'enfer dont je suis conscient (torture, feu, etc). Cela fait suite à la formation que j'ai vécue comme un enfant élevé à l'église. Comme un homme que je connaissais l'habitude de le mettre: 8220Vous devez obtenir les non croyants perdus avant que vous puissiez les sauver.8221 Nous avons appris à commencer en expliquant qu'ils étaient des pécheurs et ont été dirigés directement à l'enfer avant d'offrir de bonnes nouvelles. En somme, les évangéliques semblent avoir appris par tâtonnements ce que Kahneman et Tversky ont montré à propos de l'aversion à la perte. Cette façon d'encadrer l'argumentaire de vente ne semble pas seulement expliquer une grande partie de la propagation du christianisme, mais, du moins dans une certaine mesure, peut être la propagation de la plupart des religions. 8220Si vous n'acceptez pas ma religion, vous brûlerez dans le feu pour l'éternité8221 au lieu de 8220Si vous acceptez ma religion, vous aurez à porter une robe blanche, tenir la main, chanter des chansons (et voir les portes nacrées et les rues d'or aussi) Un exemple non évangélique: 8220Si vous vivez une mauvaise vie, vous réincarnerez en une espèce moins désirable8221 serait probablement une campagne de marketing beaucoup plus réussie pour une religion qui enseigne la réincarnation que serait 8220Si vous vivez une bonne vie, vous obtenez Réincarner dans un être humain encore. Un ami m'a récemment envoyé cet article Reuters par Daniel Tudor et James Pearson au sujet de l'économie de marché illégale mais tolérée derrière le rideau de 8220 de la Corée du Nord 8220. Parmi quelques sujets abordés dans l'article Le livre par les mêmes auteurs) ils révèlent plusieurs des tentatives du gouvernement nord coréen de limiter le commerce volontaire en Corée du Nord par des manipulations de la monnaie gagnée (KPW). Ce que j'ai trouvé intéressant, c'est l'écart entre le taux de change officiel fixé par le gouvernement (96 KPW pour 1 USD au moment de la publication de l'article) et le taux de change du marché (plus proche de 8 000 KPW par USD, L'article a été publié). Un autre cas, selon les auteurs, impliquait que le gouvernement annulât les deux derniers zéros de chaque billet de banque. Le gouvernement a fait cela en obligeant les citoyens à échanger leurs billets de 1 000 won, par exemple, pour 10 billets gagnés. Les Nord Coréens ont été autorisés seulement une semaine pour faire le commerce. L'une des prises a été que le gouvernement n'échangerait qu'un maximum de 100 000 won (environ 30 40 à l'époque). Le résultat Les économies du peuple nord coréen ont été détruites instantanément. Les billets monétaires restants stockés dans l'épargne sont devenus sans valeur parce que par la loi, aucun commerçant ne serait autorisé à les accepter. Pour un Nord Coréen d'exiger que le gouvernement commercial dans plus de 100.000 maximum gagné aurait probablement pour résultat que l'individu soumis à un interrogatoire intense sur les activités du marché noir, il ou elle peut être impliqué po 8220Where avez vous obtenu cet argent supplémentaire. Vous devez faire quelque chose d'illégal Off aux camps de travail pour vous8221 Évidemment, faire n'importe quel calcul économique rationnel avec ces prix de l'argent est difficile pour dire le moins. Et dans un régime oppressif qui fait tout ce qu'il peut pour décourager l'activité du marché, cela semble être l'intention du gouvernement. Dans ces conditions, s'il y a un calcul économique rationnel, c'est uniquement grâce au marché noir. Si les gens ne peuvent pas compter sur l'argent pour ne pas perdre sa valeur de façon radicale du jour au lendemain, ils essaieront de le vendre le plus tôt possible pour d'autres devises, des biens de consommation, etc. C'est pour cette raison que le peuple nord Yuan chinois sur le marché noir. De même, lorsqu'on remarque l'écart entre les taux de change fixés par le gouvernement (qui ne sont que les tentatives gouvernementales de dissimuler l'inflation) et les taux de change du marché, ils choisiront d'acheter et de vendre à des taux de marché non fixés par le gouvernement. Note connexe: L'inflation a également une forte tendance à encourager les dépenses et la consommation par rapport à l'épargne. Pendant l'hyperinflation au Brésil dans les années 1980 et au début des années 1990, les Brésiliens se sont fréquemment rendus sur les marchés pour vendre leur argent (en achetant des biens et services) dès qu'ils ont reçu leurs chèques de paie. Tenir leur argent pour même une journée supplémentaire signifie souvent que leur pouvoir d'achat d'argent a diminué de façon spectaculaire. L'augmentation de la demande et les attentes du vendeur que la demande continuerait à faire grimper les prix encore plus loin. L'article de Reuters donne un exemple d'un basket ball à vendre dans un magasin à Pyongyang pour 46.000 won. À 96 KPW à 1 USD, le prix du basket ball est US479.17. Évidemment, personne ne paie ce montant d'argent pour les balles de basket dans des circonstances normales dans n'importe quel pays. Maintenant, en revanche, si le taux du marché est d'environ 8 000 KPW pour 1 USD, nous ne parlons que de US5,75. Mais même à ce prix, on pourrait imaginer que la plupart des Nord Coréens pauvres sans liens politiques préféreraient plutôt utiliser leur argent pour acheter des biens et des services qui sont plus essentiels au maintien de la vie humaine. Passer de l'économie à la psychologie pour un instant, référez vous à des biens et des services qui sont en mesure de servir des fonctions plus loin au bas du triangle dans Maslow8217s hiérarchie des besoins (c'est à dire les besoins physiologiques comme l'eau et les aliments). Ma curiosité m'a conduit à vérifier XE pour vérifier le taux de change entre KPW et USD. Voici ci dessous le taux affiché le 16 avril 2015. J'ai mis à jour la page 2 heures plus tard, et le taux était toujours exactement le même. Pour toute autre devise (appartenant à des États nations ayant des économies de marché plus formalisées), XE est en mesure de fournir des taux actualisés, car ils fluctuent tout au long de la journée. Voici la partie pertinente de la capture d'écran que j'ai prise de la page à cette date: Aujourd'hui, deux semaines après avoir obtenu le taux de change ci dessus, XE rapporte qu'il est de 124.753 KPW pour 1 USD. (Pour cent vingt quatre virgule sept cinq trois pour mes amis de pays qui ont l'usage contraire pour des virgules et des périodes que celle des États Unis pas cent vingt quatre mille sept cent cinquante trois). Ma conjecture est que XE fait état des taux de change annoncés par le gouvernement nord coréen depuis 124 à 1 USD ne semble pas trop élevé par rapport aux taux de change avec de nombreux autres pays. J'ai également vérifié le taux en utilisant 8220Currency Converter HD8221 iPhone app, qui est l'application que je compte sur toutes les autres devises que je voyage, et a trouvé ce taux de change très différent. Aujourd'hui encore, deux semaines après que j'ai vérifié et finalement obtenu autour d'écrire ce billet de blog, l'application dit encore que 1 USD est évalué à 900 KPW. Je trouve aussi difficile de croire que le taux de change est parfaitement divisible par 100 A partir du 1er mai 2015, Google rapporte le même taux de change que mon application iPhone: Alors, quelle est la vérité Est ce que le taux du marché en cours en Corée du Nord pour 1 USD près de 96 KPW 900 KPW 8000 KPW It8217s pas facile à connaître. Aujourd'hui, c'est une triste journée. Aujourd'hui, j'ai appris que mon acteur préféré 8211 Peter O8217Toole et star de mon film préféré 8211 Lawrence of Arabia 8211 est décédé il ya deux jours. Lawrence d'Arabie a eu un tel impact sur moi quand je l'ai vu pour la première fois en 2000 comme un lycée senior. J'étais un enfant de 18 ans, prêt pour l'aventure et pour voir le monde. Je n'aurais pas pu être présenté à ce film à une période plus influente de ma vie. Lawrence croyait (et O8217Toole a exactement promulgué) que 8220 pour certains hommes rien n'est écrit à moins qu'ils l'écrire.8221 Nous vivons à une époque de médias sociaux de masse, ainsi je pourrais aussi vous laisser avec deux vidéos rapides de YouTube. Je pourrais fournir ici tellement de scènes étonnantes du film, mais je vais fournir celui avec le dialogue qui dépeint le mieux ma philosophie personnelle dans la vie. La conversation est avec Lawrence et son ami Sherif Ali. La deuxième vidéo ne fait pas partie du film. Je partage cette vidéo pour démontrer (à ceux qui ne l'ont pas encore vu) ce qu'est un fils de chienne classe Peter O8217Toole vraiment. Qui d'autre rides dans un chameau sur le Late Show avec David Letterman tout en fumant la cigarette avec un long titulaire seulement Peter O8217Toole. Reste en paix, Peter O8217Toole. Tu vas nous manquer. On m'a demandé à maintes reprises Quelle est la meilleure façon pour moi d'apprendre une langue étrangère Ou parfois la question est présentée d'une autre manière: Le logiciel Rosetta Stone m'aidera t il à m'exprimer couramment en espagnolMandarinTagalog, etc. J'ai répondu à ces questions tant de fois Je vais simplement écrire ma réponse ici. Je ne suis en aucun cas un linguiste ayant une expertise en acquisition de langue étrangère. Ma réponse est donc plus personnelle et plus pratique que théorique. Je me concentre également sur l'apprentissage des adultes dans cet article parce que les enfants ont généralement l'avantage merveilleux d'apprendre des langues étrangères en grandissant simplement dans une maison où au moins un des parents parle la langue étrangère, grandir à l'étranger où les parents sont employés, Fréquentant une