Business and Life
First step for a long trek
An article in our Mongolian section last month, read together with its updated version in English in the present issue, will give hope to all who look forward to Mongolian State-owned enterprises functioning to their full potential, contributing more to the nation’s GDP, in both absolute and comparative terms.
Making news for making money from mining
True enough there will always be others to do the work. That is how we get the various Forbes lists. I confess to lacking curiosity about people who have such mind-boggling amounts of money, and also to not having the acumen or the insight to tell a millionaire’s son from a billionaire’s in the very unlikely event that I meet them socially. Why then, this piece on the super-rich?
The iniquities of inequality
One reason why the Right – do mark the capital R, for this significant and substantial section of the world’s population is often enough not right – was so upset by Thomas Piketty’s book last year is that it showed so cogently that inequality is not inevitable, it is engineered.
The world’s first CCS plant begins to work in Canada, but will it work in Mongolia?
The September issue of this publication contained a very informative article (‘Mega China-Mongolia coal project waits for final feasibility study’ by B.Tugsbilegt) but I am not sure how many readers knew how close we were to the inauguration of the world’s very first commercial-scale plant equipped with carbon capture and storage
Nobel for an economist who finds the market imperfect
In their, perhaps natural, enthusiasm for the infallibility of the market, many Mongolian policy makers might have overlooked that for the second consecutive year the Sveriges Riksbank prize in economic sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel has gone to an economist whose work essentially assumes that markets are often inefficient, if not worse
Mining makes a rhino charge
Walk alone, like the rhinoceros,” enjoined the Buddha, but even with all their reverence for him, few Mongolians are likely to know much about this pachyderm, chosen by the Buddha as a role model because of its solitariness and focused existence, both of which he considered essential for spiritual enlightenment.
Some more on paying some ‘a lot’ more
Some idle browsing during the Naadam break brought me to the text of a stunningly good speech –and all the more so because quite unexpected -- Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England, made at the Conference on Inclusive Capitalism – for many, an oxymoron – recently organised by the Financial Times.
Prescription vs practice
Prescriptive prudence usually has no chance when pitted against political expediency. Some populism is inherent in democratic practice – after all the whole business is of, by, and for the people, we are told – and even if expediency is bad, there is no guarantee that the untried prescription would have been actually better.
NEW TECHNOLOGIES to take mining forward
The causality is so commonplace that we usually forget to note how necessity continues to be the mother of invention. Thus it is no surprise that in times when mines have to get deeper to allow optimum exploitation, excavation has to be quicker to keep up with the market, costs keep ratcheting upwards, and safety concerns become mandatorily and morally paramount, miners seek succour from new technological concepts.
Recalling when miners made a massive misjudgement
Any writer – barring the meanest hack and maybe authors of potboilers in the original sense (and I presume to exclude myself from fellowship with either) – is encouraged by feedbacks, appreciative or even otherwise,
The sound of one hand clapping
Careful readers will find on another page of this issue a quote from the indefatigable anti-corruption crusader, President Ts. Elbegdorj, “Corruption makes Mongolia look awful, ugly.”
What do Chinese figures prefigure for Mongolia?
One way of not buckling under the Ulaanbaatar winter is to keep your self-esteem high, with artificial inflation, if necessary (as certainly in the case of yours truly). Only that can extenuate my choice of topic this month.
Checking on how companies curb corruption
Care for it or not, any Transparency International (hereafter TI) report gets handsome media coverage in every country, even where it has no direct relevance. If a country is seen as having improved on its perceived performance recorded in the previous year’s report – as Mongolia has done in this year’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) – it raises expectations of a rise in foreign investment.
Wondering why companies are there
I remember how in the early days of my stay in Ulaanbaatar, interaction with local journalists would leave me both amused and bemused by their insistence on using the word Company or LLC after mentioning the name of a business firm, particularly if it was one of some size.
Shale gas in Mongolia – more questions than answers
The conflict between the claims of industry-based growth and environmental protectionism will not be resolved until both sides appreciate the merits of their antagonists’ position and agree to abandon unreasonable posturing.
Incorrigible corruption
As if two quotes as epigraph are not enough, I begin the text of the column with yet another, this one Mongolia-specific: “Mainstream media can’t stop fixating on a ‘corrupt’ (is there really any other kind?) government and the (yawn) Oyu Tolgoi negotiations.” My apologies for not being able to attribute this, but I cannot recollect where I read it, though it was quite recently.
Well done, Mongolia!
Considering the alacrity with which media persons in Mongolia track the Internet, I was surprised to find in the Home page of The World Justice Project that even after a week of the release of its latest Rule of Law Index -- the third in an annual series -- there was no record of any feedback from Mongolia.
The big one in this season of awards
As the season for the MMJ awards gets into its own, it seems a good time to talk about another award -- The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, more commonly called the Nobel Prize in economics. This was established in 1968 and is not part of the original group of awards set out in the dynamite tycoon’s 1895 will.
