Self managing envy

The opposite of envy is generosity, that is, finding joy and admiration in the success of other people and sorrow in their failure. 

If envy happens in our lives, first we have to recognize that it’s there and then, when we do, if it’s not used as a way to emulate ourselves and is felt as a hindrance to our well being, do something about it, and this is what we’ll explore today, short of seeing a therapist of course.

First, envy needs to be confronted and replaced with positive feelings like gratitude and admiration. The first step is to identify what creates envy. Often, it’s a person or friend that is similar to us; if we have a low self-esteem, it becomes easier to see others as threats or just happier than we are. 

Then we need to research who we truly are, what defines us. For example, if we value kindness and believe in reciprocity, we're less likely to feel insecure about competing with anyone over any of these elements. Of course, it’s important to acknowledge what’s not in our true self and could trigger envy of comparison, but is outside of what’s the real us. 

When we feel the need to measure ourselves against others, let’s focus on our own needs and try to get inspiration from others for the qualities we need to develop, but by all means we must never sell yourself short! Remember also that what we see in others is a surface-level detail and that they will rarely expose the negative sides of their lives. 

It's also essential to seek and keep the company of positive individuals and avoid the company of deeply competitive folks. In conclusion let’s always be grateful for what we have, fully appreciate what make us unique, always thank people who lift us up, seek their company and feel happy for all folks that surround us, staying away from self-deprecating talk, and always keeping in mind that we should always be in competition against ourselves and no one else.

Envying the non-envious

I wished Envy didn’t exist so I wouldn’t have to envy those who are not harboring that mostly negative feeling. But first, let’s be clear as to what we’re talking about; envy isn’t quite the same as its first cousin jealousy. 

Envy has to do with what individuals feel they miss in a vast variety of situations. Jealousy on the other hand, is relationship driven and deals with the fear of precisely losing a relationship, so today we’ll focus solely on envy. 

Typically, envy is an emotion that occurs when someone wants something another person has, whether it’s a material possession or perceived success, stature or just appearance. Infamous for being one of our seven deadly sins, envy is a complex emotional experience that can consist of many elements: longing, feelings of inferiority, ill-will toward an envied person, resentment, and guilt. 

When a person becomes envious, it’s often caused by some degree of self-dissatisfaction. For instance, when an individual believes that having what another person has would increase their own happiness. It could also include a wish that the other person did not have the envied object or quality. Envy develops when we compare ourselves to others and just feel inferior.

While this process is a natural one, it will invariably cause pain and uneasiness, and be an indicator of lower self-esteem or lacking the object of that envy. Modern social media is exploiting the feelings of envy on such platforms as Facebook and Instagram that often trigger envy from those who might not experienced the same degree of success or happiness as those portrayed on line, leading to depression and pain. 

To add to the complexity of that feeling, many folks are reluctant to admit their envy, because this emotion is often seen as socially unacceptable. But like all human emotions, envy is a natural and common experience. That said, if envy doesn’t seem to be a desirable feeling, it might in some instances offer some positive aspects. 

That’s true when envy is motivating, and drives someone to achieve and reach out for more. It can help in the pursuit of a degree or a career. Researchers also believe envy may have an evolutionary purpose, as it makes people want and ultimately strive to obtain the resources they need. If that trait really messes up with our lives, therapy or self-help might be necessary. We’ll try to see what options are available in an upcoming blog. 

In the meantime, do your best to positively channel that double-edged feeling!

“Such a good skier…”

Over the weekend I watched the ski races in Killington and in Lake Louise, and on many occasions, I thought something like “She’s such a great skier!” Top athletes have honed their skills to become so impressive these days. 

But what does that expression means? To me, there are a few fundamental ingredients that make a great skier: Fearlessness, physical strength, nimbleness, feel for the snow and hard work and not necessarily in that order. 

All this to say that if the first four attributes listed add up to the creation of a “great skier”, the latter element, hard work, is often capable to raise or equal them all and sometimes reach the top, acting as a formidable fuel and becoming that great equalizer all of us strive for. 

Then there's the “spark” called passion, and depending on its intensity it can magnify and transcend the ordinary and open up the door to the remarkable. 

Natural talents are also very dangerous as they often tend to get the athletes that are endowed by them, thinking that they are invulnerable and truly the best, which then in turn can be fodder for their downfall. 

