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What Would Joe Do?
Peggy Aycinena is a freelance journalist and Editor of EDA Confidential at www.aycinena.com. She can be reached at peggy at aycinena dot com.
Costello & Carlson: Buckle your seat belt …
January 23rd, 2014 by Peggy Aycinena
Long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away the EDA Empire began and quickly coalesced into several big players and a band of plucky startups constantly attempting to compete and stay viable.
Back in that halcyon era, Rick Carlson and Dave Millman decided to get those startups to pull as one, to try to keep the industry open and progressing, to protect the EDA industry as a place where new ideas could see the light of day and offerings from small companies could compete on a level playing field against those from the big players.
To do that, Rick and Dave came up with the idea for a consortium of Independent Design Automation Companies, IDAC, and put out the word to like-minded colleagues that this new group would benefit everybody. Creating IDAC proved more difficult than they had hoped, so letting pragmatism rule the day they approached Joe Costello for help, then CEO of Cadence, even though that meant working with one of the ‘big guys’ and hence, EDAC came to fruition.
To hear the rest of the story per Rick, recounted in a phone call in December, click here.
To hear the story recounted by Joe Costello, read below. I spoke with both Joe and Rick together on a conference call in mid-January.
Revolution from within …
Joe began: “Rick told me he’s concerned that in his recent conversation with you about the history of EDAC, he may have sounded too harsh. I said that’s not possible, because the truth about the industry is quite harsh. Just thinking about it makes my blood boil.
“Part of my perspective comes from being out of the industry for a while, but even from here I can see that things are fundamentally broken in EDA. The engine of innovation is clearly broken and everybody in the industry should be very worried.
“Also, EDA is part of the larger semiconductor industry and certainly the semi companies are starting to worry. Unfortunately, humans usually let a situation go way past any easy repair, and that has certainly happened in EDA, so now actions to fix things are going to come out of necessity, not out of opportunity.
“If you look at where EDA was when EDAC was started, that was a great time in the industry. Things were on the rise, flourishing in fact, due to a combination of things. Number one was the move to the workstation. New hardware became personal, with high-end compute power and graphics providing new opportunities for design.
“At the same time, we were going through an inflection – design could no longer be done by hand, at least not all of it. At that time, EDA tools were primarily provided by internal CAD teams, but researchers and students were becoming totally excited about opportunities for innovation, and investments in universities promoted robust motivation for new, revolutionary ideas.
“People were beginning to piece things together – ideas from academia and industry CAD teams – combine them with workstation hardware, and boom. You saw the great flourishing of the EDA industry, starting at the end of the 1970s and on into the 80s and 90s. As a result, semiconductors were on the rise, people were pulling electronics off boards and onto chips, and for over 20 years EDA was the vibrant industry pushing it all.”
Joe’s tone changed: “Today, unfortunately, it’s a very different world. EDA has settled into an ossified state, stodgy and not very fluid. Instead of having internal flows being put together by the design team – pulling tools and ideas from a variety of sources, everything from academia to startups to internal CAD teams – now it’s just a flow from Synopsys or a flow from Cadence. That’s pretty much it. Period.
“The current all-you-can-eat deals from one company or the other means design teams have to make do with these solutions, even if the designers have to wrap a lot of shit around the tools to make them work. Today, internal teams are not so much writing their own tools, or choosing best-in-class tools from small providers, instead they’re writing complex wrappers to make things work from one of the two big suppliers.
“EDA has devolved into 2 flows – at best 2.2 flows, if you spice things up with an occasional point tool from Mentor – gigantic, relatively fragile flows that are not at all receptive to modification or change. And as far as the sales process is concerned, essentially the one company just uses the other for the sake of negotiations.
“As a result, the industry ecosystem has become really barren, venture investment has completely dried up, and there is zero motivation for youth to enter EDA because if they want a job in the industry, they can only pick from one of three companies – and only two if they want to work on the flows. Essentially, the tap has been shut and nobody young is coming into EDA.”
Joe became even more grim: “And by the way, all of this is happening against a backdrop where things are only getting harder. There’s way more physics involved as we work to get down to 14 nanometers, there’s more software interaction affecting hardware development, and yet we don’t have any venture investment creating more companies – companies led by brilliant young professors and students to deal with the challenges.
“The long-term ramifications of all of this means nothing will get better. In fact, all signs point at things only getting worse. Perhaps not over the next year or two, but certainly over the next 3-to-7 years.”
“And by the way,” Joe added, “the entire industry is complicit in creating this disaster, customers included, and they will have to be part of the solution of turning this thing around. They have to want to overcome the formidable barriers thrown up by the two existing solution providers – technical barriers and business barriers – to force an opening up, to allow new ideas and new companies to be created.
“Those business barriers, those all-you-can-eat deals I mentioned earlier, they’re completely ridiculous. The two big providers are offering 99-percent discounts on the accessory tools shipped with their [principle product offering], or charging as little as five thousand bucks for the tools. No startup can afford to sell their products at that cost, so they can’t sell their tools and they can’t form new companies.
“The big companies have thrown up technical barriers and pricing barriers making it impossible for innovation to happen. This is, again, where the customers are complicit. They’re not doing anything to force the big guys to open up new technology.
“Instead, the customers send in hard-ass buying guys, their nastiest buying agents, who jam as hard as they can to get the prices as low as possible using the threat of going to the other guy to force their trading partner to push the prices to ridiculous lows.”
Joe took in a frustrated breath, and I said, “You’re telling me this is how the industry looks, and it looks scary, so what’s the answer? You’ve got a big problem, so what’s the solution?”
Joe responded, “There may be a better world opening things up a little bit, because I don’t think this can be solved just by EDA companies. EDA doesn’t exist in a vacuum – the customers are part of the ecosystem and they have to lay down the law.
“They’ve been in this commodity price-crunching mode for so long – squeezing people to get the best deal, penny wise and pound foolish – that they’ve developed an addiction to low-priced tools, and a co-dependent relationship has developed between the customers and the big tool suppliers which has helped create this whole scenario.”
“So you’re advocating for a complete change of course for the industry,” I asked, “the kind of radical change that usually involves violence and the shedding of blood?”
Joe said, “Yes, people with great power hang on for dear life and, yeah, there can be violence in removing them. But there is another human analogy that applies in this case. Does the EDA industry want to use up all of their critical resources for short-terms gains, use up everything [including the brain trust and the good will of investors] on the short term?
