An additional bonus is that we now know that Andy, who is best known to many as the founder of American Citizens Abroad, was born on a truly special day, for on 6 January, over the centuries, the following have happened (credit goes to onthisday.com): the South Sea bubble was discussed, George Washington was married, Samuel Morse demonstrated the telegraph for the first time, the first commercial airplane flight took place, South Vietnam and the US launched a major offensive, known as Operation “Deckhouse V”, in the Mekong River delta, Britain recognized the Communist government of China – and the comic strip Peanuts debuted.

By Andy Sundberg, born 6 January 1941 in Hoboken, New Jersey

69 and All’s Well

An intergallactic report card

Birthdays are those special occasions when we can generously and gratuitously grant ourselves a brief indulgence to step back for a moment to reflect on the meaning of all this, and to contemplate what, if anything, we might have accomplished so far.

Obviously, we are free to choose any parameters we want and make any kind of calculations we think might enhance the significance of any bold claims we might be tempted to make.

After quickly having to admit the embarrassing lack of anything of any great moment to boast about, my search for bragging rights wandered off in the direction of how many different kinds of frequent flyer credits I might have accumulated to date, as the bits and pieces of “me”, in carne this time, were carried along, gratis, as a passenger within our inter-galactic space-time continuum.

So, for what it is worth, here are my accomplishments as of 3pm (Hackensack, NJ time) on the 6th of January, 2010.

On My Watch: Data from my birth certificate suggests that I have now been breathing continually for a full 69 years, which translates to roughly 604,830 hours (throwing in the leap year bonuses), which also comes to about 36.3 million minutes, or 2.17 billion seconds. Now that’s quite a few heartbeats!

Spinning Around the Earth: At the latitude where I have spent most of my life, a spot on the surface of the Earth moves tangentially at a rate of 1,073 kilometers per hour as the Earth spins. So this means that I have now spun through 649 million kilometers around the Earth’s axis since I was born.

Orbiting Around the Sun: As a “year” is the word we have assigned to define one complete circular tour our Earth makes around the Sun, I have now completed 69 of these full solar orbits as a free passenger on Spaceship Earth.

Accumulating Solar Orbit Frequent Flyer Credits: As Spaceship Earth circles around the Sun at a speed of 107,100 kilometers per hour, I have now clocked up 64.78 billion kilometres in solar orbit.

But that’s not all:

Cruising Toward Hercules: Our solar system, carrying Spaceship Earth along as a free passenger, moves within our Constellation, which we call “The Milky Way”, in the direction of the stars and planets comprising the Constellation Hercules at a rate of 72,360 km/hr. So I have now traveled 43.76 billion kilometers from whatever we want to call the starting point in space where I was born onward in this Herculean pilgrimage.

But wait, there’s still more:

Mega-Cruising Toward Leo: Our entire Milky Way Constellation moves through space toward the Constellation Leo at a rate of 2.16 million kilometers per hour. So I have now travelled 1.30 trillion kilometers from wherever we were when I was born in an intergalactic safari pursuing this elusive lion.

After all of this space travel, I still feel remarkably refreshed, thanks to whomever it was who decided to let me travel first class this time around. My only frustration is that I still haven’t figured out how to cash in all of these myriad frequent flyer credits, and the library of new travel brochures is awesomely intimidating.

A Few More Facts about Our Little Space Ship

Planet Earth is the third in distance from the Sun and the fifth largest in diameter. The mean distance of the Earth from the Sun is 149,503,000 km (92,897,000 mi). It is the only planet so far known to support life, although some of the other planets have atmospheres and probably contain water.

The Earth is not a perfect sphere but is slightly oblate, or flattened at the poles. The diameter of the Earth, as measured around the North and South Poles, is about 42 km (26 mi) less than the diameter of the Earth measured around the equator.

The Earth in Motion

The Earth and its satellite, the Moon, move together in an elliptical orbit about the Sun. The eccentricity of the orbit is slight, so that the orbit is virtually a circle. The approximate length of the Earth’s orbit is 938,900,000 km (583,400,000 mi), and the Earth travels along it at a velocity of about 107,100 km/h (about 66,000 mph).