If natural talents were not dealt to you and yet you want to become an exceptionally good skier, just rely on some extraordinary hard work and you’ll become “such a good skier” too!

Accepting the finality of death

On the eve of Cyber-Monday, time to realistically get down to earth for a few moments. 

When one has concluded, as I have, that religions and life after death, reincarnation or other flimsy theories and the like are just man-made, pure imaginary and magic, then it’s time to either keep believing in that improbable stuff or realize and accept that death is it. It’s as inevitable as it is final. 

It’s the end of the line after living in a pretty good mixture of hell and paradise, hopefully more of the later, of course. It then become of matter of acceptance and I’ve made significant progress in that domain.

I now accept that death is final and have become so open to acceptance that I also accept all checks, in any domination that you are willing to send me! 

Just kidding...

Carbon-credit as catholic indulgence

By now, many of us have heard and know that a carbon-credit is a certificate or a permit that give someone the right to emit a set amount of carbon dioxide or a different type of greenhouse gas. 

Obviously, their goal is to allow the laws of market to drive industrial and commercial processes towards low emissions, less carbon or bad gases spewed into the atmosphere. You pay to pollute. 

In theory, this approach can be used to finance carbon reduction plans between trading partners around the world. We certainly could ask the question, “Where does the money go?” 

While the carbon credit system, as virtual as it is, could work in large developed countries, it’s not enough to fight climate change in developing countries that are unlikely to adopt as they prioritize economic growth and reduced poverty over their consequences on emissions. 

It reminds me of other flimsy concept used by religion, like “born-again virginity” or the idea that after having having premarital sex, a person can be restored to virginity by a spiritual renewal, vowing to remain sexually pure until marriage and asking God for forgiveness. 

Another good example of similar good-conscience restoration scheme, is the Catholic concept of “Indulgence” as a way to reduce the amount of punishment one has to undergo for sins. 

It’s generally described as a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, that can under certain conditions can be granted under Christ and all of the saints. 

Simple, easy, magic and clean, just like good carbon credits!

The “tricky snow” ski lesson

No matter how you look at it, snow is never the same and so are skiing conditions! This early ski season provided me with never-seen-before conditions. 

The snow had fallen abundantly in altitude since the beginning of November with up to 1 meter accumulation, but the uppermost slopes weren’t open to skiers until three weeks later. 

That resulted in the few good turns in fluffy but already desiccated snow for a brief couple of hours after opening, but when I came to ski a little bit later, the snow became downright dangerous on steep slopes as skis wanted to dive deep into a broken crust, twist around and throw the skier.

In other words, the upper crust was barely supporting the skier’s weight and the rest of the layer was all powdery and lacking cohesion. The net result was that one had to ski extremely carefully, lightly as well as smoothly and still hope for the best! 

Two days later the upper crust had refrozen slightly and was now extremely fast and this was mostly felt on very steep sections where acceleration after clearing the fall-line was instantaneous. 

Another good reason to dial-down speed and aggressiveness, but all in all, a good lesson under these peculiar circumstances that might never serve me again!

Google before making assumptions!

After waiting five years, my wife finally received her first retirement check from the French administration. 

Sure enough, at first sight it wasn’t right and was made to my wife’s maiden name, which I thought would be impossible to cash at our bank. 

We tried to cash it to no avail with a smart-phone, so I was very unhappy about my former country’s bureaucrats and thought to myself “Here we go again!” grumbling about their lack of competence. 

As a result, an even though the issue was quite trivial in the great scheme of things, I went to bed with bad feelings which is never something desirable. 

Yet, first thing this morning, I Googled my problem and discovered a way around to it. Now, I just hope it will work and will make sure to remember that, when in doubt, I should always Google first!

More thoughts on COP27

The last climate junket in Egypt got hijacked and distracted by countries asking for reparations they may never received. Look at it as a Band-aid addressing the damage, but ignoring the cause. Instead, no strong measures have been taken to slow down CO2 emissions and global warming. 

Everything will get worse and eventually make the planet inhabitable by humans. The elephant in the room was Big Oil, Gas and Coal, the culprit, and the the countries looking for compensation went after governments instead; don’t ask my why. 

What should have been done was simple and capable to satisfying everyone: Levy a global carbon tax that would have hit the biggest fossil fuel users, namely the developed nations, including China and India, as we know them. 

Then, that carbon tax would have been redistributed based on needs and to specifically repair or prevent climate-relate projects by countries affected by global warming. 

