Don’t need to go into much detail here.  There are headlines and full stories in major media that give all the details one needs.  Suffice it to say that Obama had a tough week.

I want to be clear; though I do not agree with his agenda or politics, I want the President of the United States to be successful in what he does.  Especially with regards to international issues.  America being seen as weak is not good for the world, for the US, for me or my children, etc.  So I want Obama to be a successful leader.  And I know that some will say that partisan politics are at an all-time high which contributes to Obama’s lack of success….but dammit, he is POTUS.  Get a win up on the board.

1) Putin wins the battle for how to handle Syria

2) Summers is nominated, and then opts out because he knows he can not get through the Senate.

3) AFL-CIO leaders publicly split from Obama over ObamaCare costs to union supports

4) The Debt Ceiling debate begins anew.  Obama merely kicked the can down the road last time.  And there is no reason to think he will stand his ground and force a true resolution this time.

I do hope that this week gets better from Obama.  He is POTUS (President of The united States) & we are POTUS (People of The United States).  We are in this together.

I had not seen Russian President Vladimir Putin’s stunning Op-Ed piece in the New York times prior to writing my short blog post this AM.  Now that I read it, I double down.  Putin is publicly calling out Obama.  This is not good.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/12/opinion/putin-plea-for-caution-from-russia-on-syria.html?hp

In general I refrain from writing about the politics and issues of the Middle East.  It is not they they are unimportant; it is that the issues are so deep-rooted, I do not expect any significant change from the current norm in my lifetime.  Occasionally the names change, or the country of focus changes, but it is religious hatred at it’s worst, and political leaders at their worst.  Matt Damon’s character in the movie Syriana had it correct.  Speaking to a junior political leader of one of the Emirates…..”You know what the business community thinks of you? They think that a hundred years ago you were living in tents out here in the desert chopping each other’s heads off and that’s where you’ll be in another hundred years, so, yes, on behalf of my firm I accept your money.”

I write about it today because Obama has once again lost face in front of the globe.  Just like when he toured the world and seemingly apologized to the world with speeches in Europe and Asia, just like when Russia offered Edward Snowden asylum, he now announces plans to take action against Syria, only to back off those plans.  In the meantime Russia’s Putin publicly stated he would not allow for Obama to take his actions, and he is driving the agenda in Syria.

SaaS companies generate massive amounts of data.  Each client subscribing to the service is running a slightly different business model withing the target industry.   And this makes the SaaS company a repository of the type of information any operator in the industry would want.  Add some analysis, send a weekly report or maybe a real-time dashboard of the important metrics and you have got yourself another revenue stream, and the distinction of becoming even more of an industry expert.

Google recently changed the format of their increasingly popular and dominant Gmail service.  Free to individuals, and a great application for businesses, the Gmail platform dominates the world of digital, written communications.  So I was excited to see the recent change in format to Gmail (which I use for both personal e-mails and for my corporate e-mail platform).  Google’s explanation of the changes made perfect sense to me.  I always opt in early for their changes and did this time as well.  And I really like the changes that give me an Inbox, a Social Inbox, and a Promotions Inbox.

But the “Social” and the “Promotions” people and companies do not like it at all.  And why would they?  Gmail has essentially put them on the back burner.  All those companies that send me tens of e-mails per day are not happy.  Their livelihoods are threatened.  And its not just that Google is putting them on the back burner.  Google’s change to Gmail makes Google’s primary offering (paid advertisements) more attractive to companies.  What a brilliant strategic move by Google.  Not just hurt the competition, but increase the value of your product at the same time.

Businessweek has the article.

Forexmagnates.com has posted an interesting article on the recent actions taken by the Japanese Financial Services Authority (JFSA) regarding international brokers.  In short, the JFSA barring non-Japanese firms from opening accounts by Japanese citizens or residents.  This follows the actions of the United States’ Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) back in late 2010 to take similar actions.  US citizens or residents can only open FX accounts with US-registered brokers.

The “retail” FX world is still relatively small compared to the institutional world.  However with a CAGR of greater than 10% annually since 2002 the retail FX industry supports some hundreds of millions of dollars in corporate revenues each year, and the industry employs tens of thousands of people across the globe.

The actions of the CFTC and now the JFSA are not catching the attention of the media or citizens of either country except for the active trading communities in each country.  But make no mistake, these actions are protectionism by the financial regulators of each country.  I am sure there are reasons given by each regulator that justify their actions, but when governments act to “protect” citizens outside of physical security, the Big Brother effect increases its hold on the population.

Rather than barring foreign competition, the regulators could (should?) do a better job of informing consumers of the potential risks of trading or whatever activity they undertake.  And then allow the citizens to take the action they choose.  And receive the benefits of their decisions or suffer the consequences of their ill-informed decisions.

Cooperation + Competition = Coopertition

As part of a software development firm, we face this opportunity/challenge all the time.  Our current solutions serve the needs of brokerage firms around the globe.  We have always concentrated on the toughest part of our industry’s needs, and our products are demonstrably better than our competitors’, and thankfully they are in great demand.

But we focus on just a single aspect o the full technology solution that a brokerage firm needs.  A number of other firms focus on other aspects of a broker’s needs.  And we often work in conjunction with those firms.  In the pecking order of what the brokerage firms need, our products are mission-critical; the other software tends to be value add, but not mission-critical.  We have been asked to enter into reciprocal introducing agreements with a number of these value add software firms.

