26.10.2023 Carbon-Neutral Flying, Impact Investment, Sustainability

The Panacea Distraction

The #panaceadistraction disqualifies many #impactinvestments as greenwashing. A look at realpolitik in impactinvesting.

The Trigger: Lubomila’s COP21 statement

Having been reminded again of Lubomila Jordanova‘s statement for the U.N. Climate Change Conference 2021, it bugs me, how little has changed in those past two years. Working with climate activists up to United Nations levels, I find a lot of what we call #academicthinking, more about Science Fiction than about taking what we have to the market. A #panaceadistraction if I’ve ever seen one.

And while #buzzwords used by investors are #disruptiveinvestments, #sustainableinvestments and the like, a big part of the #panaceadistraction is their focus on (classic) “boxes” to invest in. Can’t tell, how many times in the past decades I have heard, that our ideas wouldn’t fit the box. #thinkoutsidethebox and #thinkbeyond.

The Sustainability Lie: Stay inside Your Box

Illustration by Hans-Jürgen Marhenke (loaded directly from and linked to the Heise.de website)

The direct “impact” is that #impactinvestments are mostly #greenwashing on #lifecycleassessment and #circulareconomy – very often blindsiding the #energydemand, using the cheap excuses of “we purchase #greenenergy or #climatecertificates … I was recently told that the industry creatively sells multiple times the amounts of “green” energy we create. I can imagine that. Aside of my #railshame-article, cleaning the green color of the mighty German #greenrail. Just another reference to the Sustainability-Energy Dilemma.

Or #artificialintelligence (just like space) – being a big dream (some consider it a threat). A big investment interest! Whereas most if not all of AI I’ve seen fits the statement that most AI is IA: More (or often less) Intelligent Algorithms. Yes Athena, Minerva and Mike Holmes, I’m waiting (wondering who understands that reference on the fly)…

So how #sustainable is #impactinvesting really? And which #impactinvestors in reality are part of the mighty #greenwashingindustry? Or do they focus a bit too much on the #panaceadistraction instead?

A Look Back: Pioneering and Disrupting

As a kid, I saw those pioneering constructions on those triangle-shaped hang-gliders, today both bureaucracy and investors wouldn’t invest a penny. But they lead to paragliders, a huge industry today.

Back in 1995, the big four in aviation technology (Amadeus, Galileo, Sabre and Worldspan) actively and with might opposed the development of booking flights on web-basis. How “disruptive” was that “stupid” idea? And yes, I made it happen, together and funded by a visionary Louis Arnitz (RIP). And yeah, that was the time Bill Gates disqualified the Internet, promoting his Microsoft Network.

In 2008, I developed another “disruptive” idea of a hydrogen-powered WIG, to promote the need to think sustainable on a global aviation conference. While it made it through viability study into serious negotiations by a tropical government and a major green fund, it fell victim to Lehman, but I still think it should have been developed. Though since #synfuel came up (2019ish), my bets are on that technology, I even applied it to our plans for Kolibri, closing the huge black hole where before our ideas of #biofuels were more or less a band aid on a searing wound. Aside that I prefer we grow food on the fields and not biofuel-rape. And why is it rape has such a bad double-meaning?

Though I’m a caller in the dark it seems, at least when talking with mighty investors – they fall back to their boxes and disqualify “aviation” as “not something we invest in”, without even a second look. #talkthetalk, focusing on the #panaceadistraction instead.

Think Positive: The Solutions are There!

There is so much #disruptivetech out there with a business case (aka #impactinvestment), beyond that I integrated into the plans I have for Kolibri, lacking the funding support, lacking the vision of those self-proclaimed #impactinvestors. And a lot of #talkthetalk again. i.e. #energybuffer technologies, alternative energy sources such as #tidalenergy – why only offshore-wind? Though nothing we do, nothing comes without a toll. Remember the #butterflyeffect and the Sustainability-Energy Dilemma.

As a direct result, we have an exploding #sdgfundinggap for sustainability and climate developments. It’s not the first and not the last time, U.N. Secretary General Antonio Gutérres called and calls this #fartoolittlefartoolate.

Butterfly Effect, e-Mobility Lie and the Panacea Distraction

While my readers and followers know that I question #windpower and emobility for #greenwashing and short-term thinking, I also promote the fact that we need the change. We must act. Today.

