SANTIAGO, CHILE, MAY 8, 2012: I decided to start my five week 2012 Iron Man Around the World Challenge in Santiago, Chile. The main reasons for my professional interest in Chile is because Chile has a vibrant economy and a retirement system which has been touted as a successful model for other nations to follow. After a cancellation of the first leg of my flights to Chile and the subsequent twenty hours of grueling travel from San Diego, my odyssey ended with my passage over the awesome Andes Mountains into Santiago. To my surprise, upon descending into the city, the plane became enveloped in a dirty yellow cloud of smog. The smog is the result of Chileans enjoying a better quality of life, increased vehicle ownership and the geographical reality that Santiago is surrounded by mountains which trap emissions. Santiago’s smog is not as bad as Beijing’s, but its catching up – at least, you can see five city blocks ahead. Santiago is a city of about 7 million souls. If you have funds, the city offers a cultured, comfortable and relatively calm life style with classic architecture, outdoor cafes and an ambiance reminiscent of Paris and Madrid. Chile is [...]

TOKYO, November 3, 2011 Now that I am in Tokyo, the consequences of the March 11, 2011 devastating earthquake and tsunami have been brought home to me. Japan has been shaken to its core. Thousands of people perished. In addition to massive property damage, as reported around the world, the Fukushima nuclear power station sustained critical damage to its reactors which, in turn, caused reactor melt downs and uncontrolled releases of radiation/radioactive materials. While many people I have talked with here in Tokyo express deep grief over the great loss of life and are worried that there will be another devastating quake, all express diminished confidence in the government’s ability to protect them/their loved ones from the health risks associated with exposure to unseen nuclear radiation. Admittedly, the Japanese government has been dealing with a disaster of unprecedented scope and dimension. Japan’s disaster planning never envisaged a set of scenarios as occurred on March 11th. But even with this understanding, many people feel that the government has been overwhelmed and may be withholding information as to the real public health risks involved. Undercutting the government’s credibility further are the uncontested realities that the government never mandated that systems be in [...]

BEIJING, November 1, 2011 Living in San Diego, I have taken for granted the clean and relatively pollutant free air we enjoy. Sure, occasionally, a bus or truck will belch and enclose me in a brief cloud of poison but I can take that. Not so in Beijing. Since I arrived in China’s capitol, I have been absorbed into a yellow gray mass of crud. When you are on the streets, everything is covered by a dark haze which blocks out the sun and can limit your visibility to 400+ yards or less. Taking a look at some pictures I had taken, every picture has the yellow haze. (SEE MY YOUTUBE VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuMFNulI8wQ ) After two days, going from meeting to meeting on business, I started a hacking cough, my eyes were becoming fountains – I felt lousy. Not connecting the dots (flunked pre-med), I thought I was coming down with some flu. To me, this was a reasonable diagnosis since my around the world trip has exposed me to a vast array of bacteria, viruses and bad bugs in general. Slowly, however, I recognized that when I was in an office building with filtered air, my symptoms seemed to [...]

SHANGHAI, October 28, 2011 When I arrived in Shanghai mainland China, I was jolted into the realization that everything seems to be on a higher order of magnitude. The terms “largest in the World” “World’s first…, etc.” seem to apply to a lot of things in China. Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport is humongous – you walk for hundreds of yards just to get through immigration and reach the Maglev Train to take you to the city. The Maglev train is the World’s first commercial train to not have wheels or use rails. Created by Germany’s Siemens, this incredible train rides on magnetic levitation to suspend and propel itself. The train is the World’s fastest, reaching speeds of 360+ mph which surpasses France’s TGV and Japan’s Bullet Train both of which I have adventured on. During my 20+ minutes to the city, the ride was much quieter than a normal train ride. Over the car doors, they have a digital update of the train’s speed – we hit 286 mph! In the last two decades, Shanghai has grown at a phenomenal rate. It sits on the Huangpu River, a branch of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Shanghai is reputed [...]

HONG KONG, October 25, 2011 Gwyneth Paltrow, Matt Damon, Jude Law and Kate Winslet have had a big impact on Hong Kong and China by the recent release of their movie Contagion. In case you have not seen it, at the beginning of the picture, business woman Gwyneth Paltrow is attending a business meeting in Hong Kong. At a dinner function, she eats pork chock full of a highly contagious killer virus. She then proceeds to spread the virus by coughing up phlegm at airports, on planes and in the states. Not more than fifteen minutes into the epic, Gwyneth dies and the virus has spread world-wide killing millions. While the theme of this movie is not really that new (fast moving pandemic with scientists combating the spread), because Hong Kong was featured as the city where the killer virus started from food, the city, and indeed China, have flipped out about Contagion. There is much direct and subtle discussion in the press. The Hong Kong/China leaders are very concerned about any negative impact the movie may have on the world community’s perception of Hong Kong, China and their ability to prevent, contain and deal with virulent communicable diseases. It [...]