école internationale avec des classes enseignées en langue étrangère dès le plus jeune âge. Peu d'enfants se disent que je vais apprendre la langue X sans l'encadrement parental et que je vais effectivement passer par les étapes nécessaires pour atteindre la fluidité. Note: La manière dont j'ai écrit cet article suppose que votre première langue est l'anglais seulement parce que j'ai écrit l'article en anglais. Si votre langue maternelle est autre chose que l'anglais, il vous suffit de remplacer le mot anglais dans cet article pour votre langue maternelle et les méthodes d'apprentissage décrites ici s'appliqueront également à vous. Donc ce qui est ma recommandation clé pour l'apprentissage d'une langue étrangère Faire le meilleur avec ce que vous avez basé sur votre objectif. Simple droit Je m'adresse aux deux aspects de cette réponse (1. Faire le meilleur avec ce que vous avez, et 2. Orienter votre apprentissage vers la réalisation de votre objectif particulier) dans les deux prochaines sections. Faire le meilleur avec ce que vous avez Il n'y a pas un seul moyen d'apprendre une langue étrangère, et la méthode que vous choisissez d'apprendre une langue est évidemment limitée aux ressources que vous avez. Par exemple, vous ne pouvez pas avoir 300 pour le logiciel Rosetta Stone ou 20 000 pour une année d'étude à l'étranger ou 600 pour un semestre d'apprentissage dans un collège ou une université locale. Ou peut être avez vous de l'argent, mais vous êtes marié avec des enfants qui vivent encore à la maison, et déménager dans un autre pays est hors de question. Mais disons que vous avez suffisamment de ressources. Disons que vous pouvez prendre une année de congé de la vie et de participer à un programme d'études à l'étranger reconnu par votre université d'origine, ou vous pouvez simplement s'éloigner et enseigner l'anglais dans le pays où la langue que vous voulez apprendre est parlé. Mon approche est l'immersion complète. Partie pratiquant Quand j'ai déterminé il ya près d'une décennie que j'allais apprendre l'espagnol, je suis allé tout. J'étais un enfant de 22 ans, fraîchement sorti de l'armée de l'air et sur mon chemin à l'université. Je savais que j'allais étudier à l'étranger quelque part en Amérique du Sud, mais mon université d'origine m'obligeait à suivre des cours à l'institution locale avant d'étudier à l'étranger. Comment commencer Je me suis inscrit aux cours d'espagnol immédiatement. J'ai demandé autour et trouvé un instructeur local de salsa féminine J'ai commencé des leçons tout de suite et j'ai assisté à la semaine. (Pour le compte rendu, je peux impressionner les non hispaniques, mais les Hispaniques m'identifient rapidement comme un autre Gringo. La danse n'est pas mon truc, et ça me va bien). J'ai aussi fréquenté les restaurants mexicains dans la région et je me suis forcé à converser en espagnol avec tout le monde. Comme mon université avait un grand corps étudiant bolivien, je me suis fait des amis avec les Boliviens. Et d'ailleurs, les fêtes d'université quand composé de principalement des locuteurs natifs de la langue que vous voulez apprendre sont le meilleur moyen de pratiquer des langues étrangères lorsque vous êtes coincé dans un pays anglophone. Lorsque vous buvez de l'alcool, vous n'avez pas l'esprit de faire des erreurs. Lorsque les autres boivent, theyre encore plus amicale qu'ils pourraient être autrement et sont plus tolérants de vos erreurs. Si vous êtes fatigué de parler avec une personne en particulier ou que la personne se lasse de parler avec vous, vous pouvez simplement lancer une autre conversation avec quelqu'un d'autre. Si vous assistez à des soirées qui sont composées de locuteurs exclusivement natifs de la langue étrangère que vous voulez apprendre et Vous êtes incapable de converser au début, respectez le Je ne peux pas vous dire combien de fois je suis resté autour de ressembler à un fou jusqu'à ce que finalement j'ai obtenu mon espagnol à un niveau de travail. Quand ils m'ont appelé gringo j'ai juste ri, resté amical et a continué à parler (mauvais) espagnol. As a happily married man, I dont do college parties anymore (thank goodness), but having subjected myself to so many situations that were so far outside my element in so many countries since that time, I can do formal business dinners throughout East Asia, or negotiate a deal in the Middle East or attend a funeral in Ethiopia (all real examples), and feel at ease whether or not I speak any of the local languages. So get out of your comfort zone Comfort comes from either: 1. keeping yourself closed off from new experiences, or 2. constantly forcing yourself to adapt to new experiences. I find the latter to be so much more rewarding. Walking dictionaries Even better still than party practicing is obtaining a walking dictionary. My academic advisor in college told me that when he was studying abroad in Paris during the early days of the Vietnam War, a US Army officer who had been granted leave to study in Paris referred to local girlfriends (and native French speakers) as walking dictionaries. So I have named this section after that. The best walking dictionaries are native speakers of the language that you want to learn. It is not enough that the person speaks the language fluently. If they are not a native speaker and the dominant common language between the two of you is not the language you want to learn, you will find yourself speaking the dominant common language almost exclusively. For example, lets say that you want to learn Spanish. If English is your first language and you are dating a Brazilian a native Portuguese speaker that happens to also be fluent in Spanish and English, and the dominant common language between the two of you is English, then you both are probably going to find yourself speaking English the majority of the time not Spanish. Maybe you cant control who you fall in love with, but you can at least control who you surround yourself with. So if you surround yourself with native speakers of the language you want to learn, you just might find love within that pool of people and better your foreign language ability simultaneously. Nothing wrong with that Watching movies Foreign language students often have the debate: Which is better for learning Watching foreign films (spoken in the foreign language) with English subtitles, subtitles of the same foreign language, or no subtitles at all My answer: Theyre all great for different reasons Here is what watching movies in each of the following ways does for your learning: Spoken in the foreign language and English subtitles Helps you practice your listening but with a little assistance. This is like starting to ride a bike in the beginning with training wheels. No problem. Its still great learning Spoken in the foreign language and subtitles in that same foreign language Helps you practice listening while reinforcing grammar, vocabulary and spelling. Spoken in the foreign language and no subtitles at all Helps you practice your listening. This gives you the most realistic learning environment, since obviously people dont have subtitles when they speak in real life. Of course there are other ways to learn foreign languages by watching movies: Spoken in one foreign language and subtitles in another foreign language As an English speaker, watching a Brazilian movies spoken in Portuguese but with Spanish subtitles can also help you learn Spanish. The practice is great, but if you want to focus on learning Portuguese, for example, it can be distracting. Spoken in English and subtitles in the foreign language This is fine Assuming the subtitles are translated well, this reinforces grammar, vocabulary and spelling. It obviously lacks listening practice but is still good as long as you dont ignore the subtitles. Living abroad Let me be perfectly clear: There is no substitute to living in the country of the language you want to learn period. Living abroad gives you constant intense practice in all categories of learning. If you can live (or at least travel) abroad, you want to make sure that you do as many different kinds of things as possible. The wider the variety of activities you participate in, the wider variety of vocabulary you will acquire. If you dont accept a friends invitation to go fishing, necessity is unlikely to force you to learn words and phrases like: to catch a fish, bait, worm, hook, fishing pole, and codfish. Similarly, if you dont study at a school of some sort, necessity is unlikely to force you to learn words and phrases like: to enroll in a class, to do homework, classmate, chalkboard, and notebook. And if you pass up the opportunity to watch a sports game, necessity is unlikely to force you to learn words and phrases like: to score a goal, stadium, ball, foul, and so on. Tu obtiens le point. To maximize your experience, do as wide a variety of things as possible. Simply going to the foreign country without engaging in many activities will only limit your learning. If you have the opportunity to take classes while abroad, know that taking classes helps you learn to speak on an educated level. You are forced to learn grammar rules and verb conjugations, keep up with a classroom pace, do homework and pass exams, etc. Plus a teacher corrects your mistakes. If you live in an English speaking country and you are taking Russian classes, thats great. But obviously, taking Russian classes in Russia is unbeatable. Immersing yourself without living abroad If you cant move abroad for a season of your life (or permanently), you can do the next best thing. In addition