Let's talk about OLMA

For the ones who haven't been through St. Gallen, I will introduce you to a very popular event that marks the town two weeks long every October.
It's called Olma Messe/ Olma Exhibition. You're probably imagining now pictures hanging on the wall or Greek and Roman sculptures.
You'll be surprised to find out that Olma it's not at all about art in its classical sense.
OLMA stands for "Schweizer Messe für Landwirtschaft und Ernährung", that is Swiss Exhibition for Agriculture and Nutrition. The farmers come to exhibit their animals and present their products (usually cheese and wine).
When I found out about this exhibition, I was quite amazed. Why? I didn't expect to see in a country such as developed as Switzerland such an "animals show".

This event still puzzles me and I wonder how come the agriculture plays such an important role, even though it doesn't bring a great value added to the GDP. However, the same is valid for France, too, where the farmers benefit from a comprehensive protection from the government, being largely subsidized.


But in Switzerland, the country of banks and pharma, why is agriculture important?

I have three hypothesis for this question:
1) It's a matter of national pride to have your own products which you market internally and in the EU markets. It's not only a matter of country pride, but also the Swiss consumers attach a premium value to a product to which they personally know the region of provenience.
2) This subsidization can also be looked at as the result of the "distributive function" of the government. By this I mean the distribution of the funds from the "haves" to the "have not-s". In this case, the transfer of money from the banks' and other multinationals headquartered in Switzerland, to the farmers who live in harsher living conditions.
3) This support can also be considered as a reward for the fact that farmers, by taking care of their assigned properties, contribute to maintaining the beauty of the Swiss landscape.

So, how can this help? What are the learnings for other countries, and especially Romania, from the story?

Let's take three take-aways:

1) We (Romanians) should start and brand our national products with more pride. As lots of Romanian consumer goods products and especially food is still traditionally cultivated, we should promote this particularity. We should, furthermore, try to market our products outside our country with more pride and actively participate at exhibitions. The premium price will follow as the brand will progressively become established.

2) We should try and promote the farmers' traditional way of life in Romania in our country image strategy. There are only few countries left in the EU (only Bulgaria), where this customary way of living is still alive.

3) We should be nationalists like other countries are (France, Switzerland, Austria) and choose our national food products if they provide a similar quality. That's how each of us can support the farmers' way of life, which further has a direct positive impact on Romania as a touristic attraction. Furthermore, this also helps maintain our country's identity.

Financial crisis seriously affecting Europe

Looking back in the last six months at the evolution of the investment banking sector, and particularly the leader banks, we come up with the series: 5-4-2-0. Although I acknowledge that the transformation of Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan in banks under FED supervision is only a strategic move in order to be able to raise the finances they need easier than before, it's still a shock when I think "the pride of Wall Street is practically inexistent now". That is because to me Wall Street stands for "high-risk, high gain". However, the Wall Street Primadonas will have to limit their gains to moderate sums if they don't wanna risk being trapped in another "bankruptcy snowball".

And now, it's not only US that's in trouble...Europe comes along. It was actually high time for the crisis to reverse on our shores. Otherwise, it would have been atypical to everything that I have studied at the university. We look at the UK, known for its "no involvement policy", who nationalizes 2 banks in less than a year. We go more East, and find Hypo Real Estate Bank from Germany seeking governmental loan and Fortis, who's playing tennis with its ABN AMRO branches bought only last year.

From the Fortis and Wachovia's stories, I conclude that when you're in trouble, raising the needed finance is the sole purpose. What else can I understand from the fact that Fortis is thinking about selling ABN AMRO branches just one year after having acquired them? And now all I know about M&A seems to be contradicted by reality. Scared of bankruptcy, banks don't think about organizational issues, PMI costs, nor about their employee morale anymore. Quick money raise is their sole religion. However, the impact of all those M&A will show up on medium term, after the crisis is over, on the profitability of the involved banks. As a consequence, the current liquidity and solvency issues will be replaced by profitability issues.

But in the end, who is thinking about what saving money for the future if now you're starving?

Parkstrasse vs. Spitalului Str.

While I was biking today through the museum quarter in St. Gallen, suddenly a question popped up in my mind: how was that street that I was just biking on different from a secondary street in an 70.000 inhabitants Romanian town. And so I started to compare and contrast two similar streets in different towns.