“They can do that up until another crisis causes the kind of violent ripping you’re talking about. Yes, sometimes when civilizations hit the wall they shatter exiting structures, but there’s another kind of ripping that tears things asunder and does not come through internal machinations. That’s what we have here.
“In the case of evolving EDA back to a viable industry, we need to look at where all of the chips are going to come from over the next 10 years. If you look at that, you’ll see what cool things on the horizon are going to fuel the market – the rise of mobile and portable devices. Certainly we already know there’s been a sea change at companies like Intel, Qualcomm, Broadcom, and Samsung, and it’s those guys who will dominate the market.”
“You’re suggesting,” I said, “that this new brand of customer will somehow change things?”
Joe said, “Yes, the big EDA customers today need to take stock and think about change. I’ve seen the beginning of that kind of change at Intel. They’re starting to get scared and are realizing the way they’ve played the game for the last decade is completely deforesting things [in EDA innovation], depleting the good minerals in the farmland, polluting the water and the air. So much so, that now it’s more than a quality of life issue in EDA, it’s a matter of life and death.”
“If the new brand of customers are unhappy with the EDA establishment,” I asked, “won’t they return to internal tool development to meet their needs?”
Joe said, “Yes, that could be part of the thing that creates the solution – if they say they can’t wait any more for the third-party providers. It’s true there are smart guys in the customer companies, but I still think it’s outside people, dedicated and focused, who will solve the tools problems better in the end.
“I still believe in an independent EDA industry for sure, but the customers must require that the flows be open instantly. When they do, an important door will be opened that will allow small, innovative providers to once again easily add their tools to the flow.
“And by the way, that’s important from multiple points of view. First, it forces openness. And second, EDA is a budget-line item today. Instead of the conversation at the customer being about building their own tools, which will cause management to ask why it’s being done that way, the conversation will be with the providers.
“When the customers say – Holy Shit! There’s a design problem here that can’t be ignored and you’ve got to work with everybody to provide the solution! – all parts of the EDA ecosystem will be able to respond.”
“When you say open the flows,” I asked, “are you advocating for open source EDA?”
Joe said, “Well, that is possible. But when things have been really successful in open source, they’ve been inspired by a genius who has absolute passion for a technology. Certainly that could happen, but there’s not too much motivation for a genius to move into this world.”
“You mean like Linux,” I asked, “and its move to widespread adoption, despite protests from the IT guys in the organization who didn’t want engineers bringing their Linux OS in from home?”
Joe said, “Linux is a perfect example of the power of the customer to change an industry. In EDA, the customers can demand changes like that. In fact, they’re more than half responsible for the state of the EDA industry – they just don’t realize the power they have to force changes, the kind of changes demonstrated by the Linux example. However, again, I don’t see one guy causing that level of change in EDA.
“There are so many complex technologies involved in this space, it’s more likely that the big customer companies – the Intels, Qualcomms, Broadcoms, etc. – are going to push for change in EDA. The customers are going to claw away at the current leaders in EDA, push and prod and break the glass to see change happen. They will push until the old system is ripped down.”
Rick Carlson added, “We started out this conversation about the history of EDAC. Dave Millman and I were there at the beginning and realized then that a small group of independent companies could possibly change the world. It took us a few hours over several sessions to figure out how to make it work, and then we knew the big companies really needed to be in the conversation and Joe joined us.
“But from the beginning, there was been a lack of openness about innovation and interoperability among the other players in EDA. In fact, Alain Hanover in 1996 shut down the EDAC interoperability lab because he said the EDA companies could handle that internally. Look how that’s worked out!
“Increasingly over the years, there has been less and less open dialog within the EDA industry. Instead it’s always a small select group who have decided everything.”
Joe added, adamantly, “You need leadership to change things. Somebody has to stand up and take the lead!
“Yeah, revolutions are about breaking glass and shedding blood, but they are also about someone articulating a viewpoint, standing up for it and giving people an idea to rally around. It happens in political revolutions – in any crisis – a leader emerges to take control, so that’s certainly something to watch for. You are going to see a different kind of leadership emerge on the customers’ side.
“It’s like the thing they ask you every election cycle: Do you feel better than you did 4 years ago? Similarly, people are starting to ask the EDA industry, and the customers of the EDA industry: Do you feel better off than you did 4 years ago? Is your anxiety about design and the solutions being offered less or more?”
Joe took a deep breath and concluded: “We’ve had a very wide ranging and important conversation here, so let me summarize a few of the key take-aways.
“First, some of the critical foundation elements of a previously rich EDA ecosystem are dying or dead, and the number one red flag here is that there is no outside investment going into EDA anymore. When all outside investment stops, you know you have a big problem!
“Currently in EDA, there are no IPOs, no investment banker interest, no VC investment at all, angels investment is almost gone, and even the customers aren’t investing – other than paying the all-you-can-eat annual fees.
“When there’s no outside investment in an industry, the other parts wither and die. Young, hot graduates won’t be coming to EDA, the talent pipeline starts drying up, there’s less academic research in the area, and the overall idea pipeline simply dries up.
“Again, let’s ask why professional investors won’t put money in. It’s because it’s too hard to start a successful company in this atmosphere.
“It has always required a reasonable amount of money to get an EDA company started, but even after you’ve done that and created a successful product, it is extremely difficult to sell at the beginning. And when the EDA flows are dominated by two companies and are closed, it’s even harder to get your new tool working with them. It’s a huge effort and very few customers are willing to do it.
“However, even if you can get your tool integrated, there are still two pricing barriers. One, the all-you-can-eat programs offer greater than 99-percent discounts to the customers on the smaller tools in their flows. If your startup tool lists at $100,000 but you want to compete, you would have to sell your new product for only $1000. That, coupled with the fact that all customer buying goes through hard-nosed purchasing agents who drive those discounts, means you aren’t going to see the kind of money you need to support your startup.
“And, even if do you manage to build your company, the revenue levels and growth again are like to be limited from above, you can’t go public, and you’ll have to be acquired by one of the 2.5 companies that have been busy trying to kill you.”
“Okay,” I said. “Again, what is the solution?”
Joe responded, “How do you change all of this? In the end, the customers are the ones who will suffer, because they won’t get the right level of brain power needed to solve their problems. They can try do to it themselves, as in the past, but that doesn’t make a lot of sense.