And while e-Mobility ain’t the panacea, politicians and media tries to make you believe, hydrogen and synfuels ain’t as impossible as they frequently claim either. It’s ambitious to turn our world away from cheap, endless “green” energy and the believe of endless resources. Earth Overshoot Day is bad enough, this year August 2^nd. Looking at the country level I feel even more devastated (Germany was May 4^th)

The Fairy Tale of Zero-Carbon

Basic physics: Movement requires energy. Anything we do requires energy. Travel from A to B, even when using a sail boat (as Greta Thunberg did to cross the Atlantic) requires Energy. And resources. As an economist, I know that anything comes at a price.

So there is no #zerocarbon. If we achieve #carbonneutral, we do very good! If we can reduce our abuse of our natural resources – beyond carbon – we do good. Our target must be to move Earth Overshoot Day to December 31^st or later. Next year, in two years. Not even Kolibri will be 100% resource neutral. But if we can turn it 90-100% circular, if our energy consumption is renewable, we will have a major impact to Earth Overshoot Day.

Why Fossils are Problematic

Fossils conserve climate gases. While Venus consists of very similar chemical setup, the climate gases on the planet are uncontained. In turn, temperatures there are above 400°C. If someone tells you, we can keep using conserved energy like fossils or the latest ideas using deep-sea manganese nodules, this is climate gases we add to a heavily saturated Earth atmosphere. This is, why yes, I believe we must end fossil consumption (incl. excessive use of plastics) as quickly as we can. Or reduce it to an absolute minimum. Yes, plastics have advantages, but mostly can be replaced by more sustainable solutions. And keep in mind, plastics are used and globally applied by the mighty, rich industry nations. Who’s richness being a result from securing and using cheap fossil energy.

So mostly, this is about fighting the people who rely on cheap energy for their business models. Do I hear “digital” somewhere? 😂

So true #greeninvesting must focus on energy conservation and intelligent use of the energies we have. Personal, fossil, “renewable”. And yes, I put “renewable” into quotes… Just: #dontchooseextinction!

Holistic Approach and All-In

Another issue that keeps coming up in my discussions is that we must stop competing on sustainable solutions. This is a major, not even just an industry or generational challenge. It’s a global one. So let’s stop competing and start joining forces! Back to my example of offshore wind farms and tidal energy turbines. Why not using them side-by-side in the same sea region we anyway impact by building those humongous wind farm structures? Why not using old Oil Rigs to apply tidal energy turbines, clean them, make them an artificial island structure for sea life (also arial one)?

Live Cycle Assessment and Earth Overshoot Day

What I learned in my discussions with “green” activists up to government and U.N. levels, is that there is a lot of #wishfulthinking out there. A lot of #cognitivedissonance, reasoning to oneself that the bad-doing ain’t “that bad” or even good. And a #greenwashingindustry that uses that to protect their status quo. Not just at “all cost”, but in fact at the cost of our living and breathing environment!

To identify Greenwashing quickly, I mentioned to look at energy bill. United Nations urges to look at the #lifecycleanalysis and an end to end #circulareconomy. We must stop #raisinpicking to fake green, but what is our impact to the planet. Then we talk about #realimpactinvestment. And not at another #panaceadistraction

Food for Thought!
Comments welcome

06.02.2023 Impact Investment, Management, Sustainability, Values

Too Many Chiefs …

… and the Question about System Relevant Jobs

Today I had a very emotional discussion about the need for new IT, new processes and all that other stuff the consulting industry keeps telling us, we got to have. Consultants, that have a standing relation inside the aviation company, with constant projects to “improve” and streamline the work.

At what cost?

Having addressed Consulting, Outsourcing, Cloud? COTS or tailormade back in August 2020, we meanwhile discussed over and again the issue of “System Relevant Jobs”. Back in my economics studies, 40 years ago, the general manager of my intern company questioned the increasing “management jobs” by academics, reminding, emphasizing that in the end, it is all about products. Even in whole sale (it was a central logistics warehouse) it’d be a question about benefit for seller and buyer, where the warehouse we worked in distributed the goods to the own satellite stores. He warned, that every intermediary becomes a leech and products becoming more expensive, not cheaper, by adding more and more intermediaries into the pool. His assumption was that 50% management surplus would be viable. And I should mention that he warned about dependencies from “rogue countries”, like China. Cheap but at what cost?

Being very pro globalization in general, he did call it hypocrisy to buy cheap in China, knowing that this is simply based on abuse of work force and stealing of patents and other ideas from other countries – back in the days, China did not much invent themselves, they were known copycats. In Germany meanwhile called “precarious jobs”, that don’t provide decent living, the living standards of workers in China at the time were at best questionable.

System Relevant Jobs

Is your job “system relevant”? If you work in home office, I can tell you the answer is No. If you work in consulting, I can very likely tell you the answer being No. Working in aviation and transport, the answer very likely is No. And if your salary is above average, the answer also very likely is No.