I mainly looked at the following elements:

1) Houses - in St.Gallen - built in the first half of the 20th century, height: usually P+2 or P+3. We have that in Romania, too. So what is so special? The special atmosphere that they diffuse comes from the fact that they don't show off in your way, they rise there like discrete strangers who don't want to interfere in your way. Usually, they are partly masked by trees or bushes, which separates them from the rushing pedestrian or cyclist. There's no flashy pink, crazy green, or dark blue house to hypnotize you with their color.

2) Streets - it is designed to limit your speed to theoretically 30 km/h. Practically, no one drives with more than 15 km/h. Why? The street provides in both direction parking spaces for the residents. Blue and white lines indicate the teritorry meant for parking. As everyone there is conscious enough to respect the regulations and the others around him, everyone respects those drawings and no cars don't come up in your way because they are wrongly parked.

Furthermore, in order to reduce speed, traffic circles have been built every now and then and they are also a green area with trees and flowers. What is even more interesting about the secondary streets in the living areas of St Gallen is that the road and the pedestrian road is not clearly defined in some areas. There are some fragments of let's call them "third spaces" which both cars and pedestrians use. This is again not a breakthrough concept one could say. That's true, but the beauty is in how they (the Swiss which I don't usually praise) have succeeded to combine all these ubiquitous elements into a relaxing atmosphere.

3) People - not too numerous are walking on the street quietly. If you look at them, they politely return your look, but you don't feel at any moment that they are interfering in your life or that they judge your appearance. This is something which is quite different from Romania, where people tend to compare and judge each other by their clothing. I see this only as a transition phase for Romanian, too, which is mainly caused by their "materialism orientation". This "orientation" makes them judge people in a superficial way according to their: phones, cars and clothes. In Switzerland, it is the character that matters most and you don't usually pay attention to the material aspects.

To sum up, what I tried to do was to compare two streets in middle class residential areas in two countries. I compared and contrasted houses, streets and people. My overall impression is that what distinguishes streets here is that they allow each one: driver, cyclist or pedestrian to circulate without interfering in each other's way.

------
I'm still looking for some pictures make it visually more clear what I mean.

Who's your city?

Mega Regions in Europe

The latest book by Richard Florida "Who's your city?" from which the map was extracted, builds up on his previous research about the particularities that a city should have in order to attract the creative class. Although his theory brings nothing new to me, this book has something which I found to be interesting.

Florida proposes three questions that help one find out who his/her city is. The questions sound like this:

1) How do you like the place you’re living now? Is it somewhere you really want to be? Does it give you energy? When you walk out onto the street—or the country lane—in the morning, does it fill you with inspiration, or stress? Does it allow you to be the person you really want to be? Are you achieving your personal goals? Is it a place you would recommend to your relatives and friends?

2) Have you thought about moving? If so, what are the top three places on your radar screen? What do you like about them? Specifically, what do you think they offer you? How would your life be different in these places?

3) Have you ever sat down and compared where you’re living now to those places? Honestly, have you given this a fraction of the thought and energy you’ve given to your job and career prospects, or if you’re single, to your dating life?

When I looked at the first question, I realized that I've already answered to it for some time already. That is, in my case whenever somebody asks me why I liked Vienna, my answer went on like this: it's the place that makes me feel active, which makes me feel that the city belongs to me and I am invited to use all its amenities that it has to offer , it's the city where I feel free and respected, and where I can combine both a good quality of living while maintaining a connection with the CE Europe.

Furthermore, I realized that I tend to promote Vienna to anybody who asks me about this city, about whether she/he should choose it over other cities.

Thus, I am now more certain that Vienna is a place for me to be....but who knows, maybe I will discover other cities where I will feel at least as good as I enjoyed Vienna.

So, do you know who your city is?

And a link to a test called "place finder". You can try it for fun, although I don't believe in it. The three questions seem much more insightful than the questionnaire.
Place finder

Switzerland is getting ready for war

One of the informations that I've kept in my memory from the history classes is that Switzerland has always been a neutral country in times of war. That's one of the explanations for seeing wealthy people choose to invest their savings in the Swiss banks. Anyway, we're not going to talk about banks of finance today because we've already had too much of this topic in the last weeks. What we're going to discuss today is Switzerland's military politics.