to frequenting ethnic restaurants, obtaining a walking dictionary, participating in cultural events (like salsa lessons), you can do some of the following: Set your GmailYahooHotmail email and Facebook user interface to the language you want to learn. Each of these online services offers the option to change to all major languages and more. Download your internet browsers (Google Chrome, MS Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, etc.) in the language. Set your cellphone to the desired foreign language. If the language you wish to learn is not available, consider setting it to a similar language. For example, if Slovak isn8217t available, set it to Czech. If Dutch isn8217t available, set it to German, and so on. At this point in my life, I no longer actively study Spanish, but my cellphone bill still arrives every month in Spanish something that I arranged with my cellphone carrier when I was a college student. When I need to review my bill, I catch myself thinking in Spanish. The point is to surround yourself with the language as much as possible so that you are forced to think in the language as much as possible. If you dont force yourself to think in the foreign language by an exhaustive full immersion approach, you will never acquire fluency. Orienting your learning toward achieving the goal Obviously not every person has the goal of becoming fluent in a foreign language for a whole host of reasons. Maybe you live in an English speaking country but travel on business to China from time to time, or maybe you work with Arabic speakers from different countries and just want to learn to be able to converse on a basic level. Thats fine indeed In this case, moving to another country to study abroad or teach English is far too much effort than what it is worth. Consider some of the other things I suggested: take a class or two at a local university make friends with international students get Rosetta Stone buy a phrasebook and dictionary. Tu obtiens le point. Taking formal foreign language classes is important for learning the rules and to speak properly. Attending social parties, dating someone that natively speaks the foreign language, etc. is important for learning the vernacular (spoken language) including slang. Computer programs like Rosetta Stone compliment all of these. Personal confessions When I conducted a yearlong study abroad in So Paulo in 2007, all my university classes (since day 1) were taught in Portuguese for Brazilians, not for gringos like me, so I was forced to study intensely. In addition to university classes I had Portuguese language classes with other American gringos. I had never studied Portuguese before moving to Brazil, but luckily, I had three years of university Spanish classes behind me, which met the requirements for the study abroad program I participated in because of the similarities between the two languages. But my first semester was less than an ideal learning environment. I lived with a well educated gentleman that preferred to speak English all the time. As part of my study abroad program I also had many activities with other Americans. Remember what I said earlier about defaulting back to the dominant common language Not surprisingly, the Americans, including me, spoke almost exclusively English with one another. Since I had moved to Brazil with one primary goal to acquire fluency in the Portuguese language before my second semester began I requested to be moved into another home. Luckily, my study abroad organization was able to accommodate me. I quickly moved in with an elderly woman. She couldn8217t speak any English she was an amazing, kind woman, and she could cook so well So finally I was speaking Portuguese in the home. Secondly, I also determined that when the American students from my first semester had returned to the USA and the new ones came in, I was going to attend the Portuguese classes with them but not allow myself to make friends with them. This was a hard decision Im social I like people But I didnt go to Brazil to make friends with Americans as much as I did to learn to acquire fluency in the Portuguese language. I knew if I simply explained to them that we could be friends but would have to only speak Portuguese, I would enjoy their company, accept invitations to hang out, and would be stuck in the same English speaking trap as I was in my first semester. At the end of the first day of Portuguese class with them I just left. No introduction. I felt like a real asshole. But I wasnt mean to anyone I just didn8217t socialize. Every day after class for the rest of the semester I did exactly the same thing. I almost exclusively surrounded myself with Brazilians, which is exactly what my mind needed to consistently think in Portuguese. I noted a couple of times that some of my American classmates viewed me as a snob for my behavior. It was tough to not explain myself, but doing so I believed then and still do now would have led to normal conversations, to great conversations, to friendship, then English speaking. So I held firm. After finishing my year abroad I spoke with one of the fellow American study abroad students from my second semester over Facebook. He also stayed one year (and finished one semester after me). I was pleased to learn from him that he did exactly the same thing as I did for his second semester he avoided the gringos Thats what it takes to acquire fluency in a foreign language Im proud of him Another authors perspective Tim Ferriss correctly points out in his book The 4 Hour Workweek that it is possible to become conversationally fluent in three months. He suggests first looking at the most commonly spoken words of a foreign language and beginning with that. Tim8217s list of the most commonly spoken and written words in the English language has been cached here . Although I have never approached foreign language learning exactly in this manner per se, his point stands. When living in Japan during my days in the US Air Force, I quickly became able to speak Japanese on an upper basic or lower intermediate level by always asking the Japanese nationals that I worked with How do you say in Japanese. I didn8217t work off of a list of the most commonly spoken or written words and memorize those. Instead, I asked how to say words that I needed to say in order to survive in Japanese society. My goal was never to achieve fluency but rather to be enabled to go anywhere in Japan or do anything I needed to do without having the language barrier as a personal crutch. I did take one elementary level Japanese class at a university bought a Katakana workbook, Japanese dictionaries and phrasebook, and surrounded myself with Japanese speakers (including a walking dictionary). I could have achieved fluency in the language by doing all of this plus taking more university classes, but that wasnt my goal. At that time the Air Force was keeping me busy enough. Concluding remarks So to conclude, theres nothing that says that you have to study a language for the purpose of acquiring fluency. My suggested approach for you is to do as many of these things as you can based on your particular goal. Learning foreign languages develops your mind in so many ways. It helps you understand your own language better. And when combined with living abroad it helps you to challenge the world around you in ways that you never would otherwise. Just for the record, each language that you learn makes learning new languages even easier. After a while, you just get good at learning languages. As for relearning forgotten languages thats fairly easy. Just go through your old notes, go back to the country where the language is spoken, and it comes back to you quickly. Case in point, my father never spoke French or any other language but English. His parents, however, used to speak French to each other in his presence when he was a young child. To this day, when I ask him How do you say in French, he replies I dont know But a couple of minutes later he comes back and says, I really dont know why I remember this, but Im pretty sure you say . Why do I know that If you are young enough in life to enjoy many years of benefits from all the hard work required to learn new languages, I would highly suggest becoming fluent in at least 2 3 languages and beginning as soon as possible. Dont become one of those nerds that try to impress people by learning dying or dead languages. Old Aramaic and Latin are about as worthless as Elvish and Klingon in my opinion. The modern, spoken break off languages from Aramaic and Latin, by contrast, can be highly useful as long as you put yourself into situations in which you can actually use them. It is no use spending thousands of hours of your life learning a valuable social skill if it never helps you make new friends that you would not otherwise be able to have, travel to new places that you would not otherwise been able to go, or live a life that you would not otherwise be able to live. Work smarter, not harder. Author unkown For the very fortunate breed of travelers that finds him or herself in one country after another on a regular basis, it is essential to make the best use of technology in order to maximize efficiency. I have spent the past couple of years exploring the best iPhone apps to automate my life. For me, the apps listed here below are the bare minimum to keep my life as an international traveler moving smoothly. Priority Pass This app is only useful for paying customers of Priority Pass. Priority Pass is a company that allows its customers to