In common with the entire solar system, the Earth is moving through space at the rate of approximately 20.1 km/sec or 72,360 km/h (approximately 12.5 mi/sec or 45,000 mph) toward the Constellation of Hercules.

The Milky Way galaxy as a whole, however, is moving toward the Constellation Leo at about 600 km/sec or 2,160,000 km/sec (about 375 mi/sec or 1,350,000 mph).

The Earth rotates on its axis once every 23 hr 56 min 4.1 sec (based on the solar year). A point on the equator therefore rotates at a rate of a little more than 1600 km/h (about 1000 mph), and a point on the Earth at the latitude of Portland, Oregon (45° north), rotates at about 1,073 km/h (about 667 mph).

The Earth’s Vital Statistics

Equatorial circumference – 40, 076.5 km (24, 902.4 miles)
Polar circumference – 40,008.6 km (24,860.2 miles)
Equatorial diameter – 12,756.34 km (7,926.42 miles)
Polar diameter – 12,713.54 km (7,899.83 miles)
Total surface area – 510,100,000 sq. km (196,950,000 sq. miles)
Volume – 1,083,230,000,000 cubic km (259,880,00,00 cubic miles)
Average density – 5.52 (water = 1)
Mass – 5.98×10^21 metric tons
Average temperature – 14C (57F)
Highest temperature – 58C (136F)

So Now You Know!!

And Now You Can Calculate Your Own Travel Results Too

If you want to calculate your own travel results so far, you can use the Birthday Calculator. Don’t touch anything except the number in the blue box at the top. Put in the number of years you have accomplished so far and the rest will calculate automatically.

Anyway, all the best and I hope you will enjoy the rest of this very welcome New Year 2010.

UBS has announced that it will close a huge, billion-dollar real estate fund, causing consternation and distress among its many investors, many of them smaller, private investors, according to the usually well-informed Swiss Sunday newspaper, Sonntagszeitung 13 December. That a real estate fund is in trouble should not come as a surprise. Investors who lose money on their punts know what they are getting into, even if it is, or was, a UBS fund.

Mortgage as bonus

In other news that is sure to cause more consternation and distress, employees of the bank’s US wealth management division will be entitled to interest-free  loans worth up to 65 percent of the income they bring in to the bank. This very generous step was forced onto the bank in an effort to keep its 7,200 wealth management employees in the USA from deserting. If the employee stays with the bank long enough, he or she won’t have to pay back the loan. That is in addition to the regular bonus program. Of course, UBS didn’t get any government bailout money in the US, and the Swiss government, which did bail out UBS in Switzerland, can’t really say anything about bonus policy in a part of the bank not under its regulatory supervision. Smart.

Ospel won’t go on trial

And there is good news for the bank’s former CEO, Marcel Ospel, who won’t have to go through the tedious experience of a trial for alleged tax fraud, falsification of documents, and the wilfully unsound management of his business. The Zurich public prosecutor’s office has decided not to press charges against him, having learned from the Swissair case how difficult it is to prove such things. Ospel was of course also intimately involved in the demise of Swissair, and the Zurich public prosecutor well knows how the Swiss business elite closes ranks against outsiders.

On the plus side, at least the bank’s shareholders, or the country’s citizens, will not have to pay for his legal costs.

But the bank’s most egregious misdemeanour in the past few years has been its ongoing assault on the English language with its long-running “You and Us” campaign. Every child knows that You and Us = Us. And we all know that people use Us as the object of a sentence. You and We, which I would let by if I were correcting an English test, is simply We. You and Us. We. Not much of an advertising campaign.

You be Us. I think not.

A young bluefin tuna jumping in the Mediterranean, courtesy and © WWF / photo by F. Bassemayousse

By Peter  Gaechter

The Pew Environment Group in Washington DC added its voice Thursday, 5 November to calls for a ban on fishing of bluefin tuna, stocks of which have been depleted by 85 percent since industrial fishing began in the 1960s, and which are now near collapse. Pew follows the lead of two environmental groups, which joined forces 28 October to urge a ban on bluefin fishing and trade.