Just as the title said, Switzerland is getting ready for war. "How come, when and with whom?" you might ask. Guess what, this is what I'm wondering, too. I've been living in Switzerland for a year now and one of the things which really stoke me when I got here is the emphasis they put on their military forces. Should you find yourself in the train station on Fridays evenings, you will be able to admire numerous young men dressed in military uniforms. What is more, for all the ones who pursue a military training, there a special places reserved at the university.

However, it's not only soldiers that you can see walking around all over Switzerland. If you choose to travel by car, you'll have a high chance to see some of their military transportation vehicles driving in rows.

But Swiss are still not happy enough with their military equipment, so they are deciding today in the Parliament the exact amount of money that they spend for buying new equipment.
What do they want to buy?
We're talking here about 220 transportation vehicles and the upgrading of 33 of their existing F/A18 combat planes. For all this, they've reserved 917 Mio. Francs from the budget.

All being said, it's no wonder that they make me think of war. But again, probably it's just me who finds this a bit odd, as Swiss people are already used to it and the ones who are not "lucky enough" to be accepted to llive in Switzerland, they don't really see what's happening.

Rural areas - attractive spots for the creative class?

Yesterday, I've watched on ARD (a German channel) a TV report on the village Avrig in Romania. Before going further into details, let me provide you with some background information on this place.

Avrig is a small town of 16000 inhabitants, located about 25 km away from Sibiu, on the road connecting Sibiu to Brasov and hosts two nationalities (Romanians and Germans).

I was impressed when I found out that a young 29 year old German was elected by a Romanian majority to be mayor of the town. Still, it doesn't seem unique enough to attract my attention. Furthermore, what I found to be really interesting about this mayor was that, after his university studies in Germany he chose to return to the home town. He was interviewed by ARD and with a accent-less, correct German he presented his plans for the town's development.

As soon as I've learned this, I immediately made a connection to the Richard Florida's creative class and I energetically started to look for empirical evidence showing the possibility to attract the creative class to rural areas.
One study from Cornell University, which I find very relevant in this regard is available under the following link:

Recasting Creative Class

Even though the study shows that such a possibility exists, it doesn't go into details on how to attract the creative class. Thus, I would like to enumerate some ideas that crossed my mind:

1) A good transport and communication connection to the two vicinity cities (Sibiu and Brasov) are vital as they allow the creative class to commute to the vicinity cities whenever necessary.
2) Leisure amenities are definitely another "must be" in the town. Under this category I refer not only to hiking or biking tracks, paragliding, or other outdoor sports, but also to the stores able to provide with the necessary equipment.
3) Organizations of like minded individuals - where the members of the creative class can socialize and of course, some places that allow for socialization. Such organizations have a further role, namely they can provide the mayor with input ideas for attracting more members of the creative class. That's how the county Walle Walle in the US received input for developing "attraction strategies for the creative class".
4) Security and tranquility - I built this idea on the results of the above mentioned study, which shows that the middle age creative class segment decides to move to rural areas, that is families with children. Thus, it is important to know that it is safe to leave the children play outside your private property and that one finds in Avrig a quite place, appropriate for relaxation.

This sounds all very nice, but now, let's be reasonable and take an objective look at where the town Avrig stands. It lacks transportation and water infrastructure, as well as the necessary leisure amenities. The positive side is that now Avrig has a mayor that is committed to build the necessary basic infrastructure and turn an unused mansion into a touristic accommodation.

Now, some of you might say that the lack of modern infrastructure can sometimes be an advantage and that it attracts a certain segment of tourists. That's true, but I believe that we can offer to these tourists secondary routes where they can experience how it is have only basic living conditions. In this case, Avrig would be a starting point for such trips.

I could go on and expands my ideas further, but I find that the information provided are enough for you to understand the topic.

How to escape an addiction?

Throughout our lives, everyone of us becomes addicted for some time to one thing or the other, be it drugs, cigarettes, TV series, chocolate, actions, or people. So had I until recently a long time addiction, which intensified in the last few days.
When asking my friends for solutions to get over it, I was given similar suggestions. All were rational responses to this addiction.