“The truth is, the customers are going to have to force changes in their suppliers to open up this world again to innovation. The customers need to force the flows to be open, so new companies can again play, and they need to pay real prices, instead of all-you-can-eat, for tool innovation to encourage new technologies.
“They need to invest in EDA innovation, instead of just sending in purchasing people hell-bent on lowering the cost. This is what will be required to get the industry healthy enough to get outside investment rolling in again.
“Here’s the message to the customers: If you don’t force these changes, you will pay the price in a different way over the next few years. There will be inadequate technologies to handle your designs, and there will be no quick solutions available.
“It takes a long time to fix this kind of ecosystem and the problems that plague it today. There’s isn’t a lot of time to make these changes. The customers have to insist they happen now!”
It was obvious from our several lengthy phone calls that Joe Costello and Rick Carlson, and other restless seekers, are working to change the moribund state of affairs in the EDA industry. A revolution is clearly coming, and these guys are hinting broadly that they plan to drive it. They plan to be part of the Brave New World that will emerge from it.
Buckle your seat belt, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
2 Responses to “Costello & Carlson: Buckle your seat belt …”


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Will Smith, Margot Robbie and the rest of the cast for Warner Bros.' upcoming supervillains movie have been revealed in costume in a tweet from the film's director.
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According to an analysis we can read today, Apple will find it easier to hold on to iOS’ market share in the tablet market than in the smartphone market, thanks to the more competitive prices of the iPad and better distribution. The analyst in question is Toni Sacconaghi of Bersntein Research , who wrote: “we see several differences between Apple’s approach to the smartphone and tablet market” .
iPhone subsidies and the price margin
“The iPhone has left a price margin to other smartphone vendors sufficient to offer cheaper devices without subsidy, even in the high-end” , wrote Sacconaghi.
The companies’ iPhone subsidies have been cited previously as a risk to Cupertino’s company, basing their reasoning on the fact that if mobile providers abandon the program, users could be pushed towards cheaper phones and be more reluctant to pay the high price of the iPhone.
Of course, the reason why companies are paying subsidies to Apple is because of the attraction the iPhone creates, thus managing to sell their most lucrative data services. Attempts to replicate this system with Android phones have not been as successful.
While Apple’s competitors, such as Android, BlackBerry, Nokia and Windows Phone, have focused on market share by offering cheaper devices that can undermine the iPhone, Apple has intentionally focused on the much more lucrative market of high-end smartphones.
This has resulted in Apple getting most of the benefits of the mobile industry. If Apple were simply looking to win “the trophy” for the largest market share, it could have simply produced 60 million iPhone 3GS and distributed them at low cost in developing countries.
With a 2009 manufacturing cost of around $180 per phone (this cost will probably be much lower today) , being able to boast of having sold the most phones in a quarter would cost Apple less than $11 billion.
Establishing and maintaining a “market share record” , however, is not as important to Apple as producing higher quality devices and selling them at a profit unattainable by any other manufacturer. Otherwise, Apple could have simply spent part of its $13.1 billion quarterly profit on “winning” market share from Samsung, instead of allowing Koreans to make $4.8 billion less profit than Apple.
The iPad offers no margin to the competition
While Apple’s iPhone market share has been held back by the higher volumes of cheaper devices from its competitors, the same has not happened with the iPod Touch and iPad, which have been leading the market for longer.
As Sacconaghi wrote:
The difference between the pricing of the iPhone and the iPad means that competitors may have lower profit margins, while the profit margins of around 30% that we discussed in the case of the iPhone is much more profitable, in the area of the iPad they can only almost give away their devices in the hope that they will attract customers to their ecosystems and that these customers will buy a lot of content to make a profit.
While Google and Amazon have a business model that consists of distributing tablets with a very low profit in the U.S., the same model does not work globally because neither company has good content stores in other countries, as is the case with iTunes and Apple’s App Store. This highlights a second strong point of the iPad against its rivals, something that is not so clear in the case of the iPhone.
The iPad has a better distribution
The fact that Nokia, Samsung and BlackBerry have much larger distribution channels for their smartphones than Apple, is a fact that is never mentioned when the market share figures are given.
Most users are aware, however, that Apple was exclusive to AT&T in the U.S. until 2011, when Verizon began having it. Sprint did not get to have the iPhone until later that year, and a variety of other major U.S. companies, such as T-Mobile, have not managed to get the iPhone until the release of iPhone 5.
Apple is still in negotiations for iPhone support agreements around the world, including China Mobile, the world’s largest telecommunications company by number of customers, and NTT Docomo, Japan’s largest.
The fact that Apple has a fairly high market share for smartphones at present despite weaker distribution is not surprising, as Apple maintains its strongest share in the tablet market, where its distribution is higher than that of its competitors worldwide.
Sacconaghi also dared to set a target of $725 per Apple share, which yesterday was at $431.99, only $13 above its minimum after 52 weeks of consecutive decline after reaching its historical high of $705 per share last September.
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Companies are increasing towards the demands of society. Facing racism, women empowerment, LGBTQA + issues, sustainability, conscious consumption are all topics that need to be worked out in the corporate environment.
In fact, this is a consumer demand: A study by the 2019 Accenture Strategy showed that 83% of Brazilians prefer to buy from companies that protect their objectives aligned with their life values. This trend is seen when we see organizations being questioned on social media by their customers, who want more than just a product.
The temptation to be a part of these conversations, however, can be fertile ground for empty marketing, with no commitment to concrete actions, or over-promoting advertising and taking the initiative on its own. This is what we call socialwashing or greenwashing, which can be translated as social makeup or green makeup.
“Many times the company does a lot of marketing to say that it is complying with the law. It should not be a matter of marketing. In an interview with the podcast, Chloeber Leite, Coordinator of the Energy and Sustainability Program at Edec (Brazilian Institute for Consumer Protection), says that we have to advertise different things. Here it is done, here it is donatedProduced by MOL Institute.
Apart from being abusive towards the consumer, this makeup goes unnoticed. According to study Edelman Trust Barometer: Brands in the midst of crisis, Who interviewed eight thousand people in eight countries (Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, the United Kingdom and the United States) last year, 62% say that “a lot of brands are critical social and political issues.” Are only used as marketing maneuvers to sell more products ”.
