Inflación importada, efectivo y riesgo social

Chile en el contexto México–Estados Unidos

En este documento analizamos la relación entre efectivo en circulación, inflación importada, remesas, tipo de cambio y malestar social, comparando los casos de México, Estados Unidos y Chile, para finalmente concentrarse en la vulnerabilidad estructural específica de Chile: una economía exportadora de recursos naturales pero altamente dependiente de importaciones para el consumo cotidiano.

La conclusión central es clara: Chile no enfrenta un riesgo de desorden monetario, sino un riesgo de estrés social derivado de inflación importada persistente, amplificada por el tipo de cambio y por la limitada capacidad de ajuste vía expansión monetaria.

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1. Marco conceptual: del dinero a la calle

El malestar social no surge directamente de la inflación “headline”, sino de la ruptura de la previsibilidad cotidiana. El mecanismo observado es:

Este proceso explica por qué muchas protestas parecen “desconectadas” de los datos oficiales: la economía se deteriora antes de que los indicadores agregados lo reflejen.

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Comparación internacional: México, Estados Unidos y Chile

México: economía dual y monetización social

• Fuerte crecimiento del efectivo en circulación.
• Alta correlación entre remesas y aumento de cash.
• Cash crece más rápido que M2.

Lectura estructural: el efectivo actúa como válvula social.

La economía informal y la baja bancarización permiten absorber shocks sin ajuste inmediato del consumo, pero a costa de menor productividad y mayor fragilidad fiscal.

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Estados Unidos: liquidez defensiva global

• Crecimiento moderado del efectivo.
• El dólar cumple un rol global, no doméstico.
• El efectivo aumenta en contextos de incertidumbre.

Lectura estructural: el USD se fortalece incluso cuando la economía estadounidense se desacelera.

La liquidez es un activo de refugio, no un síntoma inflacionario.

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Chile: disciplina monetaria, fragilidad cotidiana

• Crecimiento bajo del efectivo.
• Alta credibilidad del banco central.
• Ajuste vía precios y salarios reales, no vía monetización.

Lectura estructural: Chile absorbe los shocks externamente (tipo de cambio) e internamente (nivel de vida).

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Chile: exportador de recursos, importador de vida

Chile exporta cobre, litio y recursos naturales, pero importa una proporción creciente de bienes esenciales:

• Energía y combustibles.
• Alimentos procesados y proteínas básicas.
• Bienes durables y electrodomésticos.
• Insumos industriales y logísticos.

Hoy, entre 55% y 60% del IPC chileno depende directa o indirectamente del dólar.

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El umbral crítico USD/CLP

Se identifican tres zonas sociales relevantes:

• ≤ 900 CLP/USD: zona funcional. Inflación manejable.
• 900–1.000 CLP/USD: fricción social. Caída de salarios reales.
• ≥ 1.000 CLP/USD: estrés estructural. Inflación importada persistente.

Chile no colapsa financieramente en estos niveles, pero la vida cotidiana sí se deteriora de forma perceptible.

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Inflación y malestar social: umbrales observados

• < 4%: tolerancia social.
• 5%–6,5% sostenido (≥6 meses): malestar silencioso y medible.
• ≥7% sostenido: rechazo sistémico y alta probabilidad de estallidos no organizados.

El factor clave no es el nivel puntual, sino la persistencia.

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Velocidad de transmisión del dólar a precios

• Alimentos importados: 4–8 semanas.
• Energía y transporte: 2–6 semanas.
• Alimentos locales con insumos importados: 8–12 semanas.

El traspaso es asimétrico: el dólar sube y los precios ajustan rápido; el dólar baja y los precios rara vez corrigen.

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Chile 2011, 2019 y hoy (sin efecto de la política)

Variable	2011	2019	Hoy
Inflación importada	Baja	Media	Alta
Salarios reales	Crecientes	Estancados	En caída
Colchón financiero hogares	Alto	Medio	Bajo
Velocidad dólar→precios	Lenta	Media	Rápida

La diferencia clave hoy es la menor capacidad de absorción social.

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Recomendaciones realistas de mitigación

1. Energía

Reducir dependencia importada energética tiene el mayor retorno social. Cada 10% de reducción puede disminuir el IPC entre 0,4 y 0,6 puntos.