use airport lounges around the world 8211 no matter which airline they are flying on. If you fly to the same places all the time using the same airline, you might be better off paying the airline for access to its own lounges. However, if you find yourself flying on a multitude of airlines around the world and do not wish to spend your 8 hour layovers waiting at the gate or in a food court somewhere, you will want Priority Pass. Trust me it8217s beautiful. With the Priority Pass app, you can push the 8220Find Nearest Lounge8221 button, and the app uses your iPhone8217s GPS to find the lounges that you have access to at the particular airport that you are at. I8217ve been in situations in which I found myself at smaller regional airports in countries like Brazil and China. It didn8217t matter Priority Pass still had lounges for me to use in those airports Here is a link to 10 off your first year of Priority Pass 8211 no matter which membership plan you choose. If you are among the rare breed of culture warriors out there, you should already be aware of Professor Geert Hofstede8217s work on the dimensions of national cultures. For international businessmen and businesswomen, the Hofstede index is an indispensable resource. It breaks down cultures of many countries around the world into the following dimensions: Power Distance Index (PDI), Individualism versus Collectivism (IDV), Masculinity versus Femininity (MAS), Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI) and Long Term Avoidance (LTO). Newer dimensions added to the Hofstede index (not in this app, unfortunately) are: Pragmatic versus Normative (PRA) and Indulgence versus Restraint (IND). Let8217s say, for example, that you are an account manager for the company your work for and will be meeting with a new buyer of your company8217s product in Country X for the first time. The purpose of the meeting is to negotiate future terms between both companies. If Country X happens to score high on Hofstede8217s Power Distance Index (PDI) dimension, you can expect that it is less likely that you will have access to the owner or other high level decision makers of the foreign company (since you are an account manager 8211 a lower position than an owner in corporate hierarchy). This is cultural intelligence at its finest. If you frequently travel to a diverse range of countries (geographically, linguistically, ethnically, religiously) I highly recommend this app There are many books that I could also recommend here that have been instrumental in my personal development in cultural intelligence, but if I had to recommend only three they would be the three below. In some ways they overlap with information, however, the countries they cover vary. So if you travel just about everywhere you will find it beneficial to keep all three in your library. The first two books below dedicate each individual chapter to the cultural and business practices of specific countries (every chapter is a different country). The latter concentrates more on cultural and business practices of geographical clusters (Middle East and North Africa, for example) as well as provides specific information for a few key countries. Kiss, Bow, or Shake Hands by Terri Morrison Kiss, Bow, or Shake Hands, Sales and Marketing: The Essential Cultural GuideFrom Presentations and Promotions to Communicating and Closing by Terri Morrison How to Negotiate Anything with Anyone Anywhere Around the World by Frank Acuff I tried at least three of the world clock apps before falling in love with this one by Orlin Kolev. The World Clock is able to not only track the time zones in the individual cities of your choosing, but it even works with your Google Calendar. Let8217s say that on a particular date and time you have scheduled a conference call with a customer in Ghana, but on that date you will be in Bangkok, Thailand. With The World Clock you can enter the date and time that you told your customer in Ghana you would call him, and the app shows you what date and time the appointment will be in Bangkok. You can then choose to setup a Google Calendar event right from the app along with alert reminders so you don8217t forget to actually make the call Note: While gathering the necessary links and information to produce this blog post I ran into a competing app that looks quite good called World Clock Pro . Documents can open all of your Microsoft Word and Excel documents and allows you to edit them, organize them in folders, send them as email attachments, back them up on Dropbox and more. It can also open other major file formats, such as PDF. It8217s simple. Without it, an iPhone is limited to the Notes app, which is as plain as Microsoft Notepad. With this app I am able to work on the go. I experimented with two or three competing apps before choosing this one. The first one I tried was by XE, only because XE is popular in FOREX. Unfortunately, the XE app bombards the user with ads and does not have some of the other options I appreciate from Currency Converter HD. Currency Converter HD8217s nifty calculator also saves you from having to open the iPhone8217s Calculator app in order to do a calculation after converting the currency. Like other competing currency exchange apps, this one updates the latest conversions frequently and automatically as long as your phone is connected to the internet and the app is running. When I am flying with American Airlines or other member airlines of the oneworld alliance, I often open this app as soon as the plane lands to see if my next flight8217s departing time or gate number has changed. (The app can notify you if there are flight changes) Using airline apps like this one saves you the time and hassle of having to locate the monitors in the airport with all the flight schedules listed. When I am flying with Delta Airlines or other member airlines of the SkyTeam alliance, I sometimes open this app as soon as the plane lands to see if my next flight8217s departing time or gate number has changed. (The app can notify you if there are flight changes) Using airline apps like this one saves you the time and hassle of having to locate the monitors in the airport with all the flight schedules listed. When I am flying with United Airlines or other member airlines of StarAlliance, I sometimes open this app as soon as the plane lands to see if my next flight8217s departing time or gate number has changed. (The app can notify you if there are flight changes) Using airline apps like this one saves you the time and hassle of having to locate the monitors in the airport with all the flight schedules listed. Frequent Flyer Miles Tracker This is the app I use to store my frequent flyer mileage numbers for each airline that I have an account with. If you are at the check in counter at the airport and for whatever reason do not have your airline priority membership card readily available, just open this app so that the airline official can check you in with your frequent flyer mileage number. National Geographic World Atlas I discovered this app while researching for this blog post and was looking for a better app to recommend than the world factbook that I had been using. I am impressed with this one. When connected to the internet the apps can zoom in even closer. Other than maps, it has information on each country such as: languages spoken, economic and government data, major holidays, religions practiced, information on major cities within each country and more. It even has a currency converter tool (but no calculator built in). I8217m sold If I had to choose only one app it would be this one. How else am I supposed to pass the time Read more here for my thoughts on audiobooks. Athan Pro Prayer Timings and Tracking If you do business in the Muslim World, you8217ll want this app. It is always helpful to know when the prayer times are in each country so that you can setup appointments without interruption. I once had an international guest from Morocco visit me in the USA. He told me that on Friday of that week he wanted to go to the local mosque and pray. I opened the Athan Pro app, typed in the local zip code, and I instantly had all the prayer times at my fingertips. Later I called the mosque to verify that the time was correct. It was spot on. Sometimes you8217re in an international airport, and all the available WIFI signals are either blocked, or to use them, you would have to go through the annoying hassle of entering your credit card number and personal information. Skype WiFi bypasses all of that. If you have a Skype account (which you should) you can simply use your Skype credit to connect to connect to the WIFI networks that require payment. Connection times are in 30 minute intervals. If you8217re an international road warrior or at least speak a foreign language you are probably already aware of this one. Google Translate is able to translate from any one language to another with more than sixty to choose from. The app requires a connection to the internet. I realize that not everyone speaks a combination of Portuguese and English. This dictionary app represents whatever advanced dictionary app you would need. If you find yourself often conversing between German and Japanese and you do not speak both at a native level, then I suggest keeping an advanced dictionary around such as this one. I recommend the Michaelis Moderno dictionary apps. They are very complete and even come with other features, such as being able to see a full breakdown of conjugations for any verb. For that reason, this particular