However, besides my rational restrain I needed an emotional one, which I couldn't exactly define what it could be. The good news is that now I know it. The bad news is that I had preferred to find it out without having to personally experience it. I realize that this all might be too abstract for you to understand, so I'll try to clarify it without getting into details.

It's well known that the best learning method is the "do it yourself" and experience the consequences of your actions. The same applies to addictions. Although I knew from others' experiences what the solution to my addiction is, I wasn't willing to accept to implement it long-term. So, I decided to learn from experience: I gave in my addiction and I "got burned" so to say. In other words, the outcome was so negative that it affected me both physically and mostly psychically.

Now, whenever I am on the brink of giving in this specific addiction I will remember the feeling I experienced when I embraced my addiction.
To conclude, it seems that experience is the best way of learning. Even though it may be true that "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger", let's adopt what others have learnt from their experience and not insist on experience everything ourselves as it can be much too painful.

Global champions

The Economist has published today a series of interesting reports about the emerging markets, BRIC countries or how you want to name them. This terminology mainly refers to the countries from South East Asia, as well as China, Brazil, India, Russia as they constitute the v. important markets for both companies from developed and developing countries.



From the topics discussed in this special report, three have drawn my attention:

1) Debate over whether the term "emerging markets" is still relevant
2) The new global champions from emerging markets
3) The opportunities and threats of emerging markets


Concerning the first topic, I've found out how the term "emerging markets" came about. It was Antoine van Agtmael, an equity fund manager, who in 1981 preferred to use this term instead of "third world countries" in order to make investing in such countries more appealing. Nowadays, the SE Asian countries have moved into the "developed countries" league. Furthermore, under "emerging markets" we understand countries which have a high economic growth. However, we somehow neglect the associated risks with this accelerated economic growth. For these reasons, it is argued that the term "emerging markets" isn't appropriate.

Let's get down to business and discuss about the new global champions. While until 15 years ago, the MNC (multinational companies) from developed countries were dominating the global economy, in the recent years MNC from emerging markets have begun to play an increasing role.

How come are they so competitive?
Among their core capabilities I could mention: know-how about the political, way of doing business in the emerging markets, and closeness to the targeted clients from emerging countries, law raw material and labour costs in comparison to their MNC counterparts from developed countries. I am now thinking of: the Indian Tata Group, Infosys and Ranbaxy, Chinese Lenovo and Haier, Brazilian Embraer or the Mexican Cemex.

Do incumbents see them as a threat and do they have reasons for this?
Certainly they are seen as a threat not only for the market shares in the emerging countries, but also for the developed markets. The MNC from emerging markets represent a threat, not so much in the present, but for the future. That is because even though now they are positioned in the lower part of the value chain and they serve mainly low-end customers, they use their acquired revenues to pursue R&D and move up in the value-chain. A relevant example is Ranbaxy, an Indian pharmaceutical company, which used to produce only generics and has now become an R&D driven company which comes up with new drugs.

Nevertheless, and now we're moving to the third topic, the more the emerging countries are developing, the higher the labour costs will be and the MNC from emerging countries will have to develop other competencies in order to be able to compete with the incumbents from developed countries. The MNC from developed countries still have an advance over the EM MNC in the managerial capacity, as most of the senior managers are still American and there are few professionals from emerging countries who have the necessary managerial capabilities to run a MNC.

Finally, even though there are hundred things left to be said, I would conclude by inviting you to follow closely this interesting development in the business world so that you know which companies could be an attractive place to work and which are on the brink of falling down.

Strategic positioning of ASE's specializations

While looking for academic literature for my master thesis, I came across an interesting article written by a Romanian PhD student at the University of Cincinnati. It basically uses a quantitative approach (self-administered questionnaires) and asked 340 students from the Academy of Economic Studies (ASE) about the selection criteria they use when deciding for a specialization.
He looks both at the "popularity"/irrational reasons, as well as the rational motivation and thirdly takes into account the external influence (of friends, parents) when choosing the specialization.

The specializations analysed are: Banking, Finance, Accounting, Applied Informatics, Trade, International Relations, Management, Marketing, Tourism, Environmental Economics, Economics and Statistics.