Also interviewed in the episode for Professor Edgar Barki, coordinator of the Center for Entrepreneurship and New Business at FGV’s School of Business Administration, it is imperative that companies not only attract their customers, but their employees. And when communicating your purpose, pay attention to three points: Consistency, Consistency and Transparency.
He said, “It is important to work continuously. The company should do more and better, and not just be visible to fans ”, he concluded.
* Roberta Faria and Rodrigo Pipponzi are social entrepreneurs and founders of MOL, the world’s largest social impact publisher, who have already donated over R $ 35 million to over 80 NGOs from all over Brazil. They are part of the movement for a culture since 2017.


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Let’s put a price on using the atmosphere as a garbage dump for carbon
It works for plastic bags; let’s use the same idea for carbon
Consider the plastic bag: It’s a highly visible environmental problem, one that we all encounter. Around the world, retailers routinely provide shoppers with “free” plastic bags to carry home their purchases. The bags show up as refuse in municipal disposal systems (when they’re properly binned) and but are a major litter nuisance, and turn out to be a threat to wildlife.
For economists, the solution to the plastic bag problem is straightforward: Charge consumers for taking them. And in Britain, where this pricing policy has been in places for some time, the results are compelling. Large retailers in the UK are required to charge 5p (about 7 cents) for plastic bags. The fee has dramatically reduced plastic bag consumption, as the BBC reports:
Asda, Marks and Spencer, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, the Co-op, Tesco and Waitrose sold 549 million single-use plastic bags in 2018-19, down from one billion in the previous year.
Since 2015, when a 5p charge was introduced to tackle plastic pollution, the number being used is down by 90%.
Customers now buy, on average, 10 bags a year compared to 140 bags in 2014.
Similarly Chicago has been charging shoppers a 7 cent fee for using disposable grocery bags. Rather than banning the bags outright, the city settled on the fee as a way to preserve consumer choice and yet encourage less use of the plastic bags. Those who don’t bring their own bags to the store pay a the 7 cent fee, which is itemized on their receipt; the grocer keeps 2 cents for their trouble, and the nickel per bag goes to the city.
What if we did the same thing for carbon pollution?
The relative ease and simplicity of the bag fee got us thinking about how we might apply the same idea to another, somewhat more serious environmental problem: climate change. What would happen if we asked consumers to pay, say 2 cents per pound, for every pound of carbon that they emitted into the atmosphere? If consumers got some small signal that dumping carbon into the atmosphere wasn’t “free” then they’d have a strong incentive to change their behavior.
Of course, this actually isn’t a new idea. The world’s leading economists of every political stripe are in broad agreement that a carbon tax is a foundation for any effective climate change policy. But how we package it is important. Carbon tax advocates have always talked about pricing in “dollars per ton” but that puts it a little bit out of the reach of daily life and the average consumer. Talking about pounds of carbon makes it a little bit more comprehensible, and puts it in the same context as the plastic bag fee. Is it unreasonable to ask everyone to pay, for example, just two cents for every pound of carbon they emit?
And two cents is pretty darn close to the correct number. While there are various recommendations for the appropriate level for a carbon tax, currently a number of experts are suggesting something like a tax of $40 to $80 per ton. Divide that number by roughly 2,000 (we’ll just ignore whether the experts want that tax for a metric or an imperial ton) and a $40 per ton tax on carbon works out to about a 2 cents per pound tax.
Just to put that in perspective with our shopping bag, recognize that a typical polyethylene shopping bag weighs about five or six grams. So Chicago is charging consumers about 1 cent per gram for their shopping bag. That’s roughly 200 times more than a 2 cent per pound tax on carbon (about 450 grams in a pound, so our 2 cents per pound tax works out to less than .005 cents per gram).
What does that mean in practice? Consider our most common form of carbon emissions: driving a gas-powered car. If your car gets 20 miles per gallon, it produces about one pound of carbon per mile. There are slightly more than twenty pounds of carbon generated by burning a gallon of gas, so a five-mile round-trip to the store would generate about five pounds of carbon, which would cost you a dime with our proposed 2 cents per pound carbon fee. So in this scenario, if you’re buying two bags of groceries, your bag fee (in Chicago) would be 14 cents and your carbon emission fee would be 10 cents. Although if instead of driving your car, you rode your bike, and brought your own bags, you could save almost a quarter.
As a result, the fee we’re talking about to save the planet is not out of line with what we’re perfectly willing to ask consumers to pay to discourage the visible, but largely nuisance effects, of plastic bags.
A small fee, say 2 cents a pound on carbon would send consumers small, but pervasive signals about the effects of their buying choices and travel behavior on the environment. Sometimes–just as when you forget to bring your own bag, you might be willing to spend the 7 cents to have the convenience of a plastic bag, you pay for the privilege (and in the case of a carbon fee, generate revenue that could be used to reduce our dependence on fossil fuel, and offset the regressive effects of the tax). But overall, the fee would bias consumer (and investor) decisions in favor of all kinds of things that resulted in lower carbon emissions. It would make solar energy, and electric cars, and walkable urban places more economical, and make fossil fuel, gas-powered cars, and sprawl even less attractive than they are today. It would automatically reward businesses, inventors, and investors who came up with lower carbon ways to get all of the goods and services we value. It would gradually, but powerfully push us in the direction of lower carbon emissions and greater sustainability.
Shopping bags are a visible, annoying form of pollution. The are a regular feature of litter almost everywhere in the world. And while they’re a blight, and an unnecessary one, the fact is we’re willing (at least in Chicago) to make consumers pay a fee that reflects the environmental damage they cause, and to give a gentle nudge to their behavior in a direction that is better for the environment. And it’s working–plastic bag use in Chicago has dropped 42 percent in six months, and Britain reduced plastic bag use by nearly 90 percent over five years.
So why aren’t we willing to do the same with carbon? Perhaps its as simple as this: Carbon dioxide (the most common form of carbon pollution) is invisible. We can’t see it. If you’re car exuded fist-sized lumps of carbon at the rate of one per mile and they cluttered the roadway, we’d probably acknowledge the problem and agree to do this almost instantly. But the carbon evanesces into an invisible–and global–atmosphere, slowly, but surely raising global carbon levels and steadily raising the planet’s temperature. Plastic shopping bags aren’t an existential threat to the planet, so why are we willing to charge consumers 200 times as much (per pound) for these bags as we would charge for carbon emissions?