Dubai never ceases to amaze me. Four years ago, I visited this bustling oasis on the Persian oooops Arabian Gulf. Then it was booming so much that it had cornered the world’s supply of construction cranes. Everything seems to have been under construction. The Dubai Palms and World Island projects were being built along with the world’s tallest building. People were flocking to Dubai to make money. Indeed, if there was one common denominator for why all the 120+ nationalities got along it was because they were/are all driven by the opportunity to make money, the chance for advancement and a better quality of life. Since my visit, with the global economic collapse, It was reported in the western press that Dubai has suffered greatly so, on this trip, I was very interested to see what had actually happened. The first thing I noticed when arriving at the airport, there were not the crowds which I jostled with four years ago – maybe this was due to the fact that the airport has doubled in size since my last visit. While the city appeared to be bustling as usual, there was less construction going on. Not to say there was [...]

AMMAN, October 22, 2011 At the Dead Sea in Jordan, the World Economic Forum is convening a Special Meeting on Economic Growth and Job Creation in the Arab World. As a WEF Davos participant, once again, I marvel at WEF founder Klaus Schwab’s brilliance in identifying the Arab World’s critical unemployment challenges and recognizing that if they are not resolved, there will be increased social instability throughout Arab countries which, in turn, will directly impact the rest of the World. King Abdullah II of Jordan opened the meeting by observing that the Arab World has reached a critical point. With one of the highest unemployment rates for youth in the World, the Arab community needs to create 85 million new jobs. As I have cautioned, the high unemployment rate of especially Arab male youths has/will contribute greatly to continued social instability in many Arab countries. To remedy this situation, the King recommended that only entrepreneurs, innovators, educators and policy makers can lead the way in creating these new jobs. While the King’s observations are visionary and very valid, I would caution him in on his reliance on “educators and policy makers” to help pave the way for real economic development [...]

ATHENS, October 20, 2011 Being teargassed three times by Athens police, hit with stones by protesters and forced out of my Athens digs because of fire/unbridled violence is not the best way to calmly collect ones thoughts to summarize the implications of what has recently taken place in Greece. (See my YouTube Greek Strike videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lip3D2AFi1Y http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6iBhdy-njA ) The last two days of the general strike in Greece has been very difficult for a country which has been facing crises after crises. This week’s showdown was mainly about the government’s desire to obtain the EU bailout by showing the EU that it is on the road to improvement and that it is committed to trimming its bureaucracy which has ballooned out of control. Suzanne Daley reported in the International Herald Tribune that there has been ”eye-popping” waste and abuse of power by Greece’s bureaucrats – “from officials who hire their wives to managers submitting $ 38,000 bills for office curtains”. Believe it or not, there are too many bureaucrats for the available office space so many workers stay at home collecting salaries/benefits. Because the governments workers are active in the political campaigns, over the years, many people have received patronage [...]

MADRID, OCTOBER 15, 2011: As with the rest of he World, Madrid just had its Global Day of protest Saturday, October 15th. Tens of thousands of people marched in protest to government cutbacks in key social services, the high unemployment rate and the institutionalized financial service sector’s greed. The protest was an outgrowth of the “indignant” movement which was started in Spain in the spring and then ultimately spread to the Wall Street protests. To get a clear picture as to what was taking place, I immersed myself in the four hour march from Madrid’s Cibeles Square to the Puerta del Sol, interviewed many people and took extensive videos which have been posted to YouTube, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lf4wXhk0OA and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVQJPulIATs . Three things struck me about this protest. First, the participants came from all walks of life and practically all looked/dressed like middle class suburbanites from the US. Second, I did not witness one act of vandalism or violence. Lastly, the police/authorities acted in a very professional/lay back manner keeping a very low profile given the size of he crowd. The compelling motivation of the marchers was pretty obvious, in a short number of years many of Spain’s middle class are [...]

LONDON, OCTOBER 14, 2011: Londoners are different after the passage of four years when I last visited. Then the UK economy was humming, real estate was going through the roof and everyone thought the good times would never end. The good times have ended. You can see it in Londoners faces and hear about it when you talk with them. Sure everyone is giving the “stiff upper lip” and boasting about the upcoming London Olympics but underneath all this hoopla is an strong undercurrent of apprehension and sobering news. The recent riots caught practically everyone by surprise and awakened a lot of people as to the nation’s perilous condition. The riots showed that many are in financial trouble. They will happen again. The unemployment figures just came out and showed that a million plus UK youth were unemployed – a record. Unemployment for all ages is at all time highs. As David Evans reports in the Daily Telegraph, the Bank of England has tried to save the economy by cutting interest rates and printing more money with the effect that british pensioners’ incomes have been reduced by an average of 4,000 pounds a year. The value of their savings has [...]

In the 2004 Harvard Journal “The Age Explosion: Baby Boomers and Beyond”, I predicted that the world would experience unprecedented social changes and unrest due to a combination of the inevitable populations’ aging cycles and misdirected macroeconomic policies. Before the bust, in the media and my 2005 testimony to the Congress, I reiterated my compelling predictions and warned the country that increased public/private debt would eventually crush us. People should not use their house as an ATM machine and should not rely on their illusory house equity to support them in their vulnerable years of retirement. Regrettably, a lot of my predictions have come true. This blog has been set up to truthfully inform you and open up a solutions-focused dialogue about the real challenges facing our country/world in confronting the dual tsunamis of aging populations and misguided macroeconomic policies. Today, as a kick off to my blog, I am starting a daunting around the world initiative to learn first-hand what is really going on those eight countries which are the first to experience the extreme social unrest due to these dual tsunamis. Starting tomorrow, October 12, I will be reporting from the UK, Spain and Greece whose social unrest [...]