The results show three clusters:
1) Rational group - chose banking, finance, accounting or applied informatics. For this group the relevant selection criteria are: salary, high market demand. They also have the highest economic performance.
2) The second group consists of five specializations: marketing, management, international relations, trade and tourism and services. This cluster differentiates itself through its high scores on the emotional dimension, (i.e. high levels of perceived communication and creativity) having a perceived moderate orientation towards pragmatism and rationality (i.e. more talk less work).
3) The third group includes: statistics, environmental economics, and economics. This group is interested in getting a diploma no matter the specialization or the employment opportunities, nor the personal interests for a specific topic. They have the lowest academic performance.

The conclusion is that:
- banking and finance and marketing - management specializations are too close to each other positioned.

So what?
This leads to a loss of students in all four specializations. This study helps university managers to reposition to find out how the specializations are looked at. Furthermore, it also helps them find a strategic position that is free.
The below chart helps you better understand the situation.

I consider this study a good pilot project for other Romanian universities that are interested in attracting the best students and in positioning themselves differently than their competitors and thus raising higher revenues and improving their profitability.

What if...

Listen to this before starting to read to get into the appropriate mood for what's coming up:



Very often it happens to us to ask ourselves this question: "what if...": what if I chose to live in another place?, what if I hadn't done this or that, what if I had gone to that party, to that movie or to the theater with my friends, what if I had chosen another job...

Why are we often unhappy or unsatisfied with the decisions that we took in the past, even in the recent past? It seems to me that it lies in the human's nature to have such feelings of regret. We somehow prefer to live in the past than to concentrate ourselves on the present. However, it is the present and not the past that we can change. Thus, we should concentrate on what we do TODAY by taking into account our feelings of regret from similar past events. This is called "learning by experience".

But what if you come up with a new situation?

In new circumstances, we should always remind ourselves that our life can be lived only in the present. To express myself in business terms, past is "sunk cost", whereas future depends on our "foresight capabilities". On what we have the most control is the PRESENT.

As such, whenever we're feeling low, we should be grateful that:
- we live
- we're healthy
- we're young and energetic
and we should act in such a way so that:
- we are happy
- we are satisfied
when we grow old about how we lived our lives.

So, carpe diem!
and
listen to a song from where I sometimes draw my energy ...."viva la vida":

Latest advertisement for Microsoft

Do you see it as a response to Apple's advertisements?

Here the Microsoft advertisement:



and here you have one of Apple's advertisements against Microsoft.



So, maybe you're wondering: How come did Microsoft come up with such an advertisement? What are they targeting at? Is it effective?

If you ask me, it doesn't give me any clue about Microsoft's brand features as I suppose that that's what they are aiming at with this advertisement.

However, as I'm not a specialist in advertising, I cite you a specialist's opinion:

"Is Mr Gates’s shopping spree with Mr Seinfeld another misjudgment? Perhaps not. The ad appears to have set up the forthcoming campaign with an ingenious twist that its critics have missed. Its viewers, Crispin assumes, have been watching Apple’s ads, in which a nerdy, pale, chubby and hapless “PC”, played by the actor John Hodgman, talks to a hip, suave and unruffled “Mac”. Ironically, however, it is the PC who has become famous and won hearts, despite being the butt of all the jokes, whereas the Mac character is cool but smug, and would not get invited to anybody’s dinner.

Mr Gates, Crispin’s creative types must have realised, is the authentic embodiment of the PC character: geeky, awkward, dressed for a cubicle rather than a bar, unglamorous but unpretentious, able to get the job done, if not excitingly. And like the PC in Apple’s ads, the Bill Gates in Microsoft’s spot has an impish side that occasionally peeks out. One of the world’s richest men comes across as unassuming and approachable, the antithesis of Apple’s aspirational cool, which some find annoying and snooty. In a country that loves to poke fun at “elitists” (especially during elections), it would be wrong to write off Microsoft’s new campaign just yet." (extract from The Economist - Postmodern wriggle, 11th. September 2008).

Apparently, it doesn't target me, but only Americans. Maybe it's a matter of intercultural differences that I don't get the meaning of this advertisement.
In the end, I'm interested to know: did you feel anything, did anything cross your mind while watching the Microsoft commercial?