app is sold for 29.99. It was well worth what I paid. Michaelis Moderno dictionary apps require no connection to the internet and give all possible alternative translations for each word Google Translate, by contrast, only gives a single, best guess translation. This is the 1 app that you should have for all communication while abroad. You can call anywhere in the world for free (if the person you8217re calling has a Skype account) and can call telephones for only a few cents per minute. But you8217ve probably been using Skype for years already, so keep reading8230 To me, Viber is just another app for chatting since it has all the same major features as Skype and WhatsApp. But if you have business partners and customers around the world, at least some of them will be using it, so it is very useful to have. WhatsApp is just like Viber. If you8217ve got a wide range of friends and business contacts, you should probably have this app too. No doubt you8217ll hear music while abroad, and you8217ll want to identify the artist and song title. SoundHound is a free app that can listen to the music in the background wherever you are and then look up the artist and song title for you. If you have no connection to the internet where you are, no worries8230 SoundHound can temporarily store the recorded audio clip and try to locate the song for you later once you8217ve reestablished an internet connection. Full disclosure: Although SoundHound has access to a giant database of all sorts of music, I8217ve noticed the app is better at identifying more mainstream music. Don8217t be surprised if it cannot recognize, let8217s say, a Turkish song that hasn8217t yet made it to international radio stations. I also refer frequently to the following resources: Airline alliance Wiki page 8211 Since I generally purchase flights from budget travel websites, I fly a wide range of airlines from all three major alliances and some others that do not belong to any alliance. When purchasing my flights, it is important to enter in the frequent flyer number of the airline that 1) is a common member airline of the same alliance of the particular flight in question, and 2) is the airline that I track my frequent flyer miles with for that alliance. To maximize your frequent flyer miles (assuming you want free upgrades, flights, etc.) you are going to want to try to make sure that as many of your flights as possible are on member airlines of one of the three major alliances: Star Alliance, SkyTeam, and oneworld. This Wiki article is the only single place on the WWW that I8217ve found that keeps them so well organized. I8217ve noticed that the article also gets updated often when airlines move from one alliance to another. Air Miles Calculator 8211 Enter in just about any two or more airports, and this website will tell you how many frequent flyer miles you should accrue. The website does not account for multipliers, so if you have elite status on a particular airline, you might earn something like 1.25 or 1.5 frequent flyer miles per actual 8220butt in seat8221 mile that the Air Miles Calculator website tries to calculate for. If you know of an app that deserves to be on this list you may leave a comment below or email me at emileaphaneuf (at) gmail. I am also looking to produce an equivalent post to this one for Android and Blackberry. If you have international travel experience and a number of favorite apps for smooth travel for either the Android or Blackberry platforms you may also contact me. I have traveled to the People8217s Republic of China (PRC) a few of times. On this particular occasion I had no plans to go China. I was on the way to Southeast Asia, and my itinerary was changed by the airline, so I found myself having to be rerouted through Beijing Capital International Airport (PEK). Once at the airport I headed to one of the VIP lounges. At the check in desk I asked the lady for the WIFI password, as I always do. Most airport lounges give the WIFI password on a small piece of paper, but the lady instead directed me to a kiosk where I was expected to register my passport for Internet usage. Immediately upon seeing the kiosk I knew exactly what I was looking at. It is unfortunate that Internet monitoring and censorship is so normal in the PRC that the government does not even try to maintain a faade of online privacy. Both citizens and international passengers must censor their own online activities in fear of what political affiliations or otherwise they may be accused of having. It is interesting that the government law requiring individual registration comes from the Ministry of Public Order. No doubt, if 8220public order8221 means ensuring that no one speaks out against the Chinese Communist Party, then closely monitoring and censoring the free exchange of ideas and information is an effective way to do it. I wonder how many foreign diplomats have been ignorant enough to check their email after registering with one of these kiosks. Never a dull moment in China not even in its international airports. Passport registration kiosk required for Internet access at airport lounge in Beijing. Big Brother is watching. Receipt issued by kiosk declares Internet monitoring as required by the Chinese Ministry of Public Order No. 82 Update (August, 2014): Is Zurich Airport in Switzerland following suit In July, 2014 I passed through Switzerland8217s Zurich Airport (ZRH). At the lounge I visited I was required to scan my boarding pass (which contains personal information, of course) before I was given a special code to allow me to connect to the internet. The lounge already had my personal information upon entering. Maybe this is an airport wide rule maybe it is a Swiss law. I have no idea. But the fact that Zurich Airport at least appears to be monitoring internet traffic on an individual basis as airports in the People8217s Republic of China do does not say good things about it. Boarding pass scanner and instructions at VIP lounge in Zurich Airport, Switzerland required for internet access. Machine on the right prints a receipt with special code unique to each individual. Receipt printed after scanning boarding pass. The code allows access to the internet at this VIP lounge in Zurich Airport. Its not an accident that successful people read more books. Seth Godin I must begin by asking the question: If you could increase your book learning from say, 2, 3 or 10 books per year (or however many you are reading now) to 20 or 30 books per year, would you If you could distinguish yourself among your peers and become the most well read, while using less effort, would you do it If you could easily breeze through books on difficult subjects rather getting frustrated and putting them down, would you do it Could these things not better your life Audiobooks have made my whole life better. No exaggeration At the age of 25, during a study abroad I began my first audiobook on Audible format. Before that time I had always been an autodidact (self learner) for many subjects, so books were definitely a part of my life before then. However, I did not have the habit or the know how to go through endless amounts of books like I do now. Of course, anyone that has gone through a reading intensive degree program has had to push their reading limits. In my graduate program I had to read, on average, about one full book per week. I8217ve been there Unfortunately, the books I was required to read in graduate school were rarely available on audio, so I found myself at coffee shoppes and 24 hour restaurants (anywhere I could find caffeine) until the early hours of the morning night after night. Needless to say, this is not a highly efficient method of acquiring book knowledge. I must admit that despite no longer being a university student I still spend several nights per month reading at Denny8217s restaurant until 2am and often 5am, where I have my own special table on the other side of the restaurant away from distractions from other customers. You don8217t have to do all this, and even if you do, audiobooks will greatly enhance your learning. As I have posted previously. thanks to audiobooks, I can go through about 30 books per year. A little more than two per month or so (24 per year) of these are audio format (mostly books from Audible on my iPhone) and the other 6 10 are books in print. Personally, my reading is geared toward acquiring new skill sets and learning (not just entertainment), therefore my audiobooks and print books are almost exclusively non fiction. (It is my opinion that life is just too short to read fiction however, I do make very rare exceptions for books that come highly recommended). Here are some of the reasons why audiobooks have spawned a reading revolution in the people I know that have embraced them (myself included): You will enhance your education: Your education is everything. Hopefully I don8217t have to convince you of that. Read on8230 You will increase your productivity: Time that was previously non productive (driving in your car, riding your bike, walkingcommuting to work, etc.) is now productive learning time. Anytime I8217m in my car, I8217m listening. When I8217m on airplanes, I8217m listening. When I8217m riding my bike or runningwalking 2 3 times per week around a lake nearby where I live, I8217m listening. And when I8217m sitting in my living room or relaxing in a coffee shoppe or airport lounge, I8217m reading (the old fashioned way) print books that have not been released yet on Audible. You will breeze through difficult subjects: For all those books