It’s all about leeches. Draining the money out of the really system relevant people, who normally are overworked, but underpaid. Not on the picture are farmers, friends of the family farming, living since I grew up on the brink of bankruptcies over and again. With more and more demands and pay for their products (milk, meat, grain, etc.) being often below the cost of production. Then they get generously state aid, to keep them working on subsistence levels.

The NHS personnel is on strike, the medical situation there in the U.K., also in Germany, being devastating. 24 hour shifts, 3 days “on call” duty?

Logistics drivers, the one delivering all those fancy goods we all buy, paid at minimum wage or just very little above for good feeling? Uber being a gigacorn? Delivery “Heroes”? But the managers in their offices having a “decent salary”? Who’s doing the work and what do we pay them?

U.N. Sustainable Development Goals

There are 17 SDGs. But all statistics show that all of them are actually still deteriorating. And if companies call themselves “sustainable”, they usually focus on the easy SDGs, most times at the cost of the others. Yes, we invest into climate, we buy CO2-certificates. And buy our growing hunger for power from the grid. Sure we buy “green power”… We upgrade our HR Director to “Chief HR Officer” and call it a board position, but only on paper to look good. We invest in R&D to find solutions how we can become sustainable in the future, while we fight the unions and deny salary increases for our workers. We add the (female) position of Chief Sustainability Officer to express our commitment to the SDGs. Oops, we forgot to give her a budget or empower her responsibilities? Examples aplenty…

We need companies to do the right thing. To embrace sustainability and evolve. It’d give them a competitive edge, a USP. When I was a child, it was common that people worked for “Daimler” (Mercedes-Benz) or “Bosch” all their live. You looked after your stuff from post-school training to retirement – often even beyond. Then they became “Human Resources” to managers who turned “shareholder value” from “what’s good for the company” and “long-term thinking” into “what’s good for my bonus” and “who cares about the time after I’m gone”.

A Question of Respect

My “intern” boss (again) taught me respect for everyone. The guy on the fork-lift, the cleaners, truck drivers and “secretaries” (yeah, we still had those). He taught us to set up the coffee when it was empty and not bother the secretaries. To clean up ourselves to make the cleaners’ jobs easier. To think beyond our petty box as “office workers” and value the hard work of the real workers. Also to question, but then also embrace the value of our work. IF we added value.

And in the pandemic, we should have (but obviously didn’t) learn the other lesson. That it’s not enough to sit at the windows “applauding” the system relevant workers that went above and beyond any perceivable “line of duty”, but to pay them decently. To look after them and keep in mind that they also have families to sustain, vacation wishes that go beyond the balcony on an old residential block they only can afford with added state aid.

Beyond White- and Greenwashing

I recently attended a multi-week project by United Nations Climate Action on Circular Economy. And the need for lifecycle-assessment. But it was also mostly #talkthetalk and academic ideas. And I had several objectives that then led to my image about the panacea distraction.

Aside me wondering, of that lady in the image might be an unpaid intern? Another reflection of the value HR managers and their bosses have about the value of training and labor. Any employer not paying their interns should be put in the pillory. For labor abuse!

Oh yes, and that goes in line with midwifes that quit their jobs as governments don’t reduce but add to the legal strains in the job. Or riders asked to bring their own bikes – and repair, all at minimum wage and abusive “time management”. Or airlines outsourcing their pilots forcing them into bogus self-employment without vacation or sick-leave cover, paid wages below their own pilots. Back in my intern-days, there were “personnel agencies” too. But to hire someone for short-term was always about 50% higher cost than employing someone directly. What went wrong there?

Yes I could go on.

Food for Thought
Comments welcome!

Yes. Comments welcome: Do you agree, disagree, partially, am I right, wrong, do I oversee anything? Have your own examples? What would, could and should we do?

26.03.2021 Aviation, Aviation Investment, Carbon-Neutral Flying, Europe, Impact Investment

And the #Greenwashing Continues

While we have sound plans to establish a profitable airline, planning to operate carbon-neutral, #greenwashing and lip-services dominate responses we get from “impact” investors, why our model cannot be supported. And the same what is heard and seen from politicians and public funds.

Now the last weeks, the “green strategy” is a big issue in the media. European Investment Bank claiming to be be the “Sustainability Bank”. The Mission Hydrogen 24 hour workshop. The reality check on to German Rail’s sustainability. Or the facts about the “global recycling champion” Germany. So let me summarize these reports. And call for any serious investors interested to make a true impact, to talk to us and learn the big impact we want to make. While establishing a profitable, future-focused airline.