Is a couple of pennies a pound for carbon pollution too much to ask?


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Japan: Economic AftershocksBy
Humanity's powers of recovery are remarkable. The Japanese, who have already reconstructed some roads that were ripped apart by the Mar. 11 earthquake, are only the latest to demonstrate this. "What has so often excited wonder [is] the great rapidity with which countries recover from a state of devastation," the English philosopher and economist John Stuart Mill wrote in the 19th century. In the spirit of Mill, forecasters today are predicting that the Japanese economy will suffer just one, or at most two, quarters of declining output, followed by a boom as rebuilding kicks into high gear. The rest of the world, they say, will scarcely sense a tremor. "We are not changing our growth forecast for the U.S.," says Augustine Faucher, director of macroeconomics at Moody's Analytics (MCO), an economic consulting firm in West Chester, Pa.
History is on the optimists' side. Southern California rebounded rapidly after the Northridge earthquake in 1994, as did China after the Sichuan earthquake in 2008 and Japan itself after the Kobe earthquake in 1995.
Still, there are two scary differences between this disaster and previous ones. One is the release of ionizing atomic radiation, which by endangering the health of rescue workers and ordinary civilians is likely to deepen the downturn and slow the recovery. The other is the vulnerability of global manufacturers to disruptions in supply from Japanese factories, including those far from the devastation that are nonetheless affected by rolling blackouts and aftershock tremors.
The truth is, no one yet knows how much of a problem the radiation and supply-chain disruptions will prove to be. That uncertainty is itself cause for concern. "It's very Rumsfeldian. It's the unknowns that are unknown we're dealing with," says Michael Robinet, director of global production forecasts at IHS Automotive (IHS) in Northville, Mich.
Stephen S. Roach is more worried than most of his economist confreres. "There's a predisposition to ignore anything until it's too late," says Roach, the supervisory board chairman of Morgan Stanley (MS), who is now teaching at Yale University. The advanced economies remain weak after the financial crisis. Oil prices have shot up on unrest in the Middle East and North Africa. The European sovereign debt crisis won't end. "None of those in isolation would qualify as a tipping point," Roach says, "but I worry about the combination. I just think it's important to be cautious in this climate."
The prudent course is to prepare for a worse-than-expected outcome. For business, that means putting people and money to work on contingency plans that with any luck will prove unnecessary. Automakers are already doing that to some extent—analyzing whether scarce parts can be sourced elsewhere or designed around. For governments outside of Japan, scenario planning means readying emergency fiscal and monetary interventions just in case the disaster refuses to stay contained to the island nation.
When John Stuart Mill marveled at the "disappearance, in a short time, of all traces of the mischiefs done by earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, and the ravages of war," he did not have millisieverts in mind. Today that measure of dosage of radiation is a constant presence on Google (GOOG) News. France's Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire estimated on Mar. 22 that the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant had already released 90 quadrillion becquerels' worth of radioactive iodine-131. If so, that is more than 100,000 times as much as was released in the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979, according to the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, a nonprofit based in Takoma Park, Md.
Radiation is paralyzing both physically and psychologically. Even factories and offices that were not damaged by the earthquake or tsunami have been rendered off-limits by radiation risk. And the situation hasn't stabilized. On Mar. 29 regulators detected record-high radioactivity in seawater near the crippled plant. Meanwhile, the aftershocks are unnerving. According to a Bloomberg Businessweek calculation from U.S. Geological Survey data, there were 397 tremors of 5.0 or higher on the Richter scale off or near the east coast of Japan's main island from Mar. 11 through Mar. 23. That's nearly one-third as many as occur worldwide in a typical year.
Conventional economic analysis assumes that Japan's problems will remain localized. The country hasn't been an engine of growth for other nations since the 1980s, anyway. For the U.S., exports to Japan accounted for only 0.4 percent of gross domestic product, says Moody's Faucher. Economists assume that the interruption won't be severe enough to cause layoffs and destroy consumer demand, so sales missed now will be made up in the future.
But that lofty perspective misses what happens on the ground if the world runs out of critical components that are made in Japan. A Mar. 30 study by the U.S. Business and Industry Council found that imports from Japan accounted for 33 percent of all capacitors sold in the U.S., 26 percent of magnetic and optical recording media, and 21 percent of metal-cutting machine tools as of 2009.
A modern automobile has about 15,000 parts, counting every last screw. If even one part is missing, the car can't be completed. In Europe, General Motors (GM) temporarily stopped some work at plants in Zaragoza, Spain, and Eisenach, Germany, that build the Corsa small car. Ford Motor (F) told dealers to stop ordering vehicles in tuxedo black and is limiting production of three shades of red because of the loss of a pigment called Xirallic from a plant in the Fukushima exclusion zone. IHS Automotive predicts that global auto production will be down 15 percent to 30 percent two months after the quake.
This is the biggest earthquake ever to strike an important exporting zone. Who knew before Mar. 11 that a Japanese company called Kureha had 70 percent of the global market for polyvinylidene fluoride, or that PVDF is necessary as a binder in lithium ion batteries? The only Kureha factory to make the resin is in Fukushima Prefecture and has stopped production because it suffered damage and can't get raw materials, says spokesman Akio Kazui. Bad news for Apple (AAPL), which uses the pliable batteries in products like the iPod. Apple declined to comment.
In many cases companies aren't even aware of their exposure, says Kevin Tynan, an automotive analyst for Bloomberg Industries in New York. They know their suppliers, but not their suppliers' suppliers, or the suppliers of those suppliers. "I keep telling people, anybody who can figure out the global automotive supply chain will get a Nobel prize," Tynan says.
In the long run, the healing that amazed Mill will occur. Companies will improvise and work around obstacles. In 2002, Honda Motor (HMC) airlifted carbon sheet steel from Japan to the U.S. at a cost of $3,000 a ton after tariff-related supply disruptions. In this crisis, "You're going to try to keep assembly lines running as best you can," says Dave Andrea, senior vice-president for industry analysis and economics at the Original Equipment Suppliers Assn., an auto-parts trade group based in Troy, Mich. But getting back to normal will take foresight, creativity, and determination. The best way to achieve a rapid recovery from the Japanese disaster is to prepare for a slow one.