This would have had an immediate effect to accelerate a pull away from fossil energies, probably cause a severe global recession as less demand for fossil fuels might paradoxically have raised their cost per unit as producers might lose needed revenues. 

This would get us progressively waned from fossil fuels at the expense of a harsh global recession. The end result is that we’d lessen global warming but the injured parties, the plaintiff’s nations, would get much less than what they had hoped for. 

No matter how we look at it, there will be an incredibly high price to pay to get us out of the jam Big Oil got us into when they were well aware of the damage they’d cause the planet. 

It’s always the same story: “Pay a lot now or even much more later”, and sitting on one’s hands usually, as the entire world is currently doing, means we’ll have to face the latter of the two options.

COP27, now what?

The COP27 is now over and aside from an agreement to establish a fund at the expense of taxpayers from developed countries, no sizable progress has been made to reduce global warming from what was agreed in Paris, but isn’t going to be met anyway and is likely to balloon to 3 degrees centigrade or more by 2040. 

So that meeting was about settling some dollars-and-cents accounting without addressing the elephant in the room that was global warming? A supreme waste of time, it seems. 

In my view, payments for loss and damage should be borne by Big Oil that new about the problem before the 1980s and hidden its consequences at the time, not by us, the taxpayers. Big industries, airlines, that relied on cheap fossil fuel to prosper should also be held accountable as they profited from that lie. 

That says, I can’t see any eagerness on the part of developed nation to put much into that fund, unless they levy a carbon tax and run their economies aground. The main objective they achieved was to participate in a high-profile, pleasant get-together after a comfortable flight, with fun activities for the spouses, great hotel accommodations and delicious meals.

Just like the proverbial frogs inside a boiling pot of water, we’ll feel the burn when we get there and when it will be too late, and in my view, much sooner than 2040!

Measuring carbon footprint

The 2022 United Nations COP27 conference has been flooding us with numbers. We’re now well aware of which countries are the largest polluters. 

The top-ten table shows it in case you wouldn’t remember, and on that list, it highlights countries that manufacture a lot of stuff (China, the US, South Korea, Japan or Germany) and a couple of nasty ones who are just good at polluting and messing up with the rest of the world (Russia and Iran). 

What counts most though is a per-capita CO2 emissions, in which a bunch of nations are emitting exceedingly big. Not so much the number one Palau, a tiny archipelago of Micronesian Island that must have fossil fuel leak somewhere, but Quatar, that’s now is sinisterly on the news everyday,

 We find these two top polluters at the helm again when it comes to ranking per-capita carbon footprint, so one could wonder what these two countries are up to along with their filthy-rich Arab brethren? 

What’s a bit more shocking is to see both Australia and Canada be such large CO2 among other advanced nations and ahead of the United States, that anyone would have suspected to be number one villain. 

Luxembourg flaunt its wealth behind the US, while Switzerland another super-rich European country finds ranks 77th behind Sweden and France, two notoriously frugal countries! 

This per-capita ranking mixes industries with household consumption, so we’ll need to find a way to show a ranking in that category, so ourselves can measure the room that we’ve left for improvement (obviously, I’m talking for the Australians and us, the North Americans). 

We’re still a very long way from number 203 and super frugal Burundi!

Who really invented the one-piece race ski suit ?

I’ve always believed that the first aerodynamic one-piece racing suit had been invented by the French sport garment manufacturer Fusalp. and was premiered during the 1966 Portillo World Championships that saw the clear domination of the French ski team.

According to some, an extensive physical training regiment was to be credited for the 16 out of 24 medals possible, but it’s certain that the never-seen-before sleek ski suits had an impact in terms in gaining a few critical fraction of seconds on the race course and, from the get go, somehow demoralized the other competitors. 

Today, with the passing of Hans Hess at 90, history is once more being revised. Allegedly, this Swiss gentleman came up with the idea of using his neighbor and diving pioneer Hannes Keller’s expertise, to develop an aerodynamic alpine racing suit while visiting the Lauberhorn races. 

The flapping trousers when jumping over the dog's head made "a noise as if an express train were passing by," recalls Hess. In 1969 both men founded Skin AG, with the goal of producing ski suits that fit like a second skin. 

Eventually, Hess was able to refine his product, and from 1971 Skin AG became supplier to the Swiss ski team. In the same year, Descente, the Japanese textile manufacturer, became aware of Hess' high-tech suits. Interest in working together developed following the Swiss victories at the 1972 Sapporo Olympics. 