Inevitably these firms come to the realization that they true intellectual value is in the aspect o the technology that we focus on.  And we have seen a number of firms create their own version of our software.  We have yet to see a competitor’s software match the stability and reliability of ours, but they create a similar product and pitch it at half the cost of ours.  (I will leave commenting on battling those competitors for another post.)

So we have yet to sign any reciprocal agreements.  I am not going to purposefully introduce a potential competitor’s software to my clients or prospects.  But our industry is looking at massive growth potential coming from countries for which we have no means of contact.  And many of the value add software firms are based in the countries from which demand is being generated.

So we soldier on, and the scenario plays out as follows; almost as if scripted.  One of our clients signs up for services of a value add provider.  We are polite and work in conjunction with them.  At some point their software crashes or has an issue and our support team (always monitoring our clients’ servers) jumps in and works with the value add software firm to resolve the issue.  Then it happens again.  And we help fix it again.  Always keeping a low profile with the end client.  Then we learn the value add provider is attempting to compete with our product.  The next time their software crashes, our support helps resolve the issue, but we are more open and transparent to the end client that it is THEIR software that is crashing the servers, but OUR support team resolving the issue.  And then it happens again.  And finally the end client realizes that we do not just have great software, but that our support is top-notch.  And that we play nice with others so long as they do not become competition.

The question I ask is: do we spend the time to move downstream and create and sell the value add software ourselves?  Or keep the current model.

Great read this morning from Roger Cohen on the differences in morals of two countries that are economically tied together.  It leads to the question…which came first?  Corrupt politicians in Greece or tax evasion by Greek citizens?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/06/opinion/global/roger-cohen-the-euros-morality-lesson.html?hp&_r=0

In a related thought, as I listened to an NPR article this morning about the federal spending sequester affecting the US Coast Guard, I thought about our national debt.  Another NYT columnist, Paul Krugman, and many fiscal liberals believe that our government has an almost unlimited supply of spendable cash because the US government can borrow money freely or print money if it chooses.   Technically they are correct, but we all pay the price later on because the first item to be paid each month is the interest on the federal debt.  As that continues to grow, the amount of available funds for the Coast Guard, or education, or arts, or infrastructure improvements, (etc.) decreases.  So its a question of what type of America you want your grandkids to inherit.  The fiscal ability to dictate how they spend their resources…..or the crushing burden of paying for a previous generation’s decisions.

Me?  I would choose freedom for me and freedom for my kids.

You get what you elect.  As Americans we have the opportunity to choose our leadership.  For reasons I will not go into here, we often allow the media and our two-party system to influence who we choose instead of doing our own due diligence.  Anthony Weiner remains a mayoral candidate for the city of New York.  His latest scandal is noted by the New York Times at the bottom of this post.  (The same NYT that profiled Weiner and his wife in a very flattering way in April of this year).  Here are some recent politicians that we as Americans have elected:

In Massachusetts the last three Speaker of The House either are or have served time in prison for their crimes while in office.  Charlie Flaherty, Tom Finneran, Sal DiMassi.

Marion Barry

Barry came to national prominence as mayor of the national capital, the first prominent civil-rights activist to become chief executive of a major American city;^[2] he gave the presidential nomination speech for Jesse Jackson at the 1984 Democratic National Convention. His celebrity transformed into international notoriety in January 1990, when Barry was videotaped smoking crack cocaine and arrested by FBI officials on drugcharges. The arrest and subsequent trial precluded Barry seeking re-election, and Barry served six months in a federal prison. After his release, however, he was elected to the D.C. city council in 1992 and ultimately returned to the mayoralty in 1994, serving from 1995 to 1999.

Mark Sanford

On June 24, 2009, Sanford resigned as chairman of the Republican Governors Association, after he publicly revealed that he had engaged in anaffair with María Belén Chapur, an Argentine woman to whom he is now engaged.^[3][4] He was later censured by the South Carolina General Assembly following a State Ethics Commission investigation into allegations that he had misused state travel funds to conduct his affair.

Anthony Weiner

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/24/nyregion/allegations-surface-of-explicit-exchanges-by-weiner-after-his-resignation.html?hp&_r=0

Went to the Mass Department of Motor Vehicles this morning to grab some forms.  I did not need any interaction with any personnel.  I had already searched online and knew what I needed.  Sadly the forms are not downloadable; I had to go to the DMV to pick them up.

Instead of the forms being freely available, the forms are all kept behind the counter.  I would have to interact with a DMV employee to get the forms.  There was a single person in line in front of me.  And three employees at the counter.  In front of each employee there was a large sign that stated, “STOP.  Wait To Be Called”.  I could go on about the indignity of two of the employees ignoring me and the guy in front of me while one of the three employees dealt with the single customer at the counter.  But I focused on the signs.

STOP.  Wait To Be Called.

Imagine if a private business had a sign like that as the first interaction with a client or prospective client?!?  Would you be willing to stand there in front of a few counter employees who studiously ignored you for a few minutes?  Who would not even acknowledge your existence?

When I got to the front, I asked for my forms, was handed them with no more than 5 words of interaction.  How is it that these employees get away with acting like the customers are a true bother?  Why can (or will) the government not hire better employees as both managers or as hourly workers?

I do not have an answer for my question today.  Its just tough to accept something that is done so poorly when I know it is my money that is the revenues that support the entity.