A Shift In Myanmar Over Disaster Relief?

After allowing the UN's humanitarian chief John Holmes to take a brief tour of the stricken Irrawaddy Delta, Myanmar's ruling generals did something else unexpected.  CBS News Correspondent Allen Pizzey, "There appears to be a chink in the armor surrounding the ruling military junta in Myanmar.  They are allowing the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, to come this week - probably Wednesday.  He will present the case that more international aid has to come in, that the generals simply have to let outsiders in to assist with this."

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has been given permission to tour the Delta, but it's not at all clear whether he'll meet face to face with the top leader, says Allen Pizzey,
"Whether he'll meet with Senior General Than Shwe has yet to be determined.  But the fact that he's being allowed in is interesting - because until now, Than Shwe has refused to accept phone calls or letters from the UN, or anybody else for that matter, from outside Myanmar."

Nobody's gotten to see Than Shwe until the past day or two.

"Over the weekend, for the first time since the cyclone struck, Than Shwe came out of his jungle capital and was actually seen in public.  He toured a couple of refugee centers near the capital, Yangon.  But reports from the area said as soon as he and other generals were gone, the aid distribution stopped," says Pizzey.

The United Nations seems determined to move in with or without permission, says Pizzey.
"There is considerable movement at the UN to push for some kind of unilateral intervention - in the form of allowing the ships that are offshore - they include American, French and soon British ships - to actually deliver aid to the Irrawaddy Delta.  That's going to send shivers through the military junta, because they don't particularly want any outsiders in at all."

Bright Spots For Wobbly Economy May Take Time

The economy has had a bad case of subprime fever, no question about it.  But the economists surveyed by the National Association for Business Economics say the crisis is passing, and the prognosis is good. Lynn Reaser, economist with Bank of America says, "We think that the worst may be starting to come to an end before the second half of the year."

And before long, says Lynn Reaser, the symptoms should improve, and the patient should be sitting up and taking a little nourishment, "Some of the headwinds from the credit crunch and the housing decline should start to end as we move through 2008..." 

That is, of course, a forecast.  And as Nils Bohr famously said, forecasting is always difficult, especially when it's about the future. 

It would be nice if suddenly the economy could jump out of bed and run the hundred-yard dash.  But it doesn't work that way, says economist Lynn Reaser, "The economists in our survey believe that the economy will improve later this year as some of the headwinds dissipate - but the recovery's likely to be quite sluggish."
 
Economists always put a "But..." in there somewhere.  Yes, there'll be growth, but...

"We are talking about growth that will average only about two percent in the second half, well below our par - and the unemployment rate is expected to increase," says Reaser.

And despite the sitting up part, the taking nourishment part will be more expensive. "Consumers will also continue to see the effect of higher prices for food and energy in 2008," says Reaser. 

"First, we've had very large declines in interest rates.  Second, we should see some of the response from tax rebates.  Third, credit markets seem to be healing.  And fourth, we're still receiving good stimulus from the effect of rising exports."

A New Twist On Global Warming and Hurricanes

You may have heard about the research reports saying greenhouse gas global warming was the reason for the increased number of Atlantic hurricanes. Tom Knutson of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, thought that.  But he doesn't anymore.

"We do not support the idea that there is a strong, very strong greenhouse-gas driven increasing trend in hurricanes in the Atlantic," says Knutson.

In fact, says Knutson, the warmer temperatures may actually reduce the number of hurricanes. 

The older studies on which Tom Knutson and his colleagues based their conclusion that greenhouse gases were causing more tropical storms and hurricanes have been superseded by new computer simulations at NOAA's Fluid Dynamics Lab in Princeton New Jersey ... where Knutson works. 

He says these new simulations factored in an increased vertical wind shear.

"Our new research results are suggesting that this increased vertical wind shear is an important factor - and may actually cause a net decrease in the number of tropical storms and hurricanes," says Knutson

So he admits they were wrong about that.

"But the ones that do form then, the simulations go along with our earlier work to suggest that the storms that do occur are likely to be somewhat more intense."

The previous warning said the increase had already begun.  But now, Knutson says, "We don't find evidence that greenhouse warming is going to lead to a really strong positive increasing trend in the numbers of storms or hurricanes.  And also, we don't have evidence that it has already led to such an increase."

Remembering to Delegate

They say if you insist on doing everything yourself, your business will never grow beyond what you can personally handle.   You want to keep everything under control.  But if you pride yourself in being in a hands-on sort of manager, you at some point have to realize that there are only so many things you can manage with your own two hands.  

On Entrepreneur.Com, Beth Schneider, the president of Process Prodigy, has written:  "Delegation is about handing over authority ... and for many small business owners, that's a scary concept - because you don't know what will happen when you give up control."

The President of the United States is an executive - chief executive, in fact, of a vast bureaucracy - for which he, or maybe she, is responsible. 

"The Buck Stops Here" was the sign Harry Truman kept on his desk.  That's a reference not to the dollar, but to the so called "buck slip" attached to problems passed up the chain of command from one level to the next highest - when whoever's in charge doesn't want to make the decision, or decides it might be politically unwise to do so.  

Where the buck stops is where the most difficult decisions wind up.  John Kennedy used to say that the toughest decisions were also the most important ones and are most politically charged, because they affect so many people in areas people feel most strongly about. 

Jimmy Carter wanted to be a hands-on executive.  And although he was not only chief executive, chief magistrate, and commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, he found himself personally making up the schedules for use of the White House swimming pool and tennis courts. 

I'm not saying he didn't do that well.  I'm sure he did.   But whatever time he spent doing that would probably have been better spent doing something else, wouldn't you think? 

It's a mistake to confuse action with productivity.  Sometimes it is better to let George do it.  No, not that George...