Model 3 ramp up

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Elon Musk has again been sleeping under his desk, not leaving the factory for days. He's personally overseeing production of Tesla Model 3 - probably not because his production manager couldn't do it but (I'm guessing) because he must convince his investors that he's committed.

Everything depends on the Model 3. Last July he claimed Tesla would be putting out 5,000 per week by December, but in a spectacular failure only about 2700 Model 3's were built the entire year (2017).

No investor has seen profits yet. To start being profitable, Tesla must reach the 5,000/week level and they're still way behind. 

Tomorrow, Saturday, second quarter numbers come out. I'll post them and investors' reactions on Monday.

(cont'd on Monday)

Model 3 review

Model 3 is the newest Tesla, introduced last year, designed and priced for a mass market. It's the one responsible for "manufacturing hell," according to Elon Musk. 

He was so right. See tomorrow's post for news on how they're doing.

Here's a video review of Model 3, one of many on youtube. The (millennial) owner says it's the best car he's ever driven, and here are some of his favorite features:

• lots of storage space in trunk and in frunk
• 18-inch aero wheels
• all-glass roof, vegan leather seats
• wide, clear view through windshield
• simple, clean dashboard because controls are on 15-inch touch screen
• instant torque
• silence

(cont'd tomorrow)

Skilled trades

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Men have consistently earned fewer bachelor degrees in college than women for 35 years.  But there are other options besides getting a 4-year college degree. 

Jobs in the skilled trades require much less time in school, and offer a lot of opportunity: "there are some 30 million jobs that pay an average of $55,000 per year and don’t require a bachelor’s degree."

"[T]here will be “68% more job openings in infrastructure-related fields in the next five years than there are people training to fill them.”

Gender gap

A long-standing gender gap in the U.S. separates women from men in terms of 4-year college bachelor degrees, but it may not be the gap most people would expect. 

For 35 years (since 1982), most bachelor degrees have been earned by women. For every 100 women earning those degrees in 2016, only 74 men got one. It's a 25.6% gender gap in favor of women.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Women drivers

Saudi Arabia women were the last in the world to gain the freedom to drive a car. (Up until yesterday, they needed a man driving to get an errand done.) It was a promise kept by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

In his quest to modernize the nation, women are getting more freedoms and cinema/music will be permitted. 

Bloomberg says there will be an economic benefit from this new policy. $90 billion may be added to the Saudi economy by 2030 just by freeing women to drive.

“Lifting the ban on driving is likely to increase the number of women seeking jobs, boosting the size of the workforce and lifting overall incomes and output,” according to Ziad Daoud, Dubai-based chief Middle East economist for Bloomberg Economics.

“I’m speechless. I’m so excited it’s actually happening,” said Hessah al-Ajaji, who drove her family’s Lexus down the capital’s busy Tahlia Street after midnight.

Musical family

Seven children in a single family - and all of them are learning and performing classical music. Sheku Kanneh-Mason comes from a remarkable family. Sheku himself, at the age of 19, was tapped to play his cello at the royal wedding last month in Windsor, England.

Artistic talent is often supported in the artist's family where parents "cultivated and encouraged that talent and built a home where it could blossom. Some of the greatest musicians of all time came from musical homes: Bach’s family boasted everything from royal musicians to church organists, Rachmaninov’s first piano teacher was his own mother, and Pavarotti learned to sing from his father, who himself was an amateur tenor."

After Alfie

Tom Evans' little boy Alfie was sick, so they took him to the hospital. Doctors decided the child should die. Tom didn't want the boy to die. But the British government enforced the doctors. Police guarded hospital exits to prevent Tom from taking him home. A judge prevented Alfie being moved to a hospital where he could be treated. The government won. The child died.

Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust had paid  over £145,000 in legal bills in its quest to bring the child’s life to an end.

Alfie's aunt commented about that: “Over £145 to kill my nephew?!” she wrote. “We had a hospital. We had the money to take him elsewhere. We had the plane ready. We had Alfie fighting, and they paid this to kill him? Ask yourselves why.”