2. Alimentos críticos

No buscar autosuficiencia total, sino estabilidad en proteínas básicas, granos y fertilizantes.

3. Insumos intermedios básicos

Producción local de insumos simples reduce volatilidad y pass-through cambiario.

4. Gestión cambiaria

Evitar overshooting mediante señales claras y uso quirúrgico de reservas, sin controles de capital.

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Indicadores de seguimiento temprano

Para anticipar malestar social antes de que sea visible:

1. USD/CLP promedio móvil 30 días.
2. Inflación semanal en alimentos y energía.
3. Evolución de salarios reales (con rezago).
4. Consumo en retail básico y marcas de bajo precio.
5. Endeudamiento de corto plazo en hogares.

Grandparents’ Rights and the Millennial Family Divide

In the 21st century, a generational shift in values, lifestyle, and emotional expectations has redefined the role of extended family, especially grandparents. Millennial parents often navigate parenthood with a strong sense of autonomy and psychological awareness, leading to both legal and emotional barriers that can separate children from their grandparents. This white paper examines how different legal systems treat grandparents’ rights, contrasts international perspectives, and analyzes the broader societal and inter-generational implications.

Comparative Legal Frameworks

A comparative analysis of grandparents’ rights in the USA, Canada, Mexico, Spain, Chile, and Japan reveals a spectrum of legal support. Countries like Spain and Chile enshrine contact rights in their civil codes, while U.S. states vary widely, and Japan offers almost no recourse.

Examples:
– USA: Troxel v. Granville (2000) limits grandparent access in favor of parental rights.
– Canada: Ontario’s Bill 34 amended laws to explicitly consider grandparent access.
– Spain: Civil Code Article 160 ensures contact unless proven harmful.
– Chile: Civil Code Article 229 supports regular contact.
– Japan: Custody laws omit extended family rights.

Societal Shifts and Cultural Dynamics

Millennials are redefining family structure. The rise of therapeutic language and boundary-focused parenting has recast grandparenting from a cultural constant to an emotional variable. This shift is more pronounced in individualistic societies, where legal frameworks often reinforce the nuclear model.

Consequences include emotional loss for grandparents, developmental gaps for grandchildren, and fragmentation of cultural transmission.

Emotional and Legal Case Studies

Real-life examples show the clash between tradition and autonomy. In New York, a grandmother sued for visitation after her daughter’s death, but was denied due to lack of ‘extraordinary circumstances’. In Japan, grandparents are often entirely cut off post-divorce with no legal remedy.

These cases highlight how the erosion of traditional family roles intersects with modern legal priorities.

Conclusion and Recommendations

As the millennial generation continues to shape parenting norms, societies must find balanced ways to preserve intergenerational bonds. Legal systems should evolve to reflect the child’s right to family connection—not just the parent’s right to exclusivity. Community awareness, cultural storytelling, and respectful boundaries can together foster a more inclusive family narrative.

Wild Fires : California vs Chile

California has a long history of wildfires, but determining the “worst year” can depend on various factors such as the extent of damage, loss of life, economic impact, and other considerations. However, one of the most notable and devastating wildfire seasons in recent memory was in 2018.

In 2018, California experienced a series of destructive wildfires, including the Camp Fire in Butte County, which became the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California’s history. The Camp Fire alone claimed 85 lives, destroyed over 18,000 structures, and burned more than 153,000 acres of land.

As for the causes of wildfires in California, they can be attributed to a combination of factors. While some wildfires are ignited by natural causes such as lightning strikes, others are sparked by human activities like discarded cigarettes, campfires, equipment use, or arson. Weather conditions also play a significant role, with factors such as high temperatures, low humidity, and strong winds contributing to the spread and intensity of wildfires.

The Santa Ana winds, which typically occur in Southern California, are known for their dry and hot nature, exacerbating fire conditions by quickly spreading flames through dry vegetation. While these winds can indeed fan the flames and contribute to the severity of wildfires, they are not the sole cause of wildfires in California.

Additionally, California’s Mediterranean climate, characterized by hot, dry summers and mild, wet winters, leads to the growth of abundant vegetation during the wet season. However, this vegetation becomes highly susceptible to fire during the dry season, providing ample fuel for wildfires.