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If grim financial news makes you panic or upset, you're probably thoroughly worried by the world's reaction to China's worsening economic situation. You're not alone. China, the world's second-largest economy after the United States, has been devaluing its currency, the Yuan. By lowering it, the cost of Chinese exports becomes more attractive to consumers in other countries.
Stock markets around the world are in panic mode. If the Chinese economy doesn't recover, it'll have a sickening ripple effect on the world economy.
China's economic boom the past couple of decades has been fueling economies all over the world, including the U.S. That's because one out of five people on the planet lives in China, and they're increasingly buying products like cars, cellphones, food, fuel and countless others.
Just today, the Dow opened to its worst decline since 2008, down more than 1,000 points early today. It has been struggling to recover. Other global stock markets today are in steep decline.
London's FTSE 100 index closed down 4.6%, according to BBC News. Stock markets in France and Germany each closed down roughly 5%.
All of which is triggering business leaders like Apple CEO Tim Cook into action. Cook, who almost never comments on the stock market, reached out to Jim Cramer, host of financial news network CNBC's "Mad Money." He has a "don't panic" type message, to give some reassurance to investors that Apple hasn't seen any declines in sales in China, it's second-largest market.
In part, this is what Cook wrote to Cramer: "I get updates on our performance in China every day, including this morning, and I can tell you that we have continued to experience strong growth for our business in China through July and August." He continued: "Obviously I can't predict the future, but our performance so far this quarter is reassuring."


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Making a statement that it will hold an Xbox presentation during the Gamescom 2021 fair week, Microsoft also shared the date of this presentation.
Microsoft announced that they will hold an Xbox presentation during the Gamescom 2021 fair. As you know, Gamescom 2021 will be held digitally this year as well. Due to the Covid-19 epidemic, we expect to hear new game announcements and new news from existing games during the fair, which will be held completely digital as last year. However, it is not difficult to predict that it will be a little dimmer compared to previous years. Fortunately, an event that we will be waiting for the fair period has already been announced.
Xbox presentation announced at Gamescom
Providing information about the Xbox presentation to be made, Microsoft announced that this presentation will include new information about the previously announced Xbox Game Studios games as well as 3rd party games. So even though it has a new announcement, it’s not from Microsoft. from 3rd party companies. Microsoft will likely focus on previously announced games like Forza Horizon 5. Games like Fable, which we haven’t seen yet, are obviously hard to come by in this presentation.
Aaron Greenberg from Xbox has also signed a short and clear statement to lower expectations; “I can say that there will be no new revelations or big surprises to set expectations, but the team is still planning a fun flow”
The new Xbox presentation will be held on August 24 at 20:00 Turkish time and will be broadcast live on Xbox Youtube, Facebook, Twitter and Twitch addresses.


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Collective struggle, enduring trials, and transcendence: The legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. exemplifies all of these qualities and continues to inspire IMAN’s work today. In a recent DeenTV appearance, Executive Director Dr. Rami Nashashibi shared some big news about the planned MLK Memorial in Marquette Park: The memorial will be unveiled on August 5, 2016 during the Takin’ It to the Streets festival — on the 50th anniversary of King’s historic march through the park (pictured here) — thrusting IMAN and its allies in this effort onto the national stage, inshaAllah. Once known as a community where Neo-Nazis demonstrated, Marquette Park will become the site of an interfaith, multicultural celebration like no other.
As a result of the sacrifices that Dr. King and local activists in this area made, and the struggles of those who have continued their legacy, today’s Marquette Park community is vibrant and diverse. Embodying this progression, renovation work at IMAN’s Youth & Arts Wellness Center has kicked into high gear. As walls come down, the vision of a new focal point of creative expression on the Southwest Side builds up. “Art is not just about entertainment. Art is about powerfully, radically re-imagining the world,” says Dr. Nashashibi.
From March 18th to 22nd, an IMAN delegation visited Washington, D.C. for the National Association of Community Health Centers’ (NACHC) Policy and Issues Forum, which commemorated the 50th anniversary of U.S. Community Health Centers. The Forum engaged leaders in the community health field, hosted discussions on best practices, and, most importantly, was a site of intense advocacy. Health care funding is at a critical stage: If Congress does not act, the Health Center Fund will expire on September 30, 2015, reducing funding up to 70%.
During this four-day trip, we heard IMAN’s community health model being confirmed — that our present health clinic and future health center must always be an integral part of community organizing work. While in D.C., IMAN staff learned from Congressman Danny K. Davis and other long-time activists that the history of community health centers in the United States is steeped in intentional community activism. Dolores Huerta, who famously organized with Cesar Chavez, delivered a passionate speech stating that community organizers should be part of every community health center’s staff. Steadfast in commitment to dignity and justice, we must never lose sight of the fact that health care is a human right and protecting resources that provide these services is critical.
In March, IMAN organizers Shamar Hemphill and Sara Hamdan traveled to Philadelphia to visit The Food Trust, a local organization dedicated to nutrition education and increasing access to affordable, healthy food. For over 20 years, The Food Trust has developed and successfully implemented a model for converting inner-city corner stores into hubs of healthy living. IMAN has drawn from their Healthy Corner Store Initiative model in Philadelphia to help inform the Muslim Run campaign.
Shamar, Sara and members of The Food Trust shared best practices, as well as challenges of doing corner store conversion work in Chicago and Philadelphia respectively. They also toured several corner stores that are participating in the Healthy Corner Store Initiative. These stores were given access to produce displays and in-store marketing materials to encourage consumer consciousness. As a result of their commitment to working alongside The Food Trust, several store owners spoke of their continued commitment to providing the community with increased healthy options.
In addition to visiting corner stores, Shamar and Sara were given a tour of The Fresh Grocer, a grocery store located within the nation’s oldest African-American owned and operated shopping center. The Fresh Grocer was financed in part by the Pennsylvania Fresh Food Financing Initiative, and serves as a powerful example of what a broad coalition of community partners and allies can do collectively.
The Muslim Run team is eager to continue strengthening their corner store model, working with store owners, local residents, and IMAN leaders to build the dignified, healthy spaces our communities deserve. If you would like to get involved with IMAN’s Muslim Run corner store campaign, please contact Sara Hamdan (firstname.lastname@example.org).