Tom and Alfie's mom plan to go public soon with more information on the last days of Alfie's life. “Me and Kate will never come to terms with it and will never accept Alfie’s death or cause of death.” 

photo: nationalrighttolifenews

Misconception

You might remember Hans Rosling, the wonderful Swedish statistician who started Gapminder with his son and daughter in law. He died a while back, but his son Ola continues the effort to educate people about the "global facts."

 He runs surveys all over the world regarding global conditions. He finds that people are hugely unaware of key facts about the world. They would have answered more correctly if they had closed their eyes and didn't read the question 😕

See if you are better informed than educated people all around the world!



(Disclaimer: I don't agree that we need more birth control)

What if?

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

In this campaign to persuade the NK chairman to change . . only the essential, first step has been taken. He says they will move toward ending their nuclear weapon work. What if he does stop his nuclear threats and moves toward ethical leadership? That's the goal.

That video prepared to help persuade him to negotiate was professionally done. Scott Adams, creator of comic strip "Dilbert" and author of a book about persuasion, thinks the video is brilliant.

From the video:

"History is always evolving, and there comes a time when only a few are called upon to make a difference . . .But the question is — what difference will the few make? The past doesn’t have to be the future. Out of the darkness can come the light, and the light of hope can burn bright. What if?"

Adams says, "It might be the best thing anybody ever did in a negotiation. Period."

African Fred Swaniker had it right - a single leader has huge impact. Millions of lives hang in the balance. "What if?"

Persuade

Last week the American president flew to Singapore to sit down with the leader of North Korea . . for the first time in history.

North Korea is behind the rest of the world in almost every way. Its people live in fear, under coercion, often starving, some desperate and brave enough to try to escape. Meanwhile their leader races to develop nuclear weapons so he can threaten the world.

Americans hope things can change. The president's first, urgent goal is to persuade the dictator to give up his nuclear swagger. One element of the persuasion campaign is this video:



(cont'd tomorrow)

Corrupt leader

Back on May 29 you may have watched the TED talk by Fred Swaniker. He believes that a single leader can make a huge impact for good or evil. As a bad example, he mentioned Sani Abacha of Nigeria. I ran into this story about him and others at face2faceafrica.

Abacha was the head of government from 1993 to 1998. Upon his death, Swiss banks returned $700 million (that he had hidden in banks there) to the country of Nigeria. Just months ago Switzerland returned another $322 million that he had socked away in their banks.

All together it's estimated that Abacha stole an incredible $5 billion from his own country.

Money laundering, tax evasion, bribes, lots of opportunity for many corrupt leaders to cheat their people. No wonder Fred Swaniker's leadership academy states that Africa's greatest need is for ethical and entrepreneurial leadership.

African nations need the same thing every nation needs.

Positive?

Is "thinking positive" really possible when your situation seems negative? Pastor Mac says that you don't need to deny what's going on to be positive, but instead picture a positive outcome to the negative circumstances.

Reagan in Berlin

After World War II, Soviet Russia took control of much of eastern Europe. Germany was split in half, free in the western half and under communist control in the east. Though the capitol, Berlin, was fully in the eastern half, it too was split so that the western half could belong to West Germany.

A wall was built in 1961 by East Germany along the Berlin division to keep citizens of East Berlin from fleeing to the West. Before the wall was built, 3.5 million people defected to West Berlin. From 1961 til 1989, the wall and its "death strip" prevented nearly all defections.

American President Ronald Reagan made his famous Berlin Wall speech in 1987, thirty-one years ago yesterday. In the name of freedom, he passionately challenged the Russian communist leader: 

"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

NK Christians 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

World Help has gotten 68,000 Bibles into the hands of North Koreans during the last ten years. "This is not some marketing campaign or program that World Help has dreamed up. This is not our strategy. This is what the leaders of the churches of North Korea are begging for . . ."

photo: stream.org

Vernon Brewer of World Help says that he met a former soldier in the North Korean military:

"He had worked on the other side of the razor wire fences at the DMZ. His job was to listen in for radio broadcasts at night. While he was tuning in to different frequencies, he found a Christian station broadcasting the gospel into North Korea. He listened night after night until he became a believer.

"He and his family fled towards China. They were shot at by the North Korean military. When they barely made it across the river, there happened to be a group of believers there. These Chinese Christians were having a prayer meeting on the riverbank. They took them in, hid them and discipled them. Later, they made it possible for them to get to South Korea.