Overall, California’s wildfires are often the result of a combination of factors, including human activity, weather conditions, and the state’s natural environment.

California vs Chile

These two areas share some similarities in terms of geography and wildfire risk, but there are also notable differences:

1. Climate and Vegetation:
   • California’s climate is characterized by a Mediterranean climate with hot, dry summers and mild, wet winters. This leads to the growth of dense vegetation, including shrubs, grasses, and forests, which can become highly flammable during the dry season.
   • Chile also has a Mediterranean climate in its central regions, but it varies across the country due to its diverse geography. The northern regions are arid, the central regions have a Mediterranean climate, and the southern regions are cooler and wetter. Vegetation types range from desert plants in the north to temperate rainforests in the south.
2. Wildfire Frequency and Severity:
   • Both California and Chile experience wildfires, but the frequency and severity can vary. California is prone to large and destructive wildfires, often fueled by strong winds, dry conditions, and dense vegetation. The state has seen several devastating wildfire seasons in recent years.
   • Chile also faces wildfire risk, especially in its central regions where the Mediterranean climate prevails. However, wildfires in Chile may not always reach the same scale as those in California due to differences in population density, land use patterns, and firefighting resources.
3. Topography and Terrain:
   • California has diverse terrain, including coastal areas, mountains, valleys, and deserts. This diverse topography influences fire behavior, with wildfires spreading quickly in mountainous regions and being influenced by downslope winds like the Santa Ana winds.
   • Chile’s geography is also diverse, with the Andes Mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. The country’s long and narrow shape creates different climatic zones and vegetation types, influencing wildfire patterns.
4. Human Factors:
   • Human activities play a significant role in both California and Chilean wildfires. In California, human-caused ignitions, such as power line failures, campfires, and arson, contribute to wildfire risk.
   • In Chile, human activities such as land clearing, agricultural burning, and intentional arson can also spark wildfires, particularly in rural areas where land use practices may increase fire danger.

While California and Chile share some similarities in terms of wildfire risk, each region has its own unique environmental and socio-economic factors that influence the frequency, severity, and management of wildfires. Understanding these differences is crucial for effective wildfire prevention and management strategies in each location.

Information at the BOARD of Directors… a strategic advantage?

Having well-informed perspectives within a corporation can help to build strategic insight, commitment, execution, and resilience.

This can be achieved through effective communication and decision-making processes, as well as through the development of a strong corporate culture that values and encourages the sharing of information and diverse perspectives. Additionally, having a diverse workforce can also contribute to the development of well-informed perspectives, as different individuals may bring unique experiences and perspectives to the table.

The role of the board of directors in a company is to provide oversight and guidance to the management team, and to ensure that the company is operating in the best interests of its shareholders. In terms of ensuring that a company has good information and is able to become resilient to changes, the board of directors can play several key roles:

1. Setting the tone for a culture of transparency and open communication: The board can set the tone for the company by encouraging open communication and transparency throughout the organization.
2. Overseeing the management team’s performance: The board can monitor the performance of the management team and ensure that they are effectively managing the company’s operations and keeping the board informed of important developments.
3. Providing oversight of risk management: The board can provide oversight of the company’s risk management processes to ensure that the company is identifying and managing risks effectively.
4. Reviewing and approving strategic plans: The board can review and approve the company’s strategic plans, including plans for becoming more resilient to changes.
5. Recruiting and developing a diverse board: The board can recruit and develop a diverse board of directors, which can bring different perspectives and experiences to the table, and can help to ensure that the board is well-informed and able to make strategic decisions that are in the best interests of the company.
6. Reviewing and approving the budget: The board can review and approve the company’s budget, including funding for risk management and contingency planning.
7. Reviewing and approving the communication plan: The board can review and approve the communication plan for the company, ensuring that all stakeholders are informed, involved and aligned with the company’s vision and strategy.

When boards of directors do not plan for a situation like COVID-19, they may be caught off guard and struggle to effectively respond to the crisis. This can lead to a number of negative consequences for the organization, including financial losses, damage to reputation, and difficulties in maintaining operations. It is important for boards to consider potential crises and develop plans to respond to them in order to minimize the impact on the organization.