Let's go shopping

Let's engage in a game that we used to play a few years behind....
...imagine that you have inherited $1 bio. and you have to invest them today. What can we buy with it?



1) 7% of JPMorgan Chase at the today's stock price
2) 25% of Washington Mutual Inc (the second largest mortgage lender in the US)
3) 3% of Merril Lynch & Co
......

If we look at the percentages, that's really not bad at all. Financial institutions are incredible "cheap" these days if you have cash.
We are witnessing very turbulent times, especially on the stock market. Companies that we have for long considered models of capitalism have filled for bankruptcy. Others are still fighting to stay alive, although they are in a coma (AIG).
But most interesting to observe is the consolidation that takes place in the economy. In the financial sector to name just a few: Merrill Lynch & Co by Bank of America in the US, HBOS (Britain biggest mortgage lender) by Lloyds TSB (commercial bank) in Europe, Washington Mutual is for sale, Reserve Primary (value of net assets of under $1).

Why is this consolidation happening? I will stop to mention just three reasons for that:
1) Liquidity and insolvency issues - with an observation, though: this is valid only for the financial industry.
2) When interest rates are low, investing in equities is more interesting.
3) General diversification reasons - decreasing risk of your own business ("don't put you're eggs in one basket"); economic, operational, financial and managerial synergies.

All in all, we are living interesting times and it's worth keeping an eye on what will happen.

A new hit: AIG rescued by the Fed

On Tuesday Fed announced an $85 billion Federal Reserve loan to insurance giant AIG. The explanation: AIG was deemed too huge (its assets top $1 trillion), too global and too interconnected to fail. (Times, 16th. Sept. 2008)

Especially AIG Financial Services Division is concerned is deeply involved in the derivatives market related to housing and credit, having an astonishing $441 billion exposure only on the credit default swap market. The reason for the bailout seems to be that nobody has the faintest idea what the consequences of AIG's failure for financial markets would be, but the fear was that it could lead to total chaos. As a consequence, Fed paid a loan to AIG in order to counteract this so-called "systemic risk".

However, the terms of the loan are unclear and thus difficult to understand. According to the deal, "AIG agrees to repay the loan with asset sales and give the government (and thus taxpayers) a 79.9% equity stake in the company" ????

Furthermore, AIG would have apparently survived only one or two days more without Fed's help as they not only had lots of write-downs ($25 billion in the first half of the year), but the recent rating downgrade by Moody's and S&P forced AIG to owe an additional of $13 billion collateral to the buyers of the swaps.

So, what do you believe will happen to AIG? It might be broken up in businesses and sold in pieces. Those aware of the "conglomerate discount" notion know that this would be a valid option for a multi-business company, especially when confronted to liquidity problems.

In conclusion, what else can be said? The financial world is so unpredictable and interconnected that nobody (including the Fed) does not want to take the risk of testing the consequences of a "domino effect".

Big disruptions in the banking sector

Dear friends,

The newspapers woke us up today with unbelievable news I would say. Headlines such as: "Lehman Brothers, bankrupt", "Merrill Lynch sold", or "AIG facing liquidity crisis" are to be read in all papers.
We all ask ourselves:
1) How could that happen? How could 3 of the 5 investment bank stars on Wall Street end this way?
An academic answer can be found in the "Black Swan" book, which explains us about the difficulty of predicting big disruptions. What is even more questionable is the reliability of the ratings given by the famous rating agencies such as: Fitch and Standard & Poor's. If Fitch downgraded Lehman Brothers' rating only AFTER they filled for bankruptcy, how will we trust the ratings given to other companies?

2) Why didn't the Fed save Merrill Lynch like they did in the case of Bear Stearns?
Had they inject money to save it, it would have created another precedent on the market and worse, other players would have counted on Fed's help for the case of emergency. The so-called "moral hazard" would have been activated in the minds of the other market players.
However, the Fed did do something, namely, for the first time in 95 years they allow equities to be used as a collateral. This is another sign which highlights that the current situation is a big disruption.

3) What will happen to European banks?
After all that happened in the US, I expect European bank market to show more signs of weakness in the next weeks. It seems as if in Europe everything happens with a delay of several weeks.