From that point forward and to this day, Descente has been used by the Swiss. After hearing that nice story, I'm not convinced at all that Hess and Keller “invented” the sleek one-piece suit skiers use today. 

In fact, prior to Portillo, Léo Lacroix a finicky and technically-oriented racer was always looking for ways to improve athletes' performance, so he asked Fusalp's management to conduct  some wind-tunnel testing in order to study the behavior of existing ski clothing. 

He remembers: “That made us think, how can we get rid of all these flapping, jackets, pants or bibs, at high speed; there had to be a practical solution to that problem…” 

Something had to be done to drastically redesign these garments. Three month later, one-piece suits were readied just in time for the world championships in Chile and would become the tangible marker of a historic and overwhelming French victory. 

 It’s therefore impossible to ignore Léo Lacroix and Fusalp’s roles in originating, inventing and designing this new aerodynamic form of clothing that Skin AG eventually perfected. 

Who could disagree with that?

“You can be anything you want to be…”

Is this true that we can be anything we want? Partially, perhaps, but there’s no guarantee. 

Each human endeavors calls fro specific talents, skills and affinities that are not necessarily given to everyone, so there might be some material and intellectual limitations to the type of individual one would like to become in the course of their lifetime.

The affirmation might be true in many cases, but certainly not universally. Yet, it’s one of these popular myths that populate the American folk culture. 

You wanna be a fireman, an astronaut or an explorer? That’s probably feasible. Now is the Pope, Pablo Picasso or the Dalai-Lama on one’s crystal bowl? 

Any of these choices might get trickier, and along the same lines we could cover other careers or destinies that are so narrow that their probability might get much slimmer. 

Just like the fabled American Dream, becoming whatever we dream we want to be comes with a few caveats. Enough for me to just dreaming that I’m the real me and that’s already plenty!

First day on skis…

This past Wednesday was my first day on skis this winter. In the past I have calculated my number of lifetime ski seasons and “exaggerated” the count by one. 

This year is in fact be my 70th ski season and is an important milestone in my skiing life!

This said, there were very few skiers, the temperature was cold (around 30 degrees), but there was no wind, the snow was okay and I still remembered how to turn as dementia had not caught up with me yet! 

Only two lifts were running and during the two hours I skied, I managed to rack up more than 15,500 vertical feet, had a very good time, didn’t break anything and felt back in the groove again. 

Let’s hope that will set the tone for the rest of the season!

A complicated entry into the ski season

For the past 38 winters living in Park City, when I went skiing, I drove my car to the resort, found a parking sport relatively easily and was on my way. 

Today, things have changed for the worst. Vail Resorts that manages Park City Mountain decided to institute pay parking this season which is a royal nuisance and something that we needed like another hole inside the head. 

The cost is $25 if there is less than 4 passengers per vehicle and while a limited amount of parking passes were available for $950 I decided to pass. To mitigate the hassle for locals, the City decided to enhance a little bit its transit system by adding a micro transit that is on-demand from my home, then takes me to another bus stop that finally gets me to the ski resort. 

On average, this will take me some 30 to 40 minutes each way. There’s a phone app that works like Uber or Lyft and I am going to test it pretty soon. I’m not looking forward to that inconvenience, but this typifies the kind of First World problems we have to deal with and then I think about the daily life in Ukraine today, and my inner voice is told to immediately shut-up, and that’s the least I should do. 

There will be benefits, though. I will be able to leave home with my boots on and not have to get into them, and then try to get rid of them on the cold parking lot, plus I’ll leave the driving to someone else. 

So, we’ll try to explore that new situation, and in a few blogs from today, you’ll know how bad my predicament is in reality, and I hope that whatever the outcome really turn out to be, you won’t shed any tear for me. I wouldn’t deserve them anyway!

The electric car quandary

A few days ago, the New York Times ran a piece about the growing popularity of electric cars among consumers. 

As most countries are emerging from the pandemic and the supply chain problems that have made car-buying both difficult and very expensive, it’s undeniable that – at least in the US where I live – there’s a growing interest for electric cars which has been forcefully suppressed by Big Oil propaganda and disinformation about electric vehicles in general. 

In addition, their lack of availability and long wait-time, their high purchase price, many times without any government help, plus a generalized fear from the public, especially about range anxiety, recharging issues and simply speaking, a basic and widespread fear of change have hindered their popularity. 