Boards of directors should push for a number of different types of preparations to be in place in order to effectively respond to pandemic-like events. Some of these include:

1. Business Continuity Planning: Having a plan in place for how the organization will continue to operate in the event of a crisis is essential. This should include identifying critical functions and ensuring they can be maintained, as well as identifying potential disruptions and developing strategies to minimize their impact.
2. Risk Management: Boards should ensure that their organizations have a robust risk management program in place. This should include identifying potential risks, assessing their likelihood and potential impact, and developing strategies to mitigate or manage those risks.
3. Crisis Communication: Developing a plan for how the organization will communicate with stakeholders during a crisis is crucial. This should include identifying key stakeholders, determining what information they need and when they need it, and identifying the appropriate channels for communicating with them.
4. Remote working infrastructure: With the global pandemics like COVID-19, organizations should have the infrastructure to support remote working for their employees. This includes the necessary technology, security protocols, and communication systems to enable employees to work from home if necessary.
5. Supply chain management: In order to maintain operations during a crisis, it is important for organizations to have robust supply chain management processes in place. This should include identifying potential disruptions and developing strategies to minimize their impact, as well as building relationships with key suppliers to ensure continuity of supply.
6. Financing and cash flow: Be prepared with a financial plan to face the crisis. The board should be aware of the organization’s cash flow and have financial resources available to weather a crisis.
7. Health and Safety: The board should be aware of the health and safety of the employees and customers, and have policies and plans in place to protect them during a pandemic.

Those Boards that do not address all these should be replaced, fired… Sorry for some of my very good friends…

Facebook vs Google : Who controls the DATA generated by the Internet of Things (IoT)

via Facebook vs Google : Who controls the DATA generated by the Internet of Things (IoT)

“False Consensus” & the “Majority Illusion”

Since I was a kid, I would read anything that end up near my hands.  Old newspapers, magazines, medical books, mechanical engineer manuals, old enciclopedias, everything.

So I keep doing this as a matter of fact, i click and go to places in the metaverse that most people have never been or would not even venture there. For me it became obvious that I can read anything I want, most sites, even those closed have always a way to get in, a promotion, a special key, a partnership that exposes their content and a lot of them have RSS feeds that is easy to bring into your own site.

While I was doing this during my moments of rest from work, I have the 24/7 video feed from the Political Conventions to watch. First the Republican and now the Democrat. Think of this, two full weeks of so many speeches, so many concepts to dig on.  It is like having a kid in a candy store.

Then it hit me that almost all of them, both sides seem to be totally disconnected from the real world, their assumptions and what they believed to be truth were totally far away from what the rest of Americans and the rest of the world are living day to day.

There are very smart people dedicated to analyze social behavior, people like me that have a specialization in Sociology, just they have more time in their hands and have been able to

•  “Majority illusion”
  • When people are convinced that what is common among their friends and relatives, co-workers, sports club, etc. is more common than it actually is in the rest of the world, they enter this amazing zone.  
  • Constant visitors and some permanent residents here are Presidents, Prime Ministers, CEO’s and a lot of those that fall into the famous Marie-Antoinette (bride of France’s King Louis XVI)  “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche” … 
  • What happen in the augmented networking capacity that the WEB has brought is that this illusion is causing even more people, to reach wrong conclusions about how common a behavior is, leading them to accept as a norm a behavior that is globally rare.
  • This is why a very small amount people can create a big BOOM and send it as a a global issue, bu also it also helps to understand why observations and inferences individuals make of their peers are often incorrect.
• “False Consensus”
  • The “False Consensus” effect arises when individuals overestimate the prevalence of their own features in the population, believing their type to be more common. Thus, Democrats believe that most people are also Democrats, while Republicans think that the majority are Republican.
• “Pluralistic Ignorance” is another social perception bias. This effect arises in situations when individuals incorrectly believe that a majority believes something or accept as absolute rules that themselves do not share.

This America seems to apply to everything.. that is why we can have fake news, fake friends, fake personas, fake everything and they will be believed and followed..

 

A world without Google, Facebook and Twitter?

We are so used and dependent for our communications on the products and services these 3 companies offer to us, mostly for free ( not considering value of our Data, advertising, etc.) , that it would be difficult to imaging what would happen if you end up without been able to use them ?