that you wanted to read, but they were a bit over your head, you no longer have an excuse. You no longer have to doze off, staring at the same paragraph until you lose all interest. Listening on audio pushes you through the boring parts. If you want to go back and listen to the last few 8220paragraphs8221 again, you can just click the 8220Go back 30 seconds8221 button if you8217re using the Audible app on your smartphone. Or, if you prefer, you can allow the narrator to continue speaking until the audiobook gets more interesting again. You will increase your reading speed: If you8217re a slow reader or not a book reader at all, you no longer have an excuse. Get audiobooks. My father was not much of a reader until I gave him his first audiobook on Audio CDs. He was able to listen in his car (which he used for work). He became instantly hooked, and in about a year and a half he went through over 40 books on Audio CD With audiobooks, you can listen as fast as the speaker can talk. And if you use Audible on a smartphone to listen to books, like I do, you can even adjust the narrator8217s reading speed to 0.75x, 1x, 1.25x, 1.5x, 2x, 2.5x and 3x, respectively. Personally, I go through most audiobooks at 1.25x. For boring and unimportant parts of audiobooks, I sometimes speed through at 1.5x. Apparently, scientists claim that most people 8220can understand quickly spoken passages of natural speech 8221 at up to 500 words per minute. But since I8217m paying for my books (and thus, my education), I prefer to take time to absorb the content. You will still be able to take notes: I take detailed notes on almost every page of print books and write even more notes on the inside flap. (Example 1. Example 2 ). Luckily, you don8217t have to sacrifice your methodology by switching to audiobooks. If you listen to audiobooks using Audible8217s smartphone app, you can take notes at any reference point in the audiobook. That way, you can later scroll through all of your notes, and when you select any of them, the Audible app will resume the audiobook at the exact point in which you made the note. You will pay very little: If you use Audible, you can sign up for Gold and Platinum Memberships to save money. Personally, I pay 14.95 monthly for the Gold Membership, which gives me one credit per month (and buys me almost any audiobook on the website 8211 no matter the price) and 30 off of all audiobooks. Furthermore, the Gold Membership gives me access to great discounts throughout the month, which I receive from Audible8217s newsletter, and I use them In the past there have been a couple of instances in which I needed to catch up on audiobooks that I had already purchased and did not wish to be billed yet for new books. I was happy to learn that Audible had an option to freeze my membership without canceling it for three months. During those three months I was not billed the 14.95 for new credits, but I still had access to the 30 discount if I wished to download any other audiobooks. Downsides to audiobooks: As a believer in full disclosure, I must mention that there are still, in my opinion, four downsides to audiobooks so I will identify them: The first is that most people (myself included) tend to remember more when they read the traditional way. Most people tend to be visual learners. C8217est la vie. Nonetheless, even if you are a fast reader, being empowered to use all those otherwise mentally non productive hours of driving in your car, exercising, etc. to enhance your learning by listening to audiobooks makes the adjustment well worth it many times over There is such a high opportunity cost if you continue to only read books in print. Think of all the books won8217t read The second downside to audiobooks is that the referencessources are often not given. When recording, the narrator reads the print version of the book as if no reference was even given (unless the author included the reference into wording in the paragraph). Honestly, as much as I love audiobooks, this seems like plagiarism to me, and in my opinion, books on Audio CD format should include a. docx or. pdf file with references on one of the CDs, and AudibleiTunes books should have such a file available for download as well. But even with this hurdle, I have still been able to find references when I need them by going to books. google and locating the book I am listening to on the Google Books database then searching for three or four keywords that were mentioned in the audiobook around the time of the needed reference. If I get the keywords right (spacing and everything), Google Books brings me right to the page that I was listening to right on my web browser. I find the footnote number and chapter then refer to the book8217s References section in the last few pages, and there8217s my reference. Similarly, Amazon8217s Look Inside feature allows you to browse through the books in a similar way. Therefore you can also look through the book8217s references using this website. The third downside to audiobooks, in my opinion, is that audiobooks do not always come with all the images containing supporting graphics, charts, etc. that traditional books do. This is annoying no doubt. There are a few ways to find these images when you need them. If you are listening to an audiobook on Audio CDs, sometimes the first CD will contain images just look at the CD casebox to find out. If your audiobook is on Audible, thankfully, all or most of the images are often available on the Audible website for download in. pdf format (but not always, unfortunately). When they are available I always download the. pdf files and save them onto my iPhone. If I want to refer to them while listening to the audiobook, I can open the. pdf from the Documents app (made by SavySoda and available on iTunes ). And of course, alternatively, you can still refer to Google Images or Amazon8217s Look Inside feature to scan through books to find the image. Maximizing your learning experience: I am able to maximize my learning experience by also purchasing many of the books that I listen to on audio in print. If the book covers material that is particularly important to my long term goals, then I take notes in the print book after I8217ve identified something from the audiobook that I want to highlight. This is a perfect solution to the previous four aforementioned 8220downsides to audiobooks.8221 With this technique these 8220downsides8221 are no longer downsides at all. Next, in order to really immerse the book material into my long term memory I almost always search YouTube for presentations by the author on the book8217s topic. These days when an author goes on book tour and presents on the book topic, fortunately, those presentations usually make it YouTube. Often they appear as TED Talks. Listening to a presentation by the author is like getting all the best highlights of the book presented in a well organized outline form. It8217s beautiful. And lastly, I search for documentaries on the book topic. As documentaries are audiovisual, watching them helps commit the content to long term memory and provides depth since the documentaries usually present the content differently than the book, so you think about the information from different perspectives. With listening to audiobooks, taking notes on the print versions of the book, watching presentations given by the authors and then watching documentaries on the subject you get a very well rounded education indeed. This might possibly seem like a lot of work. But to me, this way of doing things is both easier and more efficient than trying to read cover to cover book after book. The traditional method of reading alone is only a crutch for most people because it limits their learning speed to their reading speed that is, they read slowly so they learn slowly as a result. Thanks to audiobooks and the techniques I8217ve mentioned here, a slow reader like me can go through about 30 books a year 8211 and not by merely skimming books then claiming I 8220read8221 them like many people do. With audiobooks and the techniques I8217ve explained in this article, I really do go through the books cover to cover and then some Conclusion: As you see from the previous section, the pros far outweigh the cons (in my opinion), and the cons still have easy workarounds. So go to Audible and look for that book that you always wanted to read and never did. Get going. Become more well read than all of your peers. Kick ass take names. Enjoy your enlightened new life. Find the best books via my mailing list: Join me in my quest for knowledge No spam that8217s my promise. I send emails out once every two months and then one more email in January of each year announcing my favorite books of the previous year. If you are not yet much of a reader but would like to challenge your thinking in new ways, my reading email list is a great way to get started. To give you a general idea of what type of books you will find in my reading list, below are a few from the past couple of years from of the most common genres: business and economics: Josh Kaufman8217s The Personal MBA . Henry Hazlitt8217s Economics in One Lesson , negotiation and influence: Robert Fisher and William Ury8217s Getting to Yes . Robert Cialdini8217s Influence , human behavioral sciences: Daniel Kahneman8217s Thinking Fast and Slow . Steven Pinker8217s The Blank Slate , philosophy: John Locke8217s Second Treatise of Civil Government . Thomas Sowell8217s A Conflict of Visions , sales and marketing: Bob Burg8217s Endless Referrals . Ryan Holiday8217s