German Rail & 100% Sustainable Power?

Don’t get me wrong, this ain’t new. There have been reports about this ever since they started their fake promotion about 100% sustainable power. But just this week, German Television did a reality check, with rather devastating results!

Just 61% of German Rail’s power comes from renewable energy. 28% come from coal and natural gas, where German Rail partly owns the latest built coal power plant, built against all public opposition. German Rail has long-year delivery contracts for atomic power. And only 33 out of 5,679 railway stations are powered from renewable energies, 0.5 % … And by 2038 (17 years from now) German Rail wants to increase the use of sustainable power to only 80%, targeting 100% only for 2050.

That excludes non-rail business, like Schenker logistics, clearly focusing on Dieseltrucks. Where container transport by rail is more than six times more ecofriendly than trucks. But having demolished most of the industrial accesses, parallel tracks and being delayed on major infrastructure projects like the European North-South rail axis, now backfires and cannot be remedied quickly.

ECB & EIB – the Sustainability Banks?

While we talk with impact investors, we do also understand the European Central and the European Investment Bank claiming to be “Sustainability Banks”. Talking with the very same investors being “naturally” and clearly interested in sustainable projects, we asked why they would not make use of those funds to complement an investment into Kolibri or other impact investments.

The feedback I get is painfully clear. They do not work with the EIB (or other government fund programs) for the bureaucratic process required to be “approved” as an investor. I have multiple statements that attempts to support the investment failed. Assumption being voiced that those funds again go to the big players and into unqualified “green projects” that are mostly about #greenwashing. That includes a claim that EIB funds new aircraft for the dinosaurs – without any requirement(s) for those aircraft or the airline to develop a strategy to reduce their carbon footprint.

I also reached out to one of the experts in my network, working closely with those banks and doing studies on their sustainability, asking why venture capital or family offices don’t work closer with such government funds: “But what you report from your interactions with public investors is true even for smaller and less ambitious projects and companies in that public VC funds invest only if the concept is validated by the market in one way or the other. In other words, only if someone else confirmed the commercial success elsewhere.

Germany – the Global Recycling Champion?

Reality is, that Germany is the global champion in export of plastic trash. Instead of a strict recycling regime, 80% of the trash collected from the recycling bins is being either exported or burned.

The drop in export results directly from China having stopped and banned the import of plastic trash. So now, the pictures of plastic from African countries dominate the respective stories about German “recycling”.

At the same time, the plastics industry is booming. And instead of developing sustainable packaging, the trend is clearly towards mixed-use, the known bad example being “Tetra Pak^®“; a packaging made of several layers that make it exceptionally difficult to recycle. And the few recycling factories being more for greenwashing than for recycling any meaningful amounts of that stuff.

There was also a report on TV this week on Coca Cola and how they changed from the recycling glass bottles to throw-away plastic bottles and Aluminum cans. Which was the beginning of the end of bottle recycling. And how their lobbyists ever since fight any recycling requirements…

Aviation – the Scapegoat?

Now, how about “my industry”, how about aviation? And why is it constantly the scapegoat and blamed for global warming?

When the aviation industry claims that it’s only responsible for 2% of the CO₂-emissions, this is also green-washing. As aircraft engines exhaust contains also other “greenhouse emissions” and many if not most not on ground level, but at high altitude. The “contrails” being a visual reflection that people “know” and can identify. Experts in a report about Airbus this week accounted the greenhouse emissions by aviation to 6%. Not much, but only 4% of the world population flies. And 6% is substantial.

So aside our plans to use Kolibri.aero to establish the infrastructure and certify the use of 100% synkerosene to fly carbon-neutral, we also understand the issue of the aircraft-engine exhaust will require further research into greenhouse-effects of the remaining exhaust. But which only can start, once we start flying “carbon-neutral”! And yesterday, I was challenged twice about synfuel and that we’d need to look at use of battery, hydrogen and fuel cells. Referring to a very academic presentation by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Josef Kallo of the German Aerospace Agency (DLR) about How to fly with Hydrogen, addressing fuel cells at the European Hydrogen Workshop by Mission Hydrogen GmbH (Ltd.).