Last week I flew back to China after too many years of have been living here, a time where we use the WEB mostly for email and research… some of us were at that time pioneering the voice over IP, that kept us from spending all our budgets in calls and the result increase in communication flow due to low cost of “just call them and find out…”

Then I am back in China for 11 days and find myself trying to tell everybody if we could be friends in Facebook or i tried to follow them in Twitter.  Last resource, exchange emails that I ws not able to access for all those days since all my personal and work emails are Gmail backend.

One of the young entrepreneurs I met in the second day told me to sign for an application that I could barely remember : WeCHAT.  He also suggested to tell my friends to write me to my Yahoo account, that work at light speed and deploys all my mail and attachments like I was inside my office on a VPN..

So I did those two things… Nothing for me to say about Yahoo.  I am an investor, and I believe in what Marissa Meyer has done. She may have service the company if she had focused her marketing efforts OUTSIDE the US where Yahoo seems so strong and has been loosing market share form being #1 to second and third places.  If I was her would listen more to my consumers, let her tech abilities drive the rest but work with those that really like Yahoo.

WeCHAT is totally a new experience for me.. simple to use, I am told it has around 700 million users but very few in the US.. so few that when I do a search ABOUT.com doesn’t even mention it among the top 25 ( it may seem that people outside the US may no the that important even if they are in larger number and pass by far the consumption capacity of the so called “american middle class”).

 

WeChat is owned by a chinese company, it surpasses the use of FB and Google in almost every country where they are present .  I was impressed by the way the use of the QR Code has expanded all over in china that even TV will leave at the end of advertising or a TV Program the QR Code so you can suscribe to news about that or receive in a @qq.cn email ( probably larger than Gmail and many others ) all kind of info related to that specific subject.  They have taken extended reality to a new level.

I was also told that more and more teenagers around the world are leaving FB and starting to use WeChat, not just to be cool and exchange photos with people around the world, also running away from their Facebook Parents and since the photo and video capabilities are much better, there you are…

WeCHAT has a discovery tool that is much more fun and better ” shake it” is called, initially i didn’t understand the concept, but once you got the magic of it it is really impressive, non intrusive and even fun.

Last is that I saw so many people using it for business purposes, saw people during meetings going down their time line looking at all the “official photos of ceremonies, public acts, etc” with a functionality that Facebook doesn’t have : I can just click to save any image I see to my own device, or the WeChat gallery…

Back in the US, I will keep using WeChat with my new friends in China and other Asian Countries ( i found that in LATAM is becoming very strong ).

Now I found that I can get my Buzzfeed directly to my WeChat and be able to translate it to Mandarin, or any other language in Asia and comment , share the original article.  It is a NEWS reader, a news distribution system and it has 700 news hungry million people.

And I was not going to end here.. so i went just after coming back, into analyzing the whole phenomenon of Social Media and why the differences between the Western and Asian Worlds. I really recommend what Donovan Rose wrote in his Blog NEXMO about this.  I was impressed by the numbers and as usual since US Media just ignores the fact that there is a much larger country with an economy that is about to get near the US, with a per capita consumption at its middle class similar to that of Europe or NorthAmerica ( USA and Canada.  BTW  China Middle Class may be only 20% of the population but that is in real numbers larger than the so called and now almost inexistent AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS) .

article by Donovan Rose

 

Lots to talk about what you can see while you are there, how malls are much larger than NYC 5th. Avenue or Rodeo Drive.  Smaller cities, what they call the secondary tier, are much more vibrant, and looks just like the US 25 years ago.

They must be doing something right that we are not.

Is the USA becoming a POLICE STATE?

 “Police state is a term denoting government that exercises power arbitrarily through the police.” wikipedia

I remember the times when people around the world used to admire how American will respect and trust their Police. when I was a kid, growing up in Mexico City and traveling around the country and Central America, my Father will always remind us to be careful specially with the Police and to never approach them unless there was an adult with me. Police in many countries around the world is perceived as “Pirates with the King’s license”… For many years

We used to fight against ANY State where police could detain you for any reason, that will hit you and beat you for just watching them the wrong way.

There was this dream among many around the Globe that now they all became corrupt, the typical first step for any “Police State” that we talk and hated so much about Communism. Our US scholars used to call the regimes of URSS, China, Cuba, Yugoslavia, etc. the “POLICE STATES”.