Most importantly, perhaps, car manufacturers that began switching to that technology haven’t been able to deliver. In the US, for instance, Consumer Reports doesn’t like Tesla and give the cars terrible scores, yet, paradoxically, its owners almost fanatically love the car which defeat the magazine own ratings! 

As the early-adopter I’ve always been, I have owned one for more than 6 months now, and also love it madly. It’s the best automobile I’ve ever owned, but it also comes with significant differences and quirks that I’m learning to live with. Yes, change is always hard to swallow, especially when the user is almost 75 years old!

Eight billion, now what?

It was announced today that we’ve now passed the bar of 8 billion humans on earth. Next year, India is expected to surpass China as the most populous country. 

According to the UN, much of the population growth expected between now and 2050 will be coming from just eight countries – and half of them are in sub-Saharan Africa while the rest are in Asia. 

Andrea Wojnar, India’s representative for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), asserts that the story behind the world's eight billion population today is a story of triumph. She seems gung-ho about this big number and says that the majority of the world's population growth is concentrated in poorer countries with significantly lower emissions rates. 

They're not the ones creating the situation. That we knew, but they sure will eventually create their own emissions, drink the water and eat the food the planet won’t have. 

To make matters worse, since the West isn’t ready to pay willy-nilly for improving the education of these baby-mega-producing countries, guess where are 4 billion Africans will be forced to migrate to?

Ghosn and Musk, the new megalomaniacs

It’s a bit of a coincidence that I watched “The curious case of Carlos Ghosn” a documentary that aired on Netflix at about the same time Elon Musk was making big waves with Twitter. 

The media circus around these two, makes me lamenting why such smart individuals are losing their bearings to indulge into a form of megalomania that can and will hurt them if they don’t chose to backtrack from it. 

But can they really? Is that kind of devolution baked-in with the obsession of making even more money and become even more famous? 

Today, Ghosn has become a prisoner in what Trump would call a “shit-hole” country. Can he turn around his fate around by seizing political power in Lebanon, thus gaining a political immunity he’d badly want in the process, and turning the failed Mediterranean country into the “Switzerland of the Middle-East” it once was. 

As for Musk, he may lose his investment in Twitter altogether, if not a good portion of it, and if he’s not careful, Tesla and SpaceX could go south as well. Instead, he still has so much to offer and can make its enterprises even better and more amazing! 

Can someone talk some reason into these megalomaniacs and would they even listen? I hope it’s the case...

Car brand and lapse in memory…

At my age it’s not infrequent that I’m looking for name, sometime so familiar, that I should absolutely remember. One day, as we were discussing automobiles, I was explaining the breadth of the Volkswagen empire to my wife in spite of my limited knowledge of the car behemoth. 

I cited VW of course, Audi, Porsche, SEAT in Spain and the brand from Czecoslovakia which name I couldn’t remember (that brand isn’t sold in the US). I tried hard all afternoon to remember it - without cheating with Google - to no avail. 

The following day, that frustrated mental search messed up my entire morning meditation, then I feel asleep, and at some point briefly and miraculously remembered it again, just to lose it for good as I fell back to sleep and woke up later… 

Now totally mad at me, I queried my vocal assistant that responded “Skoda!” But adding Škoda Auto, made me discover that the VW group was more motr than these five automobile brands.

I didn’t remember or ignored that there were also Bentley, Lamborghini, Bugatti, Ducati motorbikes plus both Man and Scania (trucks and buses). Quite an impressive selection that I would have ignored if I had not forgotten “Škoda”.  

Thanks, failing memory of mine!

Looking where we’re going

When I ski, I always attempt to look as far as I can so I can pick and choose the path that I think is best, perfectly fits my skiing preferences and informs me of what’s coming my way in a full, complete package.

I try not to be just fenced in by my ski tips and a few extra meters beyond them. I want the full picture and a maximum view allows me to move around more safely and efficiently. This seems to also be applicable to driving under winter conditions. 

I recently read and article by Alexander George, from Popular Mechanics where he writes that to become a better winter driver, we just need to look where we want to go. He explains that our natural instinct is to focus where we DON’T WANT to go. 

 

He explains that we do it, “Because our very reasonable instinct is to instead focus on where we don’t want to go. When the most urgent threat to your bodily safety and insurance premium is the car ahead of you or a guardrail, you watch that thing. But when you’re at speed, you involuntarily direct yourself towards wherever you’re focused. It’s formally known as target fixation, a term you’ll see in literature for fighter pilots and motorcycle racers.” 