4) Should we pursue a career in banking?
For the banking and finance graduates, as well as for the other talents who had to leave these "investment bank stars", this period of time is a very difficult one. The question is: where would you be safe? Definitely, no bank in the world can offer you workplace safety now. Still, if you're only looking for a secure job, you can always apply to the Kantonalbanks in Switzerland. You won't find there the same job activity excitement, but is a workplace if you're in trouble.

Dacia/ Renault

Dear readers,

Because of this untypical bad weather for this time of the year, instead of spending the Saturday outside in the nature as I usually like to do, I went to the Arena St. Gallen. This is nothing less than a shopping center, but not too big nor too elegant. However, I won't waste your time with reading how I spent my time there.



What?
What I want to talk about today is Dacia's acquisition by Renault and how things would have been for Dacia if it weren't for this event.

Why now?
On the main street of this shopping center there were exhibited three models of Dacia: the new Sandero, the already classic Logan, as well as the Logan Break.


So what?
This impressed me positively as I didn't expect to see a car "made in Romania" to be marketed in Switzerland any time soon.

Why so?
All this made me think of whether Dacia could have ever penetrated the Swiss car market if it weren't for Renault. As far as I understand the automobile market, this wouldn't have happened any time soon. Why? Because Renault is an already established player on the Swiss market, which has a lot of bargaining power when it comes to dealing with car dealers.
The scenario through which Dacia has succeeded to be present on this market could look like this: Renault requires from the Swiss car dealers to have at least one model of Dacia in their car exhibition besides the Renault models.
At the other end, it would have taken at least 10 years until Dacia by itself could convince the dealers of its market potential and attractivity to consumers.

Well done?
This strategy is a smart one I would say if we look at the macroeconomic trend, and namely at the recessionary period that we are now facing. If you read a basic microeconomic book, you will find that in such times consumers cut spendings on durable goods. What does this mean for the car industry? ....That consumers who really need to buy a car, will look for a cheaper one, which is still safe and offers the basic features of a car. Facts show that Dacia's sales have increased by 14% since previous year, whereas Renault's sales have increased by 2% in the same timeframe.

Laws with special dedication

Dear all,

While scanning the newspapers today, I discovered an article about how the EU suits Germany for the "VW Law". If you haven't heard of it, the German state released a law which states that 80% of VW shareholders must agree to an acquisition, otherwise it won't happen. And guess what? This makes it practically impossible for VW to ever be taken over as the German Land Lower Saxony controls 20,1% of the shares.

What do you say about this? Apparently it's not only in Romania that the legislators make laws "with special dedication". In fact, it happens in older EU countries, too. So, should we (Romanian citizens) feel relief because it can happen anywhere in the EU?...

Not really. Now that we're in the EU doesn't imply that we should "import" all the customs of the legislators from older EU member countries. What we should do is to keep the straight way and stay "in the light of sincerity". Is that realistic to ask? Not really. However, we can ask from our legislators to think of the benefit of the larger society when they release a law.

Here is the link to the article:
EU suits Germany for the VW Law

No more mountain view from Swiss downtowns

Dear friends,

Today I've read an article about urban planning in Switzerland. Basically they worry because the local authorities are including unreasonable pieces of land for building purposes at the expense of agriculture or natural habitats.
Here are some paragraphs that have raised my attention, which I believe that also the Romanian authorities should read and be aware of:

"«Die aktuelle Raumplanung ist nicht nachhaltig.» So steht es im Raumentwicklungsbericht 2005 des zuständigen Bundesamtes für Raumentwicklung (ARE)."

"Diese Zunahme der besiedelten Fläche ist mit dem Bevölkerungswachstum allein nicht zu erklären. Hinzu kommen die Zunahme der beanspruchten Fläche je Person und der Umstand, dass das Siedlungswachstum über weite Strecken ungeordnet verläuft. Städte, Dörfer und Weiler explodieren in die Landschaft hinaus. Dazwischen bleiben viele Flächen übrig, die weder für eine vernünftige bauliche noch eine landwirtschaftliche Nutzung oder als Erholungsgebiet taugen."