USA history of intervention to bring down so many governments because they have NO respect for the locals and the heads of those States have decided that they were THE LAW. In must cases POLICE or ARMY was not worried about the safety of society but they were defending a condition that allows them to become above the LAW.

Some will say that this POLICE or ARMIES acquired a life of their own imposing their own laws and became a rogue body inside those countries.

“Because there is nothing proportionate between the armed and the unarmed…” Machiavelli

We seem to be heading the same way.

Once again, our best and finest NYPD – the way Giuliani, Bloomberg, Bush, etc. called the best int eh country- have attacked again. Like a POLICE MOB, they move and beat the hell out of a single person. How are we supposed to trust the efficiency and training of our Police if they can not deal with ONE single person ? This finest POLICE men and women – video is clear both participate equally – are the same that are not able to find those in motorcycles ( some of them police on their free day) attacking and scaring a little girl when they hit his father and his mother. Of course that will be too much to ask, they are not going after their own. That is exactly the definition of the MOB or a POLICE STATE.

Ironic, as these “brave” men and women were piled on top of one man, pummeling him into the ground, the brave and finest NYPD look nervous and concerned about being surrounded and outnumbered by an angry (but non-violent) crowd.

The video is very clear, when our Police have to beat people, outnumber the citizens instead of doing their job and control the situation, we should all be concerned.  When our children look at this, what is going to be their reaction when a member of the Police Department in an y City in the US , ask them to stop ? If it was me I will be running…

I remember how many bystanders were beaten by the NYPD during Mr. Bloomberg Dictatorship ( yes, he was that at the helm of NYC, he modified the local laws so he can reelect himself an extra period, just like the same people the US fights around the world, Chavez or Maduro in Venezuela, La Junta in Argentina, Pinochet in Chile, Mao in China, Stalin and Lenin in the USSR) just because they were in the wrong place, during the Occupy Wall Street movement?   The Police didn’t came as Heroes except for the Bankers and the Wall Street Tycoons – useless leaders at running their own companies that the Government had to intervene and save them – that sounds to me like so much government intervention, but of course our friends at Fox News won’t see it that way.  Government, too much of it, is ok as long as it defend the CAPITAL, not the SOCIETY.

I was reminded by so many people that in the US you can NOT demonstrate freely, you need a permit, but we think that the Chinese Government is wrong because one guy started a demonstration in front of the Tanks in Tiananmen or because a large number of people in HongKong decided to demonstrate and were taken out of a Park – sounds familiar Mr. Bloomberg?- or we decide to bomb a whole country because the local government decides to “control popular demonstrations”… of course as long as it happens in other places is wrong but we will NOT accept people demonstrating against ANYTHING popular in the US without beaten them and making sure they are hospitalized or even dead by choking.

We are in the brink of a revolution : REMEMBER THAT THE WOLF LIVES UNTIL WE THE PEOPLE HAVE ENOUGH OF IT… The Police is to serve Society, to protect, not to beat the hell out of us…  This are not POLICE , they a GANG, a bunch of outcast, protecting themselves, NOT looking after WE the PEOPLE that pay their salaries, their uniforms, their nice way of living.

But let’s make sure that we understand that NOT all the Police are good people and NOT all the Blacks, Latinos, immigrants are good people.  What can not happen is that our Police becomes a power in itself.

When our Social Fabric has so many holes, it is time to rethink what we are doing, I have been saying for some time now our Society needs a new Social Contract..

Facebook vs Google : Who controls the DATA generated by the Internet of Things (IoT)

Beacons are capable of transmiting and activate functions on your smart phone…. creating DATA