Growth Hacker Marketing , history: Robert Lacey8217s Inside the Kingdom . Paul Kennedy8217s The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers , foreign policy: David Sanger8217s Confront and Conceal . Henry Kissinger8217s On China public speaking and writing development: Jeremey Donovan8217s How to Deliver a TED Talk . William Zinsser8217s On Writing Well A Dark Truth, a film starring Forest Whitaker and Andy Garcia, takes a swing at capitalism and misses by a longshot. It is also almost as ridiculous tactically as it is ideologically. Apparently the film8217s budget did not include hiring a consultant with military or police experience to ensure that the actors playing roles with supposed years of tactical experience (soldiers, a former CIA operative, etc.) would handle guns in a way that would appear they8217ve actually been trained to use them. But the film8217s blatantly absurd gun handling is the least of its problems. In the film, Jack Begosian, played by Garcia, is a radio talk show host and former CIA operative. He is hired to go to Ecuador to expose a massacre of innocent civilians. The massacre is supported and covered up by a North American water company and carried out by the Ecuadorian military. What the film attempts to show is that evil corporations run by businessmen and inspired by greed, will stop at nothing to earn a profit for themselves and their shareholders, including massacring countless innocent women and children. But to anyone that understands the functions of free enterprise system, what the film actually shows is an entity of government (in this case, the Ecuadorian military) that fails to maintain its proper role of protecting life, liberty and property of the citizens it is empowered to protect. Instead the military itself becomes a profit seeking entity and partners with the evil senior leadership of the water company. Important to note is that it is not the businessmen in the film that carries out the deed of massacring innocent civilians with guns it is the Ecuadorian military. The films flaw in reasoning is that without the privileged and corrupt alliance with the Ecuadorian government, the water company, driven by men who seek a profit, would be forced to gain its profit only by peaceful and voluntary exchange in the free market. That is, it would only gain profit from customers that would willingly trade money for water because they consider themselves better off by purchasing the water in the first place. In the unlikely event that the water company was to try to sell its water to citizens at gunpoint or perhaps outright rob them without providing water in return, the only proper role of government in this case would be to defend innocent life As a direct attack on property rights, Begosian explains to one live caller on his radio show that 300 years ago in England the government privatized public land. It changed the way we think, the way we view time, and land, and water, he says. Is it wrong to sell water What about air, would it be wrong to sell air Is it so far fetched that you can sell water but you can8217t sell air During another scene in the film, Francisco Francis, played by Forest Whitaker says We are talking about a natural resource. Natural resources should be controlled by the government for the people. Not by the private entity whose major interests are to maximize profit. Let us think about this for a minute. Air is abundant all around us. The air you breathe comes at no expense to anyone else. But what if you wanted to breathe outside normal circumstances What if, for example, you wanted to breathe underwater Would you not have to buy an air tank or a snorkel Since to breathe underwater, you would have to pay to acquire the means to breathe by purchasing a device that would make it possible, what is the difference The difference is that when you buy an air tank or a snorkel you are compensating many other people for their labor, ideas and for their property all of which have made the production and availability of your tank or snorkel possible. And the seller He would not sell you an air tank or a snorkel unless he believes he is better off with the money you offered to him. So how then does all of this apply to water I ask you. Does water not need purification Does water not need transportation Does water not need bottling or to be stored in a large tank Why then is selling a natural resource different than selling any other Let us compare the role that the Ecuadorian government played in the film to the view of Frdric Bastiat a 19th Century French defender of free enterprise. In his book The Law he argues: individuality, liberty, property this is man. And in spite of the cunning of artful political leaders, these three gifts from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it. Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place. In Bastiats view, life is important therefore the proper role of government is to protect women, children and anyone else not massacre them. Liberty is important therefore the proper role of government is to allow individuals to make choices for themselves. Citizens are free (not forced) to buy water from anyone they please, and sellers are free to sell to anyone they please. Property is important therefore the proper role of government is to protect the private property of citizens and of the water company, which is, after all, comprised of individuals that aspire to earn a profit. And should one entity whether that be the citizens or the water company act by force against the other, the proper role of government is then to act by force against the aggressor in order that justice be upheld. I go through about 30 full books per year (2 or more audiobooks per month (24 pear year) another 6 or so books in print per year), even as a slow reader that underlines and takes notes on every page. How Audiobooks I have been hooked on audiobooks since 2007 when I first began. If you are reading this page right now it is likely because you are an author, an editor, or a publisher, and I contacted you requesting that you make your book(s) available on Audible (my preferred format). In the past, I have successfully helped authors, editors and publishers get audio versions of their books available. Assuming the publisher is willing to do it, it is a fairly simple process. So this page is intended to help you as an author or publisher to get setup How audiobook customers like me behave: When audiobook customers like me cannot find a book that we are looking for on audio format we do one of two things: We add it to our much smaller queue of print books and prioritize it according to interest level, or We disregard the book altogether. Don8217t let this happen to your book My suggested solution for you: Making your book available for 8220readers8221 (listeners) using smartphones can be done easily through Audible (owned by Amazon) and iTunes. In order to do this for audio CD format, you can contact companies like Blackstone Audio or Random House Audio. Whether you are an author, an editor, or a publisher, you can do this in 3 easy ways: Audible8217s wonderful ACX (Audiobook Creation Exchange) website allows you to listen to voice samples and choose a narrator of your liking. Once the book has been recorded, it will automatically be sold on Audible, Amazon and iTunes. You can get started8230 Authors click here . Publishers click here . Just follow the very simple directions. For audio CD format: Contact Blackstone Audio and Random House Audio. (These two publishers are among the largest for audio CD format). Intellectual Properties: In many cases the publisher of the print book only owns the rights to the print edition. Therefore the author would, by default, own the rights to other editions (audio, for example). In this case, the author can hire a narrator using ACX or another service or narrate himherself. According to ACX8217s Authors8217 page. granting Audible exclusive distribution rights allows you to earn royalties of 40. If the publisher owns the rights to all formats (including audio), I recommend that authors contact the publisher about releasing an audio version. There is potentially money to be made, so appeal to your publisher8217s business interests. Regarding costs, the rights holder can either pay Audible a flat fee to produce the audiobook, or royalties can be shared. Cliquez ici pour plus de détails. Suitability of certain books for audio format: If your book has charts, graphs, tables, photos, etc. you may believe that your book is not well suited for audio format. But, this isn8217t necessarily the case. The reason is that Audible allows you to provide an accompanying reference guide that goes with the audiobook. To give you an example, here is a link to the accompanying reference guide for Daniel Kahneman8217s audiobook Thinking Fast and Slow . In the recording of the audiobook the narrator can just say 8220See the chart in figure one of the accompanying reference guide,8221 and listeners will know what to do What readers can do: Readers wanting to request that a book be made available on audio can submit a request to Audible by emailing content requestsaudible and to iTunes through Apple8217s 8220Make Request for the iTunes Store 8221 page. A 8220Thank you8221 letter from an author: Here below is one letter from an author that I contacted about making his book available on Audible. The author describes his painless experience: I want to let you know that Audible now has book name withheld for sale as an audiobook, and it will