See my recent blog about The Road to Environmentally Friendly Flying…

Electric, Fuel Cells and other Aviation #greenwashing

Speaking with one of those “challengers”, he argued that in 10 years the first regional aircraft will fly on fuel-cells. Being “project planning”, I’d say better add 50% reserve to that, then we talk about 15 years. And personally I still doubt that time line. And then we will have aircraft with 10, 20 or maybe 30 seats. With a range of one to two hours. When we will have aircraft that transports 100 seat? Or ones that can replace the 150-250 seats used by the low cost airlines? When do we expect aircraft to transport 250-350 passengers long haul? Hiding behind “Research”? Science Fiction…

The argument given was that batteries and fuel cells will become more effective. Which I file under “cognitive dissonance“. What excess in miniaturization results in, we all experienced with the B787 batteries self-enflaming. Or the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 “fiasco”. Trying to mend the rules of physics is a true challenge. And that does not even cover the devastating ecological footprint not only of Lithium. If you want to wait for that to be resolved, we talk about “dirty” kerosene still in use in 20, 30 years!

And if that happens, our industry is worth being used as a scapegoat…

Change Happens – NOW!

Sustainable economy and global warming are big issues today, but most that we see is lip services. An investor group just recently checked impact investments for the “real” impact. They reported about 4% of all investments having a quantifiable impact or quantifiable targets. Only 4%. All others to be #greenwashing. On the “impact programs” of the 100 largest companies in Europe they found not a single one having more than one or two percent impact to global warming. Most of them being “lighthouse projects” that are being developed inside a “bubble” that does not immediately impact the company. Mostly lip-services addressing already established programs, but don’t really change the existing processes.

One example mentioned being the Electrolyzer delivered to Salzgitter AG for delivering hydrogen to be used in their steel-making process. A “research project”, largely funded by the hydrogen program. And now, being still in research phase, trialing it’s impact, it’s a “lighthouse project”?

The Fight against #Greenwashing + Lip-Services

And today I was confronted again with “avoid flying” as the first and foremost advise to stop global warming. While people will fly, economy needs flight connections as well. What we need is to stop blaming aviation, but start changing it. And the governments and public funds won’t help, so we need bold investors with a mission to help establishing the environment that allows us to work together on the common goal. Clean flying. Flying without remorse. Flying with a conscious mind.

We choose to fly Carbon-Neutral in this decade. And do the other things. Not because they are fashionable and easy, but because they must be done. But we can’t do it alone, we need investors that are interested in more than greenwashing their conscience, but the ones supporting the real thing. Investors that understand this is a big deal, it’s disruptive, it’s a journey. A journey that needs conviction, founders with the commitment and vision to make it happen…

Food for Thought
Investors welcome!

11.12.2020 Impact Investment

Impact Investing vs. Whitewashing

I am very, very happy that I started speaking to Family Offices and regret that the Pandemic forced a reschedule of one event and kept me from attending another this week. But I am grateful to be allowed attending the first Family Office virtual conferences. It’s a rather steep learning curve. I am grateful for any event reference or invitation that I got and hopefully will still get.

Given today’s jabbering by the EU Commission (Mme. von der Leyen) that they – wow – will reduce the CO₂ to 55% of the 1990-level … Oh wow? Shall I be impressed? Or cry? EU parliament would have been okay with 60% the news say. But even as is, this “deal” is full of small-print and not really worth the paper it’s written on.

We must be better to make an impact. And we better stop lip-services, white- and greenwashing but address the issues we can address today. Or this expert saying we’re way too late is right.

Though this is totally in line with my initial experience about “impact investing”. Lots of talk and lip services, with little substance too. Hard to find the ones that believe that this is something real.

And what industry is more in desperate need for a sustainability makeover. And having the chance for it?

Aviation Impact Investment
… a Barrel Burst?

While we have clear plans to become Carbon-Neutral in realistically in three to five years, you got to start. And an “impact investor” told me this week that we are too little innovative. Really?

The EU plans give airlines 15 more years to fly dirty. Yes, that is a barrel burst! You got to be kidding me. But sure, it’s completely in line with German and European aviation lobbying, managed well by Lufthansa, Ryanair and the likes. Lufthansa, the airline with the single-largest bailout package in Europe but with virtually no ties attached, especially none about job saving or evolution into turning “green” and flying clean(er). And in Hamburg I heard the synkerosene pilot suffered from disinterest by Lufthansa, aside of a single carbon-neutral flight by Lufthansa Cargo. A nice example of greenwashing!

I’ve summarized the possibilities to turn aviation carbon-neutral for a start (and what comes then) into another article Clean Aviation Whitewashing and the Real Deal, which I publish simultaneously with this article. But the Future of Clean Aviation is Now. It just needs someone with a real interest to start the process. No talking, no lip-services, no whitewashing, but the real deal! With a real ROI.

Impact Investment in IT & AI … What Impact?