A race between @Facebook & @Google is happening without too many noticing. The Internet of Things ( IoT ) needs tone able to communicate among them and with devices that actually control their functions or use their services for some linear activity ( from opening a door, control temperature, assigning you a table at a restaurant, pointing you to where to find products displayed in your shopping list, instant coupons, etc.) that interacts with smarter devices, some mobile and some other at a distance. These devices also “take info from humans” as they walk and their smart phones are connected to the WEB using so many applications that we all leave open all the time. Think if you enter a restaurant or a store, and your phone has the Facebook app open or the Google+ or even just Gmail or Gtalk open, the beacon can activate it, letting know your app that you just enter this area. That information is delivered through your PHONE, not through the beacon (remember i is for now a single way communication) to whoever control the application ( Facebook or Google in this specific case I am talking about). Then the app creates a notification into your phone and ask you ” do you want to become a FAN of this XYZ Restaurant, click here” or “add Restaurant XYZ to your Google+ Circles?”
Well while you walk, your apps start collecting data from all those beacons and that info related to your Journey is conveyed to the app owners. The Wireless Registry ( TWR) is in the process of launching a large initiative so all those beacons are forced to have an ID and we can control the use of that DATA. In the meantime Facebook and Google already started controlling the access.
So FB started a program to flood retailers, service providers, any place where humans tend to congregate with these BEACONS “Facebook Bluetooth® beacons are devices that businesses receive from Facebook. These beacons use Bluetooth® technology to send a signal to the Facebook app on your phone…”
So Google launched “set out to build a new class of beacons that addresses real-life use-cases, cross-platform support, and security.” So just like they did with Droid OS, they created an open format for BLE beacons that anyone can use: Eddystone. This programming platform has some very amazing capabilities: supports versioning so you can start small in functionality and suddenly grow as much as you want and it’s cross-platform, capable of supporting Android, iOS or any platform that supports BLE beacons. And it’s available on GitHub under the open-source Apache v2.0 license,
Of course the Facebook and Google solutions that are FREE come with caveats : each one of them control who has access to the DATA collection format and function. This is the main reason why we need a 3rd. party body that controls the famous ID’s of each IoT device, the beacons and the wireless devices.
Remember that a beacon is meant to be discoverable by any nearby Bluetooth Smart device. What makes it possible for you to stop or give access to the signal is via its identifier. Google has built a feature called Ephemeral Identifiers (EIDs), which change frequently, and allow only authorized clients to decode them. EIDs will enable you to securely do things like find your luggage once you get off the plane or find your lost keys. Google has promised to publish the technical specs of this design soon.
For some people these events are finally building a map of what is the next generation of deployments over the WEB, the so called “micro-web”, that of the IoT talking among themselves, and exchanging data that is supposed to enhance our quality of life. Until somebody starts using it for the wrong purposes….

High Speed Trains, Modernization and Economic Recovery

Four years ago, when we all realized that we were deepening into one of the worst economic crisis the USA has ever been through (not that we are out of it yet, or that there is a sign that we will be out of it very soon) I was having a conversation with several friends, all like me, optimist people, thinking that there had to be a better way to get America out of the landslide and find a way to convert all that “energy going down” into something we could use to go back upwards… Yes, we are all lovers of vectorial analysis and we think you have to use the forces you can’t control in your favor.  That day the Government decided to “save” GM from going bankrupt and de-facto became (following the rationale, WE the People ) the owner of the largest Auto Manufacturer in the World.  WE then thought this was the signal to create something so unique, using resources inside the country, and get our technological strength

We are very proud of what we accomplished during WWII when many parts of the Auto Industry were converted in a matter of days, weeks, months to become producers of motorized vehicles, guns, cannons, ammunition,  to be used by our Armed Forces joining into the fight against the Germans.

So my thought was:  What if we could start a very large project, that involved local workers (not able to “outsource it”),  use of US Technology ( think of Silicon Valley, from Intel, Microsoft, Cisco, MIT, CalTech, Boulder Tech Start ups…), our just acquired Auto Manufacturers (GM and Chrysler), extensive experience in how to create large scale transportation systems ( Boeing, Aerospace industry), Renewable Energy that takes us out of OIL dependency and at the same time put ecology in a first plane of our agenda (all forms of Clean Energy using Wind Farms, Sun Panels, etc.) ?

Could we take all this and at the same time create the future mass transportation ?

Let’s define what am I talking about.  Wikipedia defines High-speed rail as a type of passenger rail transport that operates significantly faster than traditional rail traffic. As of 2012 the maximum commercial speed was about 300 km/h (185 mph) for the majority of installed systems (China, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, UK), 310 km/h (195 mph) in Spain and 320 km/h (200 mph) in France. The Shanghai Maglev Train reaches 431 km/h (268 mph).