Even in the midst of great persecution, vibrant testimonies of transformation are happening."

NK Christians 1

If a North Korean has a Bible,  she or he is in serious danger.  

"Of the 300,000 North Korean Christians that the government recognizes, 70,000 of them are in forced labor camps . . . Most of them never come out. They could get a 50-year prison sentence for owning a Bible or simply being caught in a prayer meeting or worship service.

"The average life expectancy for a Christian in these camps is only three years. Many of them are beaten, tortured and prodded with electric stun batons. They even have experimental surgeries done on them, sending them into a coma or vegetative state."

Vernon Brewer of World Help has been finding ways to help Christian believers there for ten years. When someone asks how to pray for those people, he tells them "If your son or daughter were in one of those forced labor camps, how would you pray?’" 

(cont'd tomorrow)

Employed

Unemployment, the percentage of people who want a job but haven't found one, is down to 3.8% in America as of the end of last month - great news. It hasn't been this low in 18 years, since 2000.

Also good is the growth of 2.7% in average hourly wages compared to last year

But the most spectacular number is 5.9% of black Americans who are unemployed. Why is that a good number? Because it is the lowest in the recorded history of black unemployment.

You could say this author at the NY Times is excited about our economic news:

"We Ran Out of Words to Describe How Good the Jobs Numbers Are"

Rwanda clothes

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

"In a country often defined by its horrific genocide in 1994 . . a new generation of passionate designers wants to create a future where their African nation is known for producing stylish clothes & accessories, not only for its dark, traumatizing past."

Muhire Patrick created his own garments for a wedding in 2009, and it became a business when people started asking him to make theirs. 

Priscilla Ruzibuka launched her label of children's clothes in 2016 after graduating from Oklahoma Christian University. "She was intent on finding a way to help women affected by the genocide," who mostly worked as maids. Now she only employs underprivileged women.

Daniel Ndayishimiye runs an organization which supplies training and tools to 100 Rwandan designers. “I have a purpose,” he said. “I want Rwandans to be proud of donning designs by fellow Rwandans. ”

(from NYTimes)

Fed up

People of Rwanda in central Africa have been pulling the country together since the 1994 catastrophe to create better lives for everyone. Background stories are here.

Thriving businesses of all kinds, creating value and creating jobs, are essential to prosperity. Rwanda's new clothing industry is very small - and it is undercut by shiploads of used clothing coming in from the West. "African governments have become increasingly fed up."

To protect the young clothing industry, Rwandan President Kagame has placed bigger tariffs on those containers full of used clothing.

(Oddly, the clothes that Americans donate for free wind up being sold (cheaply) to poorer countries . . and it's a billion-dollar industry. Kind of hard to believe.)

(cont'd tomorrow)

Africa's size

Last week the subject was Africa. Most of us have no concept of the mammoth size of the African continent, so check this out.

Re-post from 2015:

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Big Africa

The only way to get a good idea of the relative size of continents on earth is to look carefully at a globe. But we probably look at a flat map much more often, which gets more and more distorted moving away from the equator - so we have a skewed impression.

photo: economist.com

Devloop

"The first time the pod levitated is definitely the moment where it's like "oh yes, it worked!" Engineers who work on "Virgin Hyperloop One" narrate on the video below.

They completed a 1/3 mile long full-scale test in the UAE (United Arab Emirates). This one is above ground in the desert, unlike Elon Musk's "Boring Company" which is building below ground in Los Angeles.

Lead Africa 4

Re-post from 2014:

Thursday, July 24, 2014

Africans' stories

Magatte Wade of Senegal wants the image of African people to change - not only in the view of the people of donating countries, but also in the minds of Africans.  Her goal is to see Africans respected all over the world in her lifetime.

She urges people from her "beloved continent" to take inspiration from world-class achievers in Africa.

She's a "serial entrepreneur," but knows that most people just want jobs   . . which come when [the]  "few of us who are entrepreneurs start these organizations, these companies, that in return create the jobs that the majority of us want so badly.”

“ We all have the same job: create something with whatever is it that you have. The goal is not to sit there and be a recipient of betterness and not having done anything for it… I think as a human being, we all have it in us: the need to contribute.”