WWF International, based in Gland, near Geneva, joined Greenpeace to call for a ban on the fishing of the Eastern bluefin tuna, because years of overfishing and misguided policies by fishing nations, especially in Europe, have brought the stocks close to collapse. The two advocacy groups support the scientific findings of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), whose scientists have said that continued fishing will effectively wipe out existing stocks. The scientists  recommend that the bluefin tuna be put on the CITES Appendix 1 list.

The Principality of Monaco submitted a proposal 14 October that the bluefish tuna be added to Appendix 1 of the CITES list of species threatened with extinction and banned from international trade. The European Union endorsed the recommendation and its fisheries commissioner, Joe Borg, has called on ICCAT to act. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora next meets in Doha 13-25 March 2010.

ICCAT meets in Recife 9-15 November

ICCAT, headquartered in Spain, meets in Recife, Brazil 9-15 November to consider its scientists’ findings. If the past is any guide, the outlook for the bluefin tuna is bleak. ICCAT has consistently ignored the warnings of its own scientists by setting quotas above what they have recommended. In 2007, the catch was estimated to have been 61,000 tonnes, twice the legal quota thanks to illegal fishing, reports the Economist.

In part the problem lies with the lack of any serious enforcement mechanisms to control unchecked fishing. The fish are caught by huge fish factories, sometimes with spotter planes, although these are officially banned, reports the Telegraph.

Another fault in the system to save the fish is that at ICCAT, member states are represented by fisheries ministers, who mostly represent their countries fishing industry. In addition, many European countries actively subsidize fishing fleets, beyond what is economically rational, which gives the fishermen the incentive to fish far and wide. Fishermen, like farmers, have powerful lobbies and plenty of clout. No country likes to have its harbours blockaded by its own angry fishermen.

ICCAT meant to defend stocks of bluefin tuna

In 1969, ICCAT was formed “to co-operate in maintaining the populations of these fishes at levels which will permit the maximum sustainable catch for food and other purposes…”. Increased industrial fishing in the 1960s lead to the collapse of bluefin tuna populations off the coasts of Brazil and in the North Sea. ICCAT claims to rely on the recommendations of its scientific advisors to set quotas for its member countries in order to maintain sustainable fishing of the bluefin tuna.

Tuna fish farms in the Mediterranean

In the 1990s European countries hit on an idea that allows them to get around their fishing quotas. Starting in Spain, in 1996 “tuna farms” started springing up. Fishermen catch the fish, and rather than landing them and processing them, they tow them to the farms where the fish are fattened, before they are killed and sold, according to WWF.

The problem with the tuna farms is two-fold. They are not really farms because they are not sustainable. The fish are caught  using purse seins, the only type of net that allows fish to be taken alive. But they are caught before they are sexually mature, so a fish taken is a fish gone. And the European Union actually subsidizes this behaviour in the mistaken belief that it is “aquaculture”.

There are now over 40 of these farms around the Mediterranean, from Spain and Libya through Italy, Croatia, Malta and Turkey. In 1995, an estimated 90 percent of the legal catch in the Atlantic went to supply the farms.

If tuna weren’t so tasty…

But the underlying problem of bluefin tuna is the value that we fish-eaters put on them. Earlier this year, more than $170,000 was paid for a single bluefin tuna in Japan, the world’s most ardent consumer of the fish for its sushi and sashimi bars.

The bluefin tuna is one of the fastest fish alive. When hunting prey, it can reach 70km/hour. It is warm-blooded, in that it maintains its body’s internal temperature stable, and it can, if we would let it, weigh 250kg and reach 4 metres in length. And it is obviously delicious to eat.

The fish found in cans at the supermarket are not bluefin tuna, but a related species, called the skipjack tuna. It is commercially less valuable because there are (still) substantial numbers in the sea.

Crowds formed long lines outside the UN building in Geneva to hear Gorbachev

The world missed a great opportunity to dismantle nuclear arsenals and rid the world of this danger when the Soviet Union collapsed, Mikhail Gorbachev, former president of the Soviet Union, told a Geneva audience Monday 5 October.  “We let slip a major opportunity. Too many thought it was a victory of the West in the Cold War. This was a distortion of things”, he said.