And all these came back to me as I listen to the news that the world’s longest line opened in China on 25 December 2012. It runs 2,298 kilometers (1,428 miles) from the country’s capital in the north to Guangzhou.  It required less than a year in planning and 3 years to build. It also come clear that they thought that this investment will bring much needed “economic stimulus” outside the largest cities where Public Infrastructure can be deployed faster and then creates migration of large numbers of population to those already overcrowded cities.

Let’s see how I arrived to this.

1./ Build two lines simultaneously, one from Boston, MA to Los Angeles, CA and another from Seattle, WA to Jacksonville, FL.  Create 120 different points where the construction starts simultaneously.

2./ The estimated cost per mile considering construction and all the necessary technology that goes into it es $2.5Million dollars per mile, so the total cost for the construction for 9 thousand miles, a great way to spend $22.5B  instead of just giving tax rebates, help financial institutions, save insurance companies, etc.

3./ This will create direct jobs, just in construction at a very local level, for 190,000 people for 2 full years with average annual salary of $50-$60k (well above National average and double the local average in many of the 120 starting points for construction.

4./ It will create  at least 3 extra jobs per direct position created, that means at least another 600,000 jobs related just to the construction.

5./ It will create also a several billion dollar splash into the software, electromechanical controls, computer and general IT industry.  Plus it will create a totally new industry around transportation, communications, just to keep the trains running and all the security and controls that will be needed. Estimate this will create at least 10 to 15k very well paid jobs, coders, programmers, systems engineers, designers, etc.

6./ Of course, a BIG push was to happen to the Auto makers, one of them, will convert all or most of their facilities into manufacturing the cars, luxury cars, economy cars, Dinner cars, etc. that will be needed to expand the service.  Parts and of course with time new designed vehicles, maybe even freight attachments, etc.  This by itself would have saved more than 200k jobs in the Auto industry and created another similar number in the secondary industries, ie textiles, special parts, plastic injection moulding, etc.

7./ Engines design.  The best part of this is that companies like GE, Boeing, could design and create the perfect engine for exceeding the current performance of French, Chinese, Japanese or Russian fast train engines.  This could create a full new industry, with very well paid jobs, and of course the secondary industries.  Estimated more than 20k jobs, all at high level pay.

8./ Energy supply.  This is where a fundamental change will be made with this plan.  The Fast trains have a need for a lot of energy, electricity at high level.  By doing this “Fast Train” prpject, we will give a push into creating the largest grid of “clean energy projects” with their first permanent client.  Then the economic impulse to each location will bring more revenue to those projects.

9./ RealEstate.  Not all land in this plan is owned by Government (local, State or Federal) so it will mean that there will have to buy land in different points, that money will go into those local economies in most cases and it will also create opportunities for local developers to bring more people to won second homes, vacation homes, since it will be easy to get far away just for the weekend. People with resources that live in small apartments in big cities, suddenly could have a way to escape for the weekend (buy monthly passes? when no business people is riding the train it could be a way to keep it going at full capacity).

If we can bring technology even more advanced to the actual fast speed train systems in the world, better design, and we get all the government levels agreeing to make this happen, we could build new tracks for fast trains between Boston and Los Angeles (Route 1) ; between Seattle and Miami.  We could promote the use of renewable energy along the tracks and we could have used General Motors to transform themselves into a large manufacturer of “electric transportation systems” from the engines, to passenger cars. We also have Boeing and other very smart companies designing aerospace, less frictional models for planes, cars, etc.     We have intelligence, resources, at that moment in time, the President had the ability to bring economic development to a large part of the country by starting a totally new way of transportation for Americans : Fast Speed Trains.  And I meant real fast : The current fastest Train in the US, operated by Amtrak goes at an astonishing speed of 95 MPH for about 25 minutes between Boston and New York City, but the total trip takes 4 hours to do the 220 miles between those two cities, distance that in many other countries in the world already takes less than 45 mins to an hour by Fast Speed train.  Plus today’s cost of the Acela Train between NY and Boston or NY and Washington DC is already very high, so keeping that price or even a price near a plane ticket will make this a profitable project in the near future.

As you can see, this was just a thought back then, four years ago. Then I read that China got it figured out.  We are again left behind.  We need to get out of the box, executing the same old policies, expecting different results every time is just a sign of how insane are our Policies (and our politicians).

(from the South China Morning Post http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1113165/high-speed-train-route-beijing-guangzhou-ease-economic-slowdown ?