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Israeli medical cannabis company Together Pharma (TASE: TGDR) has reported that it has received a license from Israel's Ministry of Health Medical Cannabis Unit, to cultivate cannabis plants at its Ashkelon farm, after recently receiving approval to propagate cannabis plants. Receipt of the license is part of the regulatory process, which will allow the company to meet the requirements of the Ministry of Health's Medical Cannabis Unit for receipt for full approval to comply with the IMC-GAP standard, and be issued with a permanent license for cultivation at its farm. Tomorrow, Together's farm will receive 180 seedlings, to begin growing its first crop.
Together Pharma CEO Nissim Beracha said, "The start of the cultivation of medical cannabis in Israel represents an important milestone in our activities. We are moving forward swiftly on all fronts and in various countries. In Israel, as well as cultivating, we are moving forward with the construction of a GMP standard factory from which we will send out products to the domestic market as well as overseas in the future.
He added, "In Uganda, we have completed growing and harvesting our first crop, and we have begun sowing 2.5 acres for the second crop. In Germany, We are working to complete the acquisition of the German company, which possesses approval for importing to Germany and distribution agreements in the country, so that we will quickly be able to show sales and profits. We believe that these processes put us in practice on the path to realize the company's strategic plan with the aim of bringing about the creation of value for all of the company's shareholders."
Together Pharma's chairman is Israel former police chief Yohanan Danino.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on June 30, 2019
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2019


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Transport for NSW has responded to claims from the Cancer Council the NSW Government is pushing an anti-obesity agenda while accepting millions from junk food advertisers.
Yesterday, B&T reported Cancer Council had called the government ‘contradictory’ in its approach to advertising.
Speaking on the issue, Cancer Council NSW nutrition program manager Wendy Watson said: “By accepting this advertising and money, it’s contradicting the work that they’re doing.
“There’s so much evidence that advertising influences children’s eating behaviours – what they want to eat, what they pester their parents to buy,” Watson added.
Now, a spokesperson from Transport NSW has sent a statement to B&T, which cites its “clear set of content guidelines”.
“Transport for NSW’s policy on the advertising of food and beverage products is consistent with advertising standards permitted across various media formats across the state,” the spokesperson said.
“At Transport for NSW we have a clear set of content standard guidelines which all related entities and all our agencies, including Sydney Trains and State Transit, are required to comply with.”
The spokesperson added: “Advertising material appearing on Transport assets must comply with all applicable Laws, as well as a range of industry standards and voluntary codes of conduct established by the advertising industry including the Australian Association of National Advertisers Code for Advertising & Marketing Communications to Children.”
According to the Cancer Council, it as well as other health-focused councils have vowed to put pressure on the government leading up to the next election so scrap junk food advertising public transport and other state-owned inventory.
In a recent study led by the Cancer Council, 292 food advertisements were identified, 78 of which were on trains, 214 on buses.
Of these, the council found 82 per cent of the ads were related to confectionary and discretionary food, including soft drinks, chips and ice-cream.
In this guest post, Garrett Ilg, President JAPAC at Oracle, Oracle Corporation lays out how marketers can lead their businesses to recovery… The global pandemic has changed nearly everything for CMOs, forcing them to scramble as consumers shift even more to online shopping. Meanwhile, CEOs are pressuring their marketing chiefs to find strategies for recovery. […]
The NSW Government and the Department of Education have today launched a major campaign titled ‘Maths Trains Brains’ which is aimed at changing the perception of maths and encouraging more engagement towards the subject for students from pre-kindy to Year 10. The campaign was developed by creative and digital agency Bastion Banjo with production by […]
Grill’d has launched a new tactical campaign ahead of the upcoming US elections, with the aim of comparing big American fast food giants with Grill’d’s home-grown, healthier approach to burgers. The tongue-in-cheek campaign depicts Donald Trump’s addiction to fast food options, such as McDonald’s, KFC, Burger King and Dominos, with the words ‘You are what […]
In this guest post, Dr Phillip Lawrence of Edith Cowan University debunks the myths of the environmental impact of printing… The environmental credentials of printing have been in the spotlight for a while with brands and marketers as well as large corporates regularly proposing they would reduce or eliminate paper and printing from their business as […]
The WPP-owned agency Mindshare has revealed it has won the media business for both Kayo and Binge. Both Kayo and Binge form part of Foxtel’s Steamotion’s streaming services and have seen significant boosts to the subscription numbers in recent times, primarily during lockdown. Commenting on the win, Mindshare CEO Katie Rigg-Smith said the win would […]
Realworld, an Australian location-based technology company, today launched adfindr.co, a leads platform for media owners. Adfindr finds the contact details of hundreds of local businesses around any location. Adfindr offers all media owners a database of local advertising leads. Simply type in a location and extract advertising leads in that area. David Sanderson, Director at […]
The new Online Will from State Trustees has launched with an unexpected campaign via newly appointed creative agency Hardhat, one that aims to turn in between moments into opportunities for action. Having a baby, moving house or exploring some thrilling new hobbies – this colourful, tongue-in-cheek campaign leverages the types of life stages that trigger […]
Worksafe and FCB New Zealand have launched a wild new campaign, challenging New Zealanders to take a fresh look at workplace safety. The launch TVC, hitting screens big and small this week, asks workers to be more vigilant and proactive, by listening to their inner-meerkats. In the last five years, WorkSafe has recorded 363 workplace […]
Immersive media company Imagine Room has signed an exclusive agreement with Microsoft to build and operate Australia’s first Mixed Reality Capture Studio to drive the next generation of content production. The state-of-the-art studio uses 106 cameras to create holographic and 3D-video performance assets and create immersive and interactive experiences for virtual reality (VR), augmented reality […]


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That Was The Woman
Women are not new. They were invented in July 2007 by ABN Amro, which was acclaimed at the time for its imaginative approach to structured products and saw the opportunity to introduce ladies (the term they used) into the structured products pantheon as an underlying. More precisely, the Dutch bank created a product linked to the performance of female fund managers.
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BRUSSELS—The European Union published details of tough labor and environmental standards it wants included in a putative trans-Atlantic free-trade pact, amid fears from labor leaders and politicians on both sides of the Atlantic that the deal could bolster multinational corporations at the expense of consumers and workers.
The EU’s proposal, presented to U.S. negotiators at the latest round of trade talks in Miami last month, “offers the most ambitious provisions ever put forward on these issues to any trading partner,” according to a statement from the European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm. It includes “an obligation not to relax domestic labor or environmental protection laws as a means to attract trade or investment,” the commission said.