Some in the US misinterpreted the events surrounding the disintegration of the USSR as a victory for the West and especially for its one remaining superpower, he said, rather than as an opportunity to think boldly about doing away with the Cold War mentality and institutions such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato). “We looked beyond the horizon” in Reykjavik , he said, referring to his 1986 meetings with then US President Ronald Reagan that resulted in serious cuts in both countries’ nuclear weaponry.

Resetting the nuclear disarmament agenda

Both Ban Ki-moon, secretary-general of the United Nations, and Gorbachev made strong cases for giving new impetus to the task of removing nuclear weapons from the world, addressing an audience of diplomats, UN employees and the general public at the third of a series of lectures on nuclear disarmament at the UN’s European headquarters in Geneva.

Ban called on the world’s nations to find the political will essential to create a nuclear-free world, and cited last September’s UN Security Council meeting of heads of state which called for just such a ban, “a world without nuclear weapons”. Ban was optimistic, and pointed out that there is unprecedented agreement by the nuclear powers on issues such as Iran and North Korea, and that the US had promised to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, CTBT.

Gorbachev’s pessimism

The keynote speaker at the event, Gorbachev cited a number of reasons why things were not going so well: despite the efforts of the last years, there is a real risk of a renewed arms race (in the Middle East and in East Asia) and of the weaponization of space. He said that the weakening of the verification process over the past few years contributes to the increased risks. Short and intermediate nuclear-armed missiles increase the dangers of an accident, or that these may fall into terrorist hands. He said it was an illusion to believe that deterrence was anything but an invitation to disaster.

The clarity of Gorbachev’s main message was unfortunately a little obscured by its delivery. He may have star drawing power in the West, but he is irrelevant in his own country now. Yet a quarter of a century ago he was very important in making the world safer when he and Ronald Reagan sat down together to reduce each country’s nuclear arsenals.

Gorbachev quoted Reagan: “Trust, but verify” as the basis for their understanding, which reduced tensions between the two countries and in the world at large.

E-asy to vote

Voting has never been easier. I always thought it was cool to wake up on the Sunday morning of voting day, and go on down to the voting place, which in my case was the local gymnasium. When I moved across the border to France, things changed. As one of the many Swiss abroad, I could only vote by mail.

Now there’s another option.  For the first time, the Swiss abroad who are registered to vote in Geneva may vote by internet. There is really nothing to it. Once you go to the secure server, you’re asked to key in the 16 digit voting card number (the voting card is the one you usually put your date of birth on and sign), then you vote, you confirm, and it’s done. It really is that simple. This is a demonstration of how it works, in English.

In addition to all the Swiss abroad, residents of 11 communes (Anières, Bernex, Chêne-Bourg, Collonge-Bellerive, Cologny, Grand-Saconnex, Onex, Perly-Certoux, Plan les Ouates, Thônex and Vandoeuvres) can vote electronically. The vote is limited to 20 percent of the electorate because there are two federal issues on the ballot, which need to be approved by both a majority of the popular vote and by a majority of the cantons.

The federal council limits the vote to 20 percent of the canton’s electorate by means of the 1978 law on political rights, as amended for electronic voting.

La chute des Templiers by Jo Meynent

Jo Meynent opened his second one-man show in as many years at the Palais d’Athenée Tuesday 1 September. Last year’s expo was more of a retrospective. Its success, however, paved the way for today’s show, in which Meynent presents many new works, most quite large. The dominant theme – in a show that is eclectic in style and especially in mood – is colour. Meynent is a master of colour, and this show demonstrates the breadth of his use of colour.

His new triptych, Visions d’un griot, are three related canvases with strong outlines of strangely nebulous animals, expressed in strong  primary colours. A winter scene, Le Grand Nord, is something that evokes either peace or utter desolation, painted with bleak greys, whites, and darks, a winter landscape of the soul.

His range is perhaps best appreciated in the smaller, secondary room that holds 17 smaller pieces. It is almost like a second exposition.