For the ones who understand German, I've pasted these two paragraphs so that you can understand their approach. They are worried because the urban planning is unsustainable. Why is this? Because residences are being built on former agricultural terrains, which are not directly connected to the city. This leads to a fragmentation of the land used for agricultural purposes making agriculture unprofitable and also steadily decreases the possibility of using the land in the vicinity for leisure purposes.

According to the Swiss law for urban planning, only those terrains are meant for buildings which support multi-layered buildings and which are directly connected to a town.
will obturate the view
You might have enjoyed the beautiful mountain tops which can be seen even from the town centers (e.g. see the bellow picture from downtown Bern).


Swiss are now worried that some pieces of land which have recently received building allowance will obturate such nice views.

"Die spätgotische Kirche von Kirchberg, Wahrzeichen am Jurasüdfuss, wurde im 8./9. Jahrhundert erbaut. Sie steht auf einem Felssporn hoch über dem Aaretal. Bei guter Sicht vermittelt der Ort einen herrlichen Blick über das Mittelland und auf die Alpenkette vom Säntis bis zu den Berner Hochalpen. Ohne gebührenden Umgebungsschutz wurde der Kirchhügel zur Bauzone erklärt, und nun wird auch er mit Wohnbauten jeder Stilsorte zugebaut."

You can find the entire article under this link:

Freie Landschaft und zugebaute Schweiz

All in all, we should learn from how Swiss are protecting their natural beauty if we still want to praise with the natural beauty of our country.

Bodensee Tour Day 2

Dear friends,

I've decided today to go on a second tour around Lake Constance in order to know the region better. So, I embarked on my bike and followed the "Orchard bike route" from St.Gallen to Arbon. Here are some pics from the way.


Arbon is a beautiful, small, medieval town that is worth visiting. Because 15km aren't so much, I continued my tour around the lake towards Kreuzlingen (the border town with Germany) and arrived in Romanshorn. I've spend some time there lying on a bench and reading on the lake shore.
Here are some more pictures:


What can I say? My impression since yesterday didn't change too much. Here, too, were few people and most of the ones crossing the town were bikers.

Enjoy the pictures and let's find another topic for the next post. Any suggestions?

L.

3 countries, 3 means of transportation

Dear all,

To take advantage of the few sunny days that one can enjoy here in St.Gallen, I've been on a bike tour around the Constance Lake yesterday. Three things I would like to take with me to Romania from that tour:

1. Importance of infrastructure - it's because I knew that wherever I end up with my bike I will still find a train or a ship to take me back to Switzerland, I dared to further on this trip that I did alone.
It's incredible how important the infrastructure is. Imagine that in 4 hours I was able to go from Switzerland to Austria and then end up in Germany. On the way you have enough signs to confirm you that you're on the right track and a lot of places to rest.

2. Bike routes - As I mentioned already, not only are the bike routes very well signaled, but on the way if there's anything interesting that one needs to pay attention to, you find informative posters as the one you see below:






The bike routes each have their own names besides having numbers, that is: one is called "Around the lake", another one "Orchard Route" and so on.
When biking, one idea crossed my mind: when were these routes designed and what was their impact on the touristic attraction of the towns which cross this route? Furthermore, did more people choose to live there since they had these additional amenities?

3. Difference between Germany and Switzerland at the Constance Lake - When I arrived to Lindau I couldn't help notice the high number of tourists and residence relaxing in the sun on the terraces with the lake view and in the old city.
Until now you might say, nothing to wonder about because Lindau is known as being a very beautiful city and a main touristic attraction in the area.
However, when you get on the Swiss side of the lake, everything is quite, calm; you meet few people walking on the lake shore and even fewer terraces with lake view.
Except for the bike trekkers who are in transit in Switzerland in their journey around the lake, there's nothing much happening.

So I wondered why is it so: is it because of the price difference that tourists prefer to go to Austria or to Germany at the Constance Lake? Or is it because of the leisure attractions and other facilities (tennis fields, swimming baths, mini events) that are offered by the German and Austrian towns on the lake? Or is it because Switzerland has so many lakes that the people are distributed to each of them and then you don't see so many people at one lake?

All these are assumptions and I'm looking forward to your opinion on this matter.

Have a great weekend wherever you are, my friends!

L.