 

Instead, we should fix our eyes on the middle of the lane, at the spot you want to be several seconds later, even if that means ignoring the car in front of you. We should count on our peripheral vision to see any unexpected braking or road debris. Well whether you ski or drive this winters keep this powerful tip in mind!

An effective method for falling asleep?

Falling asleep on demand has been – so far – the biggest failure of my entire life. During my professional career I traveled a lot and crossed oceans and continents too many times for my carbon footprint to be ever forgiven by God. 

This said, I could never could never easily fall asleep when I was in an airplane, except when I was lucky to find four vacant seats on the center row of a wide body plane. Sure, I would have killed then to find a sure-fire method to fall asleep on demand, but my type-A personality got in the way. 

A few mornings ago, after finding myself awake at around 5:30 am, I mysteriously feel asleep only to dream 30 minutes later that I had just been fired from my old job with Look bindings, 40 years after I left the company! 

Of course, I woke up and was furious, as nowadays, any upsetting dream will never fail to put and end to my sleep. After thinking “There must be a sure-fire method for falling asleep” I began to search, and almost immediately, stumbled on this military sleep method and technique for falling asleep. 

It's inspired from the book “Relax and Win: Championship Performance” by Lloyd Bud Winter, published in 1981. Enthusiastic users have claimed that mastering this military trick has allowed them to sleep in two minutes and some have even said that they were able to fall asleep in 10 seconds! 

This 7-step method takes up to 6 weeks to master and turn it into a habit and according to what’s I’ve learned is effective for about 96% of people after that 6 weeks learning period. I will try it and report to you on the results!

Dear Democratic Party...

The DNC or Democratic National Committee, is not impressing me in spite of its lucky “save” at the last mid-term elections. In fact, that rather good outcome came from the voters in spite of the DNC’s poor messaging or lack of smart election strategy. 

While we’re not registered Republican or Democrat, my wife and I have been voting regularly Democrat ever since we became citizens. We did it because we could see through the hypocrisy, racism and religiosity of that party, ever since we landed in the United States. 

What has kept the Republicans in power was their deft marketing and consistent messaging over the years, while the Democrats never seemed to have their act totally together. In summary, the Democrats had the best product, but where incapable of selling it well. In this last mid-term election they got crucified by their opponents about the inflation, the cost of gasoline and an alleged high-rate of crime. 

The Democrats should have said answered that the inflation was the price the country had to pay for two years of Covid economic measures, the gas hikes were Putin’s fault and the alleged high criminality showed an understandable uptick during Covid, but was still significantly less than in the early 90s (see graph). 

After correcting the Republican’s propaganda, the DNC should have focused on two issues: The anti-abortion ruling by the Supreme Court, Trump’s attempted “coup” on January 6 and a healthy 3.5% unemployment rate under the current Administration and Congress. 

Sharp and effective marketing communication isn’t complicated when it’s created and approved by savvy people and that’s what the DNC needs to learn!

Elon Musk’s delusional tweets

To start the week with panache, on the eve of our national election, Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter, told his countrymen how to vote. In doing so, he forgot a few things:

First, as the owner of a public platform that serves as forum for the entire country and according to him, is a temple of free speech, he had no right to step into the debate in attempting to influence its members. 

Second, many of these same members are or might become his customers for some of the products he sells to everyone. If my car salesman had the audacity to tell me how to vote, I’d tell him rightfully so to go and f***k himself, which by the way, is what I posted on Twitter. 

By twitting too much with it new toy, the richest man in the world might make his competitors salivating when they see him wasting his precious time on childish pursuits and loosing both his grip and his focus on what has until now paid the bills for his automobile and space enterprises...

Falling birth-rate, AI, robots and economy

A lot of so-called economists are deploring the low birth-rate that has spread in developed countries and particularly, let’s admit it, into the white race. 

They claim that there won’t be enough hands to take care of the aging baby-boomers and to take care of the countries lowly and dirty work no one likes to do, but they fail to address the diminished need for people labor as we enter an unprecedented era for artificial intelligence and robotics that both will make humans less in demand.

It also ignores the fact that with widespread information about the life of famous people making fortunes, no one wants to works for peanuts anymore. 