The works on display are few, a total of only about 35 works, and the multiplicity of styles can be disconcerting to some. In part this is because Meynent’s oeuvre covers almost 30 years and he has an enormous stock of paintings, only some of which are on show. This outward diversity is brought together by a theme that runs through all of his work: a singularity of spirit, a mix of fantasy and mysticism.

Totem by Jo Meynent

L'homme qui doute by Jo Meynent

An inveterate collecter of civilization’s detritus, Meynent has sprinkled his show with objets that he has fashioned into pieces worthy of being called art. His totem guards a corner, and a crippled galvanized iron grill says heaps about things that served a purpose but no longer do. My favourite is the “eyes in the bell”. For a totally zen moment, though, look at the two smooth, round stones from a  mountain stream with a horseshoe nail in each.

Recently, I went to buy a mobile phone, and came out of the store with a computer, printer and MP-3 player.  Now, those of you that know me can confirm I’m usually a level-headed guy who doesn’t throw money out the window. So what happened ?

I recently became interested by the new Apple iPhone 3GS, because it contains a number of functions that I can see myself use on a daily basis; I was especially interested by the recently included video camera, which means I can now use it for a new project I’m working on. After lurking in the shadows for a while, I decided to go to the Apple Store to check it out. And there, it happened. Not only did I buy an iPhone, but I also sprung for a brand new Macbook Pro and a printer !

I decided to analyse what happened, and here’s what came out: Apple provides you with a brand experience that is more guaranteed to make you buy than the average carpet salesman in a Moroccan soukh …

Making Eye Contact

From the moment you enter an Apple Store, the world seems to be in harmony. I mean, aside from all the fresh-looking, uniformly dressed 20-somethings who seem to “hang out” there rather than work and the beautifully designed store, it all just … looks the biz.

Everything, from in-store displays over counters to on-the-wall projections says “Welcome to our world”. But it says so in a very subtle and enticing way: there is no hard-sell in sight, staff seem relaxed yet helpful and there is plenty of opportunity to “interact with the product”. In fact, at first, interacting with the product seems to be what it’s all about …

The first encounter

Inevitably, at some point you’re looking for some help (unless you just came in to check your e-mail, which is what plenty of teenagers seem to do). Staff members are easy to spot, very helpful and – most importantly – there always seems to be someone around to help you in a reasonable amount of time. Again, there is no hard sell: staff is confident about the product, and many are avid users themselves – with more than one telling me they made the switch from PC themselves.

What I found is that they’ll tell you the truth, and let you make up your own mind about whether or not you want to buy. In fact, just to show you how much they value your business, they’ll set up a personalized shopping experience – and that’s where it all comes together.

Getting Up Close & Personal

Let’s be honest here: where else but Apple (and possibly Tiffany’s) would you make an appointment to shop ? Well, I was curious to try it, so I did. According to Apple, ”Personal Shopping offers you free, uninterrupted time with a knowledgeable Specialist (note the “caps S”) who can give you a personal demonstration of any Apple product, offer advice, and answer any questions you might have.”

Sounds expensive (and from Apple’s perspective, it probably is) but the point is this: for an hour, Apple gets what is commonly known as “a captive audience”. In marketing terms, that is priceless. One by one, the “Specialist” answered all my questions, gradually taking away all my objections.

The Business End

Personal shopping over, I was free to go – I mean, no strings attached. Come and see us if you like, and if not, that’s fine too. So I did – for a day or so.

Next day, I went back and came out with more bags than a New York socialite shopping on 5th Avenue. And know what ? Unlike that bag you bought that was really not what you wanted, or the overpriced car you got talked into, I am slowly discovering the benefits of the Mac – no buyer’s remorse, no regrets. Simply put: the product delivers on its promise.

Post-play

From the Apple employee spending 15 minutes in a queue to my mobile phone company on his personal iPhone to the guy taking another 15 minutes making sure I was fully set for my rebates (what, you didn’t think I was that impulsive did you ?), they all made sure I was 100 % set before leaving the store.

Did I mention I just got an e-mail asking me to review my in-store experience ?

The Apple Experience

The point is this: Apple does an amazing job at marketing their product in an integrated and fully reinforced way. They are experts at meticulously designing an experience that is sure to maximize the chances of you buying their products.