be available on Amazon and iTunes within a few days. I really appreciate your cluing me in to Audible. The process was quick and painless the Audible people have clearly given a lot of thought to business process engineering, and the system seems to draw a lot of interest from would be narrators 11 people auditioned for me by reading a short text in the space of 24 hours. As for future books, book name withheld is the only one of my books to which I hold the audio rights (which explains why no audiobook was released when book name withheld was first published in 2006). In the other cases, the print publisher has purchased all rights, including audio, and gets to decide how to use them. Again, thank you so much for prodding me to do this. Author8217s name withheld As for publishers: From time to time I email publishers of books in print and almost always receive equally energetic responses. Publishers want to make money, and making books available on audio is one way to help them do it. I have very seldom submitted articles to newspapers, etc. for publication. Nonetheless, here are a few articles I have written, some with abstracts and some without: On Human Rationality and Government Control 8211 by Emile Phaneuf and Carmelo Ferlito October, 2014, Vol. XI n2 2014 8211 Procesos de Mercado: Revista Europea de Economa Poltica In this paper we first address a long standing criticism of human rationality and what that means for the role of government. We review and compare much of the literature on rationality and demonstrate that various authors within various fields often mean very different things by the word rational. While we make no claims as to whether or not humans always behave rationally, we point out the flawed logic for what is suggested for the role of government as a way of addressing the human irrationality problem. Building on the Mises Rothbard Huerta de Soto tradition, we argue that what is more important than perfect rationality is purposeful action. We explain the dynamic nature of the market in which time plays an important role, and humans act with expectations to accomplish goals, learn from past mistakes, discover new information and modify their plans accordingly. Using Hayeks approach, we discuss the knowledge problem in which data is dispersed among millions of individuals (unknown in its entirety to any central authority) as well as the problems with applying the scientific method exactly as it is used in the natural sciences to the human behavioral sciences. These problems combined, we argue, make for a much more disastrous system than would be a system in which often irrational individuals would be free to make mistakes for themselves, discover new information and take actions for their own betterment. International Relations Glossary in Portuguese and Spanish July 2, 2013 8211 MyPoliSciLab (paid website) and InternationalRelations For IR scholars and students who also happen to be 8220latinoamericanistas,8221 this list of translations of IR terms in all three languages (English, Portuguese and Spanish) serves as a great resource. Sowell8217s Visions December 5, 2013 8211 Foundation for Economic Education In this article I summarize Thomas Sowell8217s book A Conflict of Visions and Steven Pinker8217s The Blank Slate and explain the importance of understanding the concepts of opposing world visions when discussing often controversial topics such as economics and politics. Developments in Brazil Energy Sector January 25, 2011 8211 The Rio Times This article discusses new developments in the Brazilian energy sector, including the buying of Brazilian utility company (Elektro) by Iberdrola 8211 Spain8217s largest electric company 8211 and plans to revive construction of Angra 3, the countrys third nuclear power reactor. Slow Start to PAC Development January 18, 2011 8211 The Rio Times Brazil8217s Growth Acceleration Program (8220the PAC8221) began in 2007 with a budget of roughly US300 billion with plans for public housing provisions, improvements in sanitation, transportation, infrastructure and more. But four years later, only about five percent of the projects have been completed, and the second PAC (PAC2) is already underway with even more ambitious goals than the first. Rio Real Estate Shielded from Burst January 4, 2011 8211 The Rio Times Real estate prices have risen significantly in Rio de Janeiro since it was announced that Brazil would host the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympic Games. Prices are also driven by an emerging middle class in Brazil with access to credit for the very first time. Some spectators have rumored that a real estate boom and bust cycle is near. In this article, I explain why the boom and bust is unlikely. UA Community Voices Opinion of Tibet China conflict March 31, 2008 8211 The Arkansas Traveler Protests in the Streets of Sao Paulo (text only) Award winning photography for this coverage (along with videos) March 12, 2007 8211 The Arkansas Traveler Organizations Dedicated to Individual Liberties and Free Markets in Brazil: Economics and Development: Instituto de Pesquisa Econmica Aplicada (IPEA) 8211 Brazil8217s Institute of Applied Economic Research Programa de Acelerao do Crescimento (PAC) 8211 Brazil8217s Growth Acceleration Program Banco Nacional do Desenvolvimento (BNDES) 8211 Brazilian Development Bank Bolsa de Valores, Mercadorias amp Futuros de So Paulo (BMampFBOVESPA) 8211 The Brazilian Mercantile and Futures Exchange (BMampF) merged with So Paulo Stock Exchange (Bovespa) Estados 8211 Statistical data for Brazil8217s 26 states and federal district Banco Central do Brasil 8211 Central Bank of Brazil Copa 2014 8211 Brazil8217s developmental plans for World Cup 2014 Jogos Rio 2016 8211 Brazil8217s developmental plans for Olympic and Paralympic Games 2016 Rio 2016 8211 Rio de Janeiro8217s developmental plans for Olympic and Paralympic Games 2016 International Relations and Politics: Portal da Transparncia 8211 Brazil8217s Transparency Portal 8211 (If you8217re looking for government expenditures for specific programs, ministries, etc. this is the place to go) Certificado de Proficincia em Lngua Portuguesa para Estrangeiros (Celpe Bras) 8211 Portuguese aptitude certification for foreigners offered by Brazil8217s Ministry of Education (Ministrio da Educao) Histrica Brasileira 8211 A historical resource covering colonial, imperial and the current republic Petrobras 8211 Brazil8217s (mostly) state owned oil amp energy company Eletrobras 8211 Brazil8217s power utility company ndice de Transparncia 8211 A non governmental organization which provides a transparency ranking index for Brazilian state governments and Braslia (the federal district) Federal Institutions of Brazil (Wiki) Brazilian government links 8211 From the website of Consulate General of Brazil in Houston This resource has also been published at MyPoliSciLab (a paid website for political science students) and at InternationalRelations by Professor Joshua S. Goldstein. (5 July, 2013). I have learned that somebody took this list and improved upon it using Google8217s Fusion Tables. With these Fusion Tables, the data can be manipulated in various ways using filters to suit the convenience of the user. Nice tool, and thanks to whomever did that Here is the link. (7 July, 2015). If you study Portuguese or Spanish and international relations (or related fields) this list could be of great use 8211 especially if you are studying abroad and the host language is not your own. My methodology consisted of taking the glossary of terms from a slightly older version of this textbook and translating the terms one by one from English to Portuguese and Spanish using online dictionaries and Wiki. A huge thanks to Dr. Sergio Villalobos (native speaker from Chile) for checkingcorrecting the Spanish translations and to Ana Lcia da Silva Kfouri (native speaker from Brazil) for checkingcorrecting the Portuguese translations and for setting them to the 8220reforma ortogrfica8221 standard. And lastly, thank you to Joshua S. Goldstein and Jon C. Pevehouse for writing the book that made this list possible. Resources: 1. The university Pontifcia Universidade Catlica do Rio de Janeiro holds a blog in which they provide international relations terms and definitions. The site is entirely in Portuguese and no cross language translations are given. 2. Thomson Wadsworth publishing offers a list of translations of political science terms from English to Spanish. Very few of these are specifically related to international relations (IR), but they are related nonetheless. While role playing with geopolitics I often ask myself what a head of state8217s next political move will be. As with any competitive game, it is imperative to know your opponent. I8217ve recently come across a few official websites (and even blogs) of heads of state for various countries. These websites contain everything from photos of political leaders, to information on their upbringing, to (in the case of Ahmadinejad) blog posts containing their individual thoughts and aspirations. This is not an ongoing project but rather a compilation of resources for those like me who enjoy political psychology. If you find links below that seem interesting but are now obsolete, then just search for cached versions by entering the full URL in the search box at the Wayback Machine website. Post navigation Sign up for my mailing list for the best book recommendations. Just enter your email below. Read about it here .
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