So in order to keep going, society in these well-off countries will have to bite the bullet and offer some decent living wages to its lower strata of workers, or accept more non-white to work for low wages if it doesn’t want to shut down. 

What this means is that society will have to flatten its socioeconomic differences, rich and well-to-do will have to enjoy life a little bit less, quit extravagance, and offensive display of wealth, while raising the conditions of those who do the work no one else want to touch...

My election forecast

Today is mid-term election day in the United States. In my view this vote is every bit as important as the presidential consultation, because without a majority in Congress, the president is totally disabled. 

Later this evening, or more likely in the following days, we’ll know if the media predictions that say the “Fascist-MAGA-Trumpist-GOP” will take over Congress are true. 

Let me offer mine as a refreshing rebuttal. I believe the Democrats will keep both Chambers, not because their message was better or their strategy was more effective, but because our Supreme Court banned abortion, that one out of two voters is a woman well aware of what that decision means, and that the few intelligent people that voted for Trump are realizing the man’s toxicity. 

In fact, like in many other countries on earth, Americans have not voted for the people they liked, but against the ones they hate. 

Now, I just hope that my pragmatic and optimistic forecast prevails!

Is Park City the largest ski resort in the world?

Interesting question, but first, let’s agree what is meant by “big”? Is it the total land area, the number of permanent residents, the number of visitor beds or the number of skier’s visit or skier-days? 

When we talking about ski towns or ski resorts, I would opt for the latter, namely the skier-days count. Recently it was confirmed that Park City hosted 2.5 million skier visits during the 2021-2022 ski season. 

This was 250,000 less than I had speculated back in June of this year, but still quite impressive. This in fact is up to par with La Plagne that, until now, was considered the most widely visited ski resort in the world and that stands today just shy of Park City’s current number. 

Additionally, it must be said that La Plagne is spread over four small towns (Aime-La Plagne, La Plagne-Tarentaise, Champagny-en-Vanoise and Bozel) whereas Park City is one larger ski town. In North America, Whistler, Vail and Breckenridge are the next ski towns after Park City receiving between 1.5 and 2 million visits per season. 

On the top 30 rankings showed, many resorts are interconnected, which means that, unlike Park City that is what can be called one self-standing community, they’re groupings of individual ski towns and this way of categorizing them is “fudging” the order, so we’re not always comparing apple to oranges. 

Likewise, Park City is host to 3 different ski areas: Park City Mountain, Deer Valley Resort and Woodward snowpark that, unlike its European counterparts, are self-standing and aren't connected.

The end of (good) customer service

In the United States, following four years of Trump madness, more than two years of pandemic and the anguish from the invasion of Ukraine, many of us are very tense, stressed and in many instance crazy at varying degrees of intensity. 

Suffice to watch, read or listen to the news, to witness insane folks in action on a daily basis. The same epidemic is also making its mark into organizations and particularly into government administrations or retail establishments, that are all supposed to cater to people like you and me and do it to the satisfaction of the people they serve. 

It seems that after two years of working in their pajamas, most people don’t want to go back to “business as usual” and are quite resentful if they are forced to in one manner or another. Right there, there’s a lot of palpable resentment that is hard to ignore! 

Also many have quit their jobs and have not been replaced which bring more burden on the few that are left working. In other instances, when wages have not been raised significantly, new hires are simply unqualified, have not been correctly trained to their new job or are sorely lacking the experience demanded by their function. 

I could go on and on, but suffice to say that I’m experiencing that drop in quality of customer service or attention on a daily basis. Is that a situation you’re experiencing where you live?

Changing the way we change time

My European friends did it last weekend, and this Saturday, we’ll replicate the same routine by moving our clocks back one hour, so we lose some of the precious sleep we’re entitled to, in order to satisfy an outmoded and unwarranted bureaucratic rule.

Well, there’s a small glimmer of hope though, last March, the US Senate passed legislation that would make daylight saving time permanent starting in 2023, ending the annoying twice-annual routine to allegedly promote longer afternoons and increase business. 

Now, it’s the turn of our House of Representatives to act, but it still seems divided on a bunch of issues, included whether it would be better to eliminate the change of clocks and decide between the regular time or go with daylight saving permanently. 

Once more, by the time the House get its act together, President Biden might be dead while in office or Elon Musk might veto the act altogether!

Breakfast of champions?