• 100 % On Brand - everything, from the people to the place to the product, at Apple is on-brand;
• Everything Seems To Revolve Around YOU - the entire shopping experience is designed to make you feel like you (the customer) truly are king;
• Five-Senses Experience - shopping at Apple is a five-senses experience, involving plenty of opportunities for touching, hearing, seeing, feeling and – perhaps in the future – smelling ?
• They walk their talk - the quality feel of the products, employee attitude and even the packaging all serve to reinforce an overall impression of luxurious cool and style;
• It doesn’t stop there - for a small fee, you can continue to enjoy the Apple experience: from one-to-one training sessions over specialized clinics to their MobileMe-platform, Apple strives to build an ongoing customer relationship.

Regardless of how you feel about Apple and their products, from a marketer’s perspective, they are extremely good at what they (need to) do: make myth and sell product.

John Weeks is professor of organizational behavior at IMD, Lausanne business school. He teaches in the orchestrating winning performance and advanced strategic management programs. He will take part in an event with Usain Bolt 6 July 2009 at IMD in which the Olympic gold medalist will share his insights on motivation with a business audience.

Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt is the fastest man in human history after setting three world records at the Beijing Olympics last year. Reaching the heights that Bolt attained required motivation, critical thinking and focus. Even more important, it required turning early setbacks into advantages, turning weaknesses into strengths and developing the motivation required of a world champion. These three attributes are lessons that can apply to those working in business.

Play to one’s strengths

If a sports coach hadn’t recognized that Bolt’s special gift was speed when he was young, he might have stopped at being reasonably good at cricket, a sport he had been practicing in his youth. When coaches advised Bolt to concentrate on a 400-meter race, Bolt had enough self-confidence to realize that his strength lay in the 100-meter dash. The Olympics proved him right. Bolt was cognizant enough in his own abilities that he knew when to accept or ignore feedback.

In business, you often find a heavy emphasis on gap-analysis, encouraging executives to focus on improving their weak points. It is almost always the wrong advice. If you are a great writer, but a terrible speaker, focus on writing even better and get someone else to do the speaking. Often the things we are bad at are the things that we don’t really want to do. A recipe for success is to do fewer of the things we don’t like, and to concentrate on those that we are good at. I remember a salesman who was spectacular at signing up new clients, but terrible at following through. His boss finally fired him. It was a stupid move. Finding his special talent is extremely difficult, while it is easy to find someone to handle mundane details once the sale is made. His boss should have kept him on the job and hired someone else to handle the administration. You need confidence in yourself, and if you are not the CEO, you need an organization that will support you.

Turn setbacks into strength

After going professional Bolt experienced a series of injuries and setbacks that might have discouraged anyone. However, without these setbacks, he might never have achieved the focus, discipline and pacing required of a champion.

What distinguishes highly successful people is not that they face fewer setbacks. We all face obstacles in our lives. However, successful people have the ability to find a positive framing that allows them to learn from setbacks and use them as a source of motivation. Apple’s Steve Jobs likes to tell the story that had he not dropped out of college, the Macintosh would not have been as great a machine. He credits his current success at Apple to having been fired by that company 14 years ago. Facing death helped him focus on what he wanted to achieve in life.

Similarly, what distinguishes highly successful people is not they have no weaknesses. We are all human and are all weak. What distinguishes successful people is their ability to find ways to use their weaknesses to their advantage and to find strengths in themselves that others may not recognize. One of the heroes of the American Civil War was Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, an English professor and poet but also a fervent opponent of slavery who felt he couldn’t live with himself if he didn’t contribute to the war effort. Many of his colleagues felt he was too bookish to lead men into battle and too intellectual to be an effective field commander. But, when put to the test, the fact that he was different gave him credibility with men who mutinied against their more conventional officers. His ability to clearly articulate his vision of what the Union army was fighting for proved to be inspirational to his soldiers.  Their valiant defense of Little Round Top at the Battle of Gettysburg was an important part of the Union victory. Chamberlain was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Motivation is the key to everything

Bolt had trouble early in his career because he was so much faster than everyone else that he neglected training, ate the wrong food and failed to concentrate. That was enough for local competition, but becoming a world champion required more. The key was motivation.