There is a lot of buzz ongoing about Impact Investment in IT and AI. Whereas I just wrote about Big Data & AI, feedback from family offices principals recently confirm my assumption. Of one emphasizing that ESG “tools” are usually a means to white- and greenwash family offices’ IT investments. And as I posted that on LinkedIn, got a lot of feedback from other family office principals that IT hardly makes a real impact by itself. It’s simply a profit-focused investment, mostly just improving existing processes or digitalizing them.

There also was a discussion this week about “decision making AI” or “decision support IT”. From my aviation background, I see IT as an important support tool. One that improves productivity, but more important safety. I do not see an IA-tool taking more than a supportive role at the time being. But I see a lot of claims that direction, which I can only consider white- and greenwashing.

It’s a Trust Thing

Use a magnet to find the needle in the haystack — Oops. Didn’t we tell you? We seek the toothpick…

In my opinion, there is no “impact investing” if you don’t find the right managers with a mindset to leave the beaten path and find profitable developments in the industry. For KOLIBRI.aero we don’t just think about carbon-neutral aviation. Or some solar parks. We think beyond! We understand it’s our duty to make an impact. Investing into our people and the regions we serve. To foster gender equality, diversity and to develop a future beyond our own. In turn, KOLIBRI.aero addresses not two or three, but all 17 of the U.N. Sustainability Development Goals.

In the overall plans, there is one issue being in the U.N. SDGs and EU’s TEN-T, regional connectivity at affordable price. Going carbon-neutral is more important on that in our opinion, but there are obstacles that must be overcome, that is a journey. Decently paid, qualified jobs and ongoing, structured training to fight against poverty. Ideas aplenty on how to establish a disruptive airline, that shows how sustainable aviation can be. If you look outside the box. If you embrace “sustainability”, even the notoriously loss-making scapegoat aviation can change.

The Quick and Dirty

On the other side – and back to the topic of my previous article, Big Data and AI provide quick success stories. So much easier to use those for white- and greenwashing. But real impact investment may not be so sexy, it may take a longer breath. To turn around our world is a journey, no sprint. It’s why even UBS recently confirmed in a webinar that family offices are more likely the ones truly investing into impact. Because they think long-term. About family impact across generations. Not as politicos or banks or “institutional investors” and venture capitalists in quick, maximized returns, happily overlooking the negative impacts for an improved profitability.

… or The Neverending Story

A German investor this week told me: “There is too little change in what you’re doing.” That investor referred to either air taxi or hyperloop. Whereas I’ve often enough expressed my concerns about air traffic control taking individual mobility into the third dimension and into potential conflict with commercial (and military) aviation. Just thinking about the increasing drone-warnings disrupting airport operations the past year. That is a very long way to go.

The same for hyperloop, which may connect high-density routes, similar to (German) Transrapid in China. Will this be more successful? The concept is around for more than half a century. And I don’t like the pipes over ground, even Roger Leloup planned them underground. I’ve written more than a year ago in the #flygskam Reality Check about it and about the so much smaller footprint an airport has.

… Academic Thinking – Research Forever

Global CO₂ emissions dropped by 7%, with 11% in Europe due to Corona. Especially aviation reduced due to the lockdown by 22% global, some regions by 30%. But those are expected to come back quickly (Source).

Now the EU says it turns the European Investment Bank into a Climate Bank. And they will focus on research. Or to give the dinosaurs a facelift. Maybe it makes more sense to look for ideas to apply the research results to the real world? Why is it that German Transrapid only runs in China, European Skype is now U.S. Microsoft, the first industrial Synkerosene-facility is being build in Norway (EU associated)? Examples aplenty. We research but we’re utterly incompetent turning research into practical products.

People should take rail the politicos wrote. Yeah, I can see Merkel spending a day to travel from Berlin to Brussels. An interesting LinkedIn post, and German Tagesschau reports “Strategy falls short of what is possible and necessary”. A carbon-neutral aviation we plan on existing technological solutions for 2025, latest 2027 for Kolibri and by 2030 operating +200 aircraft carbon-neutral.

It’s embarrassing! Why does everyone find reasons not to invest in large-scale change? No, it is not quick, requires industrial site funding, but it’s about real change! Which in turn would apply pressure on the “establishment” to get their butts up and move. Get out of your comfort zone and make a change.

Divesting the Bad, Investing in Sustainability

There are exceptionally good examples recently, like Scottish Widows devesting “bad stocks” in the value of almost half a million Euro. Whoops?

And whoops again. But they work with Black Rock, a company with a very bad reputation, funding most of the dirty stocks in the world. But on the other side, Black Rock may have started their journey to change? Maybe the money divested may be well invested into those change makers?