To make the week more interesting, to eat healthier foods and to vary our diet, we’ve been using a “rolling” breakfast menu for at least the past decade. It all started when my physician tried to spook me about my unacceptable bad cholesterol level. 

We decided to only eat oats for breakfast, but we soon feared that we’d turn into wild horses and began reducing the oat meal ordeal to twice a week intermingled with granola some days, bagels, baguette and of course, some croissants. 

As a matter of fact, we decided that eating croissants would be the centerpiece of our weekend fare, so we’d remember what Saturday and Sunday are, a notion difficult for retirees to clearly keep in mind. That’s how our weekends have become “croissant days” ever since.

This said, we’ve been tweaking our breakfast system along the way depending on the daily emergencies or circumstances, and more recently, as we were unable to find oatmeal cereals at the store, we decide to purely and simply “banish them” and substitute them for much tastier granola. 

So that’s about it; now, you know the rules of our breakfast routine!

Will Vail Resorts’ impress the folks from Andermatt?

The Swiss are full of common sense and when the Egyptian billionaire Samih Sawiris wanted to sell his company, Andermatt-Sedrun Sport AG (ASA), no Swiss was interested in it because climate change was not going to any better in the near future.

So he turned to Vail Resorts (VR) which buys just about anything and sold them 55% of ASA, a resort which is said to have some potential in central Switzerland and which is only 90 minutes from Zurich, Lucerne or Lugano. 

That elongated ski area spans from Andermatt to Sedrun, all the way to Disentis, and looks like a chopped off network of 19 ski lifts of varying ages and skiers capacity. VR will now run the lifts, most restaurants and the ski school.

After the purchases of Whistler in Canada and Perisher in Australia, this acquisition is VR’s first foray into Europe. ASA will retains 40% of the ownership stake while 5% will stay with a group of existing shareholders. 

VR’s paid about $150 millions for it, with 110 allocated for capital investments on the mountain and 40 paid to ASA to be reinvested into real estate projects around the base area. 

Mike Goar, former COO of Park City Mountain will be VP-COO of ASA. Let’s hope he doesn’t transfer the totally of his mismanagement skills to Switzerland after having crucified Park City on the altar of mediocrity last winter! 

It will be interesting to see how the incompetent VR management pulls that new acquisition off and what intensity of pain and suffering await the Andermatters.

Putin’s “assisted suicide”?

Since today is “All Souls Days” for observing Catholics, it’s still time for some discussing another serious, if not dark, subject. The Ukrainian stalemate is showing that we’re headed for a long and indefinite fight between the entire country of Ukraine and one single strong man, Putin (not the entire Russian Federation). 

Therein lies the problem and also a most expeditious solution. In invading Ukraine, Vladimir Putin not only set in motion a war of total destruction without any good and defensible reasons. He rightfully angered an entire nation that is not likely to get him off the hook for anything he did, including the take-over of the eastern part of the country and Crimea. 

Putin will never be ready to accept defeat or surrender these territories and will try everything in his power to save face and everything possibly means doing the unthinkable by using Russia’s nuclear arsenal. 

So faced with that, what is the West and the Ukrainians to do? The answer is frighteningly simple: Eliminate Putin. 

This might sound drastic, but the more the world waits, the more Russian soldiers will die, still more Ukrainian soldiers and civilians will suffer the same fate, not to mention all those who will die of starvation because of Russian frozen grain export. 

These thousands of potential casualties stand in the balance against one stubborn man. What should the West and Ukrainian fearing: Some Russian hard-liners standing ready to take Putin’s place? 

I really don’t think so. Putin is creating his own destruction and as he remains the main obstacle to peace, this might justify the gamble...

Halloween deflation

It’s been since 2019, and courtesy of Covid-19, that we had any Halloween candy distribution at our home. Last year we had a supply of candies placed by the front door with a message for Trick-and-Treaters to help themselves, but only a handful did, we assumed. 

This year we hoped that the number of visitors would rebound to its former glory and at least reflect our high rate inflation for the two years, namely 14%, but instead we had a 37% decrease! So what’s too blame for so few visitors? 

Probably because of poor marketing (presentation, attractiveness of the home and lack of presence on “Tick-Tock”. 

But most certainly, because kids and parents have made a habit of trick-and-treating on Main Street, Park City, during late afternoon, where their costumes can be seen by their friends in their full splendor, and also because habits and practices keep on changing. 

Well, at this rate, we’ll have enough candies till the end of the decade!