Motivation is equally important in business, and often as difficult to maintain. Some executives feel passionate about the job, or they feel a responsibility to the people they know in the company. Others want to hold on to the influence that comes with the position. What is the incentive for an executive at a company like Microsoft who has already earned millions to stay at the top of his or her form? Executives who already have everything they want can continue to make maximum effort by not resting on their laurels, but find new challenges and other means of motivation to always be better. Many sport stars and executives share an intensely competitive spirit to win, which often has nothing to do with accumulating greater wealth.

What about the executive who sees his career at its limit with no prospects for moving further up the ladder, or is working for a company with a flattened management structure?  In some situations you may have to work at motivation, just as Bolt did. Even the most routine jobs can be made interesting by turning them into a game. The trick is to treat the component parts of the job as a series of challenges and then to set small goals. It is a question of identifying something that you want to do a little bit better, a little bit different and then working on it incrementally. Usain Bolt is only 22 years old, but he knows the way. He has already been there. You in your job can do the same.

Arturo Bris is the programme director for strategic finance at IMD in Lausanne. He also teaches in three IMD programmes: advanced strategic management, building on talent and orchestrating winning performance.

Global leaders at the G20 Summit in London earlier this year made one of the most ardent defenses of globalization we have recently seen. But by declaring that “the era of banking secrecy is over”, they paradoxically engaged in a battle that can ultimately undermine democracy and competition, two of the key drivers of globalization.

Since the G20 Summit, banking secrecy has continued to be a hot topic in the media. Obviously, banking secrecy may be considered unethical, unfair, and anti-competitive – but it is legal. It is as legal as feeding meat-producing animals with steroids, or refusing the nationality to a child born within a country’s borders. Countries differ in their regulations, and these differences are good for the world, because they spur competition.

Indeed, regulatory competition has been one of the core ingredients of globalization in the last decades. Companies have grown internationally through mergers and acquisitions in which benefits come very often from differences in taxation, corporate governance rules and industry regulations. By relaxing incorporation rules, some legal systems have made it possible for a company to operate in one (or several) countries, headquarter in another country, and incorporate in a third one. Stock exchanges in the 1990s started a race to attract companies by offering more advantageous listing rules and trading mechanisms. Without freedom of establishment and free movement of capital, the global market does not exist.

The statement against banking secrecy and the subsequent actions taken by governments must be taken as declarations of intent for internal consumption only.

The first red flags against banking secrecy were raised in October 2008, with the argument that offshore centers contributed to the financial crisis by allowing some banks such as Northern Rock and Bear Stearns to conceal their losses through off-shore special purpose vehicles. The regulatory failures, however, reflected the inability of domestic supervisory agencies to detect misbehavior on the part of their financial institutions. It was very easy to blame someone else for the mistakes at home. And banking secrecy has been the perfect alibi to launch a political campaign, gain votes or declare a war on targeted financial markets.

Earlier this year, Jean-Claude Junker, the Prime Minister of Luxembourg, criticized the existence of tax havens in the U.K. Out of the 30 jurisdictions listed by the OECD as jurisdictions that have “committed to the internationally agreed tax standard, but have not yet substantially implemented”, seven of them belong administratively to the U.K. Brazil, another G20 member, has included the US state of Delaware in its list of tax havens. A recent legal reform in Spain makes foreign investment into treasury securities fiscally opaque, thus spurring capital flows from tax havens into Spain. Yet there are some examples that globalization, in particular globalization of banking secrecy, is prescribed in some situations, but not in others. Notice how even the wording—banking secrecy—conveys a pejorative connotation, in contrast to the term trust, which most G20 countries’ taxpayers use to avoid (not evade) taxes. In Switzerland, setting up a trust requires transparency on the names of the people involved, in contrast to the U.K. or the U.S.