The world’s two biggest economic blocs have been discussing a so-called Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership since 2013. The deal would lower tariffs close to zero and sweep away or streamline a host of regulations that hinder trade in goods ranging from cars to chemicals.
In last month’s talks, EU and U.S. negotiators said they exchanged tariff offers covering 97% of goods and discussed public procurement and regulatory barriers to trade. The two sides are pushing for a deal before President Barack Obama leaves office in early 2017, but officials have indicated that timeline is challenging.
Thousands of protesters have marched in Berlin and other European cities in recent weeks to express their objections to a deal they fear could undermine wages, public health and environmental standards.
In the U.S., critics of a sweeping Pacific trade agreement with 11 other nations, known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, registered similar concerns after the pact’s details were released Thursday. Many unions worry opening up trade with Southeast Asia will shift some manufacturing jobs, and labor leaders say the TPP doesn’t do enough to improve working conditions in Mexico.
At a news conference on Friday, the EU’s trade commissioner, Cecilia Malmstrom, said trade “is not just about our economic interests, but also about values.”
“Child labor, insufficient workers’ rights or irresponsible corporate behavior are global scourges that I want trade policy to help us deal with,” Ms. Malmstrom said.
The EU’s proposals include measures to prevent harm caused by the trade of chemicals, protect health and safety at work and promote responsible behavior by businesses.
If successful, the trade talks would likely result in both sides accepting one another’s regulations in areas such as auto safety, saving millions for car companies that would no longer have to build different versions to meet two sets of safety rules. U.S. and EU regulators also hope to end duplicative inspections of each other’s pharmaceutical plants.
However, a host of potential stumbling blocks still stand in the way of a deal, including the EU’s insistence that local producers be granted exclusivity over the names of regional products, from Champagne to feta cheese.
These so-called geographical indications are “a key EU priority in TTIP,” according to an EU report on the status of the negotiations published on Friday. The EU has “renewed its call to the U.S. to move to negotiating mode on this topic,” in an effort “to stop other producers misusing [geographical indications] and [enforce] those rules effectively,” according to the report
The EU also “expressed strong concerns” to its U.S. counterparts last month about recent special duties on butter, and cautioned on U.S. inspection requirements for table olives and tax breaks for small wine and beer producers, the report said.


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Tesla CEO Elon Musk unnoticed threats from confidantes that he used to be using advertisers away along with his erratic conduct, in line with a fresh biography.
The billionaire proprietor of X, previously referred to as Twitter, has an extended record of rich, tough advisers he habitually ignores, in line with Walter Isaacson’s fresh secure, Elon Musk.
Within the months order Musk’s chaotic takeover of Twitter — when he used to be sending out provocative tweets — Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav cautioned about “self-destructive” behaviors that had been spooking advertisers.
Musk must rather focal point on making improvements to video and making higher advertisements, the manager recommended, in line with the secure.
Tesla’s board, Chairman Robyn Denholm and Musk’s brother Kimbal Musk additionally warned the mercurial businessman that controversies at X had been hurting the electrical car maker’s emblem.
However the billionaire didn’t appear to assume his conduct used to be a disease and driven again.
Musk’s $44 billion takeover of the social media platform has drawn complaint from customers, advertisers and pastime teams for degrading the revel in and permitting abhor pronunciation to flaunt.
One piece of recommendation he did heed used to be from Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, who instructed him to steer clear of coming into a battle with Apple.
Musk had known as out the iPhone maker for pausing promoting on his platform closing November. However Ellison cautioned him in opposition to destructive that dating since Apple used to be a big marketer and X had to keep at the iPhone’s App Gather.
Musk upcoming reached out to Apple’s Tim Prepare dinner to produce amends.
The billionaire’s alternative influential advisers come with undertaking capitalists David Sacks and Marc Andreessen.
Isaacson’s secure paints Musk as a in large part impulsive decision-maker who oscillates between being attentive to his advisers and ignoring them.
From time to time, he even perceived to derive amusement from going in opposition to their recommendation, Isaacson wrote. The constant theme used to be that once Musk has his frame of mind, now not even the ones closest to him can trade it.


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HP Has Announced Printer Control App For iOS
Hewlett-Packard, the ailing computer maker, announced a new iOS app Printer Control with printing and remote control capabilities. Apart from typical set of functions such as automatic printer setup and discovery, troubleshooting cartridge identification, printer status notification this iOS app allows using your iOS device as a scanner and includes scan to Google Docs, scan to email and scan to Facebook capabilities.
Printer Control can operate with most ePrint-enabled Officejet, LaserJet and Photosmart printers released in 2011 and works with iPod touch, iPhone and iPad running iOS 4.2 and later.
Also HP has included compatibility to Apple’s AirPrint technology on some its printers and recently added AirPrint support to eight new LaserJets models.
It should be noted that official
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We are proud to announce the release of the beta version of our new eecFlashcards app. This app marks our first step into the world of app development and we are proud to be publishing an app that we think will be useful to both parents and early childhood educators.
eecFlashcards is an iPad flashcard app designed as a teaching tool for early learning centres and families. Whether you are an early childhood teacher looking for a new teaching resource to assist in your classes, or a parent looking for additional learning resources for your children, eecFlashcards is the app for you.
Designed by and tested in an Australian early learning centre, eecFlashcards is the perfect app for those looking for an Australian, rather than American or British, accent for their children’s learning.


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YAKIMA, Wash-- The bright signs outside of Palace Fine Jewelers are there to draw people in to the going out of business sale. The current credit crunch is causing the owner to close down the store after 17 years.
Jasmine Yi hopes this going out of business sale will return some of her investment. We've always been told diamonds are a girls best friend, but when money get's tight non essentials are the first to go. That's why Yi hired an outside consultant to help sell off her remaining stock.
She said people aren't purchasing jewelry forcing her to close. "It's really tough because of the economy. People are scarred to spend money," said Yi.
Yi also mentioned that business credit is another issue. Jewelers need a high line of credit to make purchases.
"Well I think that people have a lot less disposable income right now. And any credit that they have they may have to use for other things," said Jean Moore, business consultant.
Moore said in the 20 years she's been helping businesses close, this is the busiest she's ever been. Both women said they think the bailout would've helped small businesses and the consumer.