Corona is a testing time for about everybody. But also an opportunity for new methods and thinking to rise.

Impact Investment for better ROI!

Though also notable, there is a bad misinterpretation that impact investment would mean low ROI. I think our business concept for Kolibri is looking at very competitive ROI at a residual risk below other investments. But it is so much easier to accuse impact investment to justify one owns look the other direction, right?

Impact Investment ain’t Philanthropy.
Invest into the future and benefit from it!

And as real impact investment gains support and more and more investors look at their investment portfolio and clear out the dirt, suddenly your “max-ROI”-investment in crude oil, guns or other “bad investments” will turn foul on you. Investment into the main investor in “bad business”, namely Black Rock will backfire on your own reputation. So Black Rock will likely recognize the headwinds and start divesting too? Not to be caught in the fray.

Funds, Indices, Shares or what?

Well, it’s always easy to invest into existing business. Buying in on indices or major shares, you don’t need to understand anything beyond their “performance” and “marketing message”. If they wash well enough, they might appear shining green or white, right?

As if we did not learn the very recent lessons from German Property Group, Wirecard? On a report that week, a Shortseller mentioned that the higher the interests and dividends, the likelier they are on a rush against the wall. So they look at those stocks first. As do greedy investors…

My very personal experience includes working for a company that became one of the “New Market winners” when they entered the stock market. Happened, after a short flash in the pan, they ended up a penny stock.

The “typical” aviation investment is aircraft funds. Whereas KPMG valued them at an average 4% return in 2019, look at all those assets now. Liabilities in most cases, because they had and have no USP. And even back in 2019, the big aircraft lessors being well established with the airlines made good returns, but many funds also underperformed or failed completely.

Shareholder value got a very bad reputation, didn’t it? As if all shareholders would believe in Max-ROI? How about some long-term benefits, how about impact, sustainability and a return that is above the inflation rate and what your bank pays? But that is to my experience and observations the normal “manager type” our world suffers from. Maximizing the own short-term remuneration and bonuses, leaving a wreck behind. Back to IT-investments?

… or what?

Another version has a third question: Who wants to lead the change. Whoops, all gone…

Especially thinking about impact investment, we need long-term thinking. Something bank managers, institutional investors and venture capitalists fail to provide. We need people thinking in decades, in generations. We need Family Offices, private investors. And we need company managers, entrepreneurs, founders thinking not in three years at max ROI, but in 10 years and a real ROI, including but beyond monetary. Maybe at a much better ROI than those straw-fire-startups burn up?

What Impact Do You Target?

What’s the “Impact” you want to make? Is Tesla truly the future? Or is it more hydrogen? How about impact on poverty? Why not investing in “developing countries”, poor countries? Giving them the infrastructure and tools to develop themselves. Another German history lesson. While the leading industry nations cannibalized German technology, machines, entire factories, it left a void in it’s wake. A void that was filled with the help of the Marshall Plan leading Germany into the Wirtschaftswunder.

The investments back in those days did not target the surviving companies, but enabled startups. The remains of those funds are known as KfW, Germany’s Bank for Reconstruction.

Impact vs. Whitewashing

My final topic today is to take a look at the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals or U.N. SDGs.

Good Health & Wellbeing = biotech, right? Every biotech something claims to be SDG3, even the pharma-giants o chem-giant BASF.
Or Decent work and economic growth also used a lot for good argument to be “sustainable”. The Real Estate industry talks a lot about their focus on 9 and 11. Those are just the ones I see a lot “abused”. But also tech companies claiming sustainable under 3 ,4, 5 and 10… Be careful if someone tells you they’d be “sustainable” under consideration of the SDGs.

I like the approach of some family offices very much, that they qualify the real impact. Over time, what is the change. Targets, Milestones. And understanding that real change takes real efforts.

Food for Thought
Comments welcome!

09.08.2020 Aviation, Aviation Investment, Corona, Europe

Corona Cognitive Dissonance

Recent developments and posts really bug me. Don’t the writers of those posts recognize the cognitive dissonance? Yes, we must think positive. But there is a clear distinction between thinking positive and whitewashing or daydreaming. We have a crisis at hand and the “positive signals” aren’t as “positive” as those posts try to make them look like. They look at the marketing messages on the surface but fail to look the slightest bit deeper.

We need positive thinking, but we must also stay realistic!

Whitewashing Statistics

Yes, the latest statistics are not there (yet), but we have enough experience to understand that the classic statistics, that I questioned as incomplete and intentionally misleading before the crisis, now in the crisis not only proof insufficient, but even dangerous for all of us, trying to grasp the repercussions to our industry!

Many of our media friends take up the old focus on unrealistic data packages. Yeah, hurray, the airlines add flights, bring the aircraft back in the air. Are. You. Kidding me???

The reason behind is mostly that the aircraft can only be parked for up to three months without the recovery into operational readiness getting substantially more expensive: >100 manhours, replacement and thorough components checks, etc., etc.
So the “losses” from flying empty might well be a cost-saving long-term. Depending on how long the aircraft must be stowed, when the passengers “come back”. But this adds to the “Corona Debt”, that must be funded and some day payed back.

The current IATA Regional Briefing, Europe, June 2020 reports on the beginning of the crisis. Available seats for April plummeted by 95%, the load factors of the remaining flights to 32%! At the same time Gridpoint Consulting analysed the London-Heathrow figures with similar devastating results, an average load factor (2Q20) of 35.5%! And ForwardKeys published some nice figures on air fares, plummeting 20-30% in average.
Now the airlines are reported to bring flights back to the air aggressively. Whereas the German Airport Association (ADV) published in their latest (June) traffic statistics: “Privater Reiseverkehr findet nicht statt”: Private travel does not take place. So those added flights mostly cannibalize the existing, low passenger numbers. Which we will likely see reflected in the next statistics. But keeping the aircraft grounded comes with it’s own bill. Adding to the “Corona Debt”.

So aviation media, please do not simply publish those statistics on how many seats are added to the market, but also check the demand = load factors and the revenue = average ticket prices. It would be worthwhile to look behind those numbers and check the reasoning for those flights. Looking only at the first statistics (increase of available seats) is negative, if the revenue and loads drops further. We need the full statistical picture I was demanding for many years: ASK (available seat kilometers), load factor (how many seats sold) and the average revenue (ticket price). In combination with the CASK, the cost per available seat kilometer) it would allow to understand the real development. And commercial viability, success … or failure! And I do look forward to real “success stories”, a.k.a. “profitable routes”. Routes not piling up more “Corona Debt”.

The Fairy Tale of the Corona Super Vaccine

Yes, as you can see in the archive of my Corona Papers, I also believed what those lying politicos and virologists told us. Though having brought up in a medical household, I looked early behind that cloud-screen. My (published) assumptions were based on a recovery following the common availability of the vaccine – and the treatment. We’ve learned a lot on the treatment meanwhile. And now, like with the face masks they initially called “unnecessary” for pure hidden motives to cover their unavailability, they slowly let the fact surface that:

We must not expect a “super vaccine”!

Corona will turn out more to be like the flu. Okay, not so much like the Measles I referred to earlier. The first infected people in Germany have ceased to have antibodies in their blood a mere three months after their infection. Now they, along with the WHO start slowly telling us the “new truth” (like with the masks), that we will have a long journey ahead, getting used to Corona. And as I kept emphasizing for months already, the time to stop the virus is long over, all we can do – and must do – is to #flattenthecurve. Keep the infections at rates our medical systems can manage. Until the first vaccines are there – to further limit the spread of the disease. Just like we get (or according to statistics mostly don’t) get our yearly flu-vaccination. By which time we will also hopefully by able to “manage” the severe cases with standardized treatment.

But hold it, ain’t that telling, all that lock-down was for nothing???

No! The lock-downs were a vital necessity and still can be! Because the reasons to flatten the curve are still undeniably valid! As I just wrote in the previous paragraph. But we must return to a life that embraces the Corona-virus (and it’s future variants) as what they are. A new “flu”. Maybe more hostile, sure different. But here to stay. And once we will have learned to manage the recurring “waves”, just like the annual flu, we will live on. Without masks if you ask me. Without “social distancing”. And without lock-down. And with air travel and real-world conferences.

Bailing-Out the Dinosaurs

I know, being a German and having taken residence with the family in Germany for the pandemic, I am somewhat biased on what happens here and especially Lufthansa. And that makes me puke. No, I can’t say that nicely.

Lufthansa, with a pre-crisis value of four billion (Source: Fortune) and burning five billion in the first three months of the crisis receives a bailout from the German government of € 9 billion. For a 25% silent stake, not allowing them to influence Lufthansa, i.e. relating to job securities (prime CSR), sustainable developments or a less hostile behavior towards smaller airlines they kept and keep walking over, their latest “victim” Air Berlin. No, lesson not learned. The next they announce is to make 22,000 (twenty-two thousand!) jobs redundant. Quite recently, they had to admit