Switzerland displays the third lowest level of tax evasion, according to the 2009 IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook rankings. The countries making the most noise about secrecy fare significantly worse than Switzerland in how tax evasion hampers business activity. This is the real problem: banking secrecy is not the cause of tax evasion, but the effect. Governments and regulators should worry more about tax offenders who evade capital from their own countries than about the countries that rightfully accept foreign capital. In any case, banking secrecy does not cover tax criminals under its umbrella, provided that material evidence is produced. By the same token, the Swiss government could take action against the U.S. for not penalizing American retailers which sell hormone-treated meat to Swiss customers. Likewise, Luxembourg could take action against the French government for not granting the French passport to children born in France of Luxembourgian parents.

As we know from history, criminals will always find new ways to circumvent the law. The economics of crime, a field that was pioneered by Nobel Laureate Gary Becker, shows that prohibitions are ineffective insofar as not all violators are prosecuted. The campaign against banking secrecy, if successful, will just impose an additional cost on tax offenders. Ultimately, tax evasion will increase, not decrease. Economists have already shown that alcohol consumption increased during the prohibition years (1917-1933). The reason is that crime interdiction, by imposing a tax on suppliers, shifts the supply curve for criminal activity and therefore raises its price. Coincidentally most of the countries with banking secrecy laws are well-established democracies, so the danger is that, by making it more difficult, capital will flow to less scrupulous countries and indeed tax evasion will become more -not less – profitable.

The fight against tax havens can be in any case a huge positive step for Switzerland, Luxembourg and the like, if the actions against “non-cooperative jurisdictions, including tax havens“, tackle the loopholes provided by British and U.S. trusts. Hopefully trusts in these countries become as transparent and regulated as they are in Switzerland now.

If the era of banking secrecy is over, the era of globalization will be in jeopardy.

Andy Sundberg is a committee member of American Citizens Abroad (ACA), which is based in Geneva, Switzerland

Background: “US, Switzerland ‘initial’ revised double taxation agreement”, 19 June 2009, GenevaLunch

There is, alas, much more to this story than what has appeared in print so far.

When ACA first learned about these negotiations, a few weeks ago, we asked the U.S. Embassy staff in Bern to help us arrange a meeting with the U.S. Delegation from Washington that would be coming to negotiate with the Swiss Government in Bern.  All of their attempts were rebuffed.

We then asked members of the U.S. Embassy staff in Bern to please transmit our written requests to the team. What we hoped to see happen was for this revised agreement with Switzerland to include provisions that were already contained in some other recently revised double taxation agreements with other countries. We had learned that such provisions were supposed to become standard components of all future double taxation treaty revisions.

Most notable in our request was for the United States and Switzerland agree to stop taxing the social security pensions that each country gives to citizens of the other country.  This provision was recently incorporated in the revised treaty between the United States and the UK, and also in the revised treaty with France.

We also asked for several other changes because, as you know, the Swiss Government does not tax Swiss citizens living in the United States, and so what we were seeking was a treaty that would come closer to parity in both directions.

All of our requests were ignored by the visiting delegation from Washington.

We never had a chance to meet or even talk with the U.S. negotiators.  They apparently had only one objective in mind which was to get an agreement to enhance the sharing of information on bank accounts as soon as possible.

This attitude of the U.S. negotiating team stunned us.  Why?

President Obama had made several promises to overseas Americans during his campaign last year, and we believed him.  He said then that:

• he wanted us to be able to get back to a more level worldwide playing field,
• he wanted to establish an on-going dialog with us, and
• he would work to ensure that we could become more active participants as partners with our home country.

All of that fine talk is going nowhere right now.

We are deeply disappointed that we were so rudely ignored on this important and symbolically unique occasion. It would have been very easy for the U.S. negotiating team to have at least granted us a few moments to talk to them in Bern and to share some of our suggestions with them.

But the answer was simply No.

Their total refusal to have any contact with us is not a good harbinger of things to come.  And with all of the dire threats that are now being voiced by the head of the IRS, and even by the President himself, it looks very likely that things could become much more grim and ugly for overseas Americans in the weeks and months to come.

Why do we deserve this?  And more importantly, how is this helping the United States?

If you think this is unacceptable, please send a letter to President Obama right away and share your concerns with him.  There seems to be no other way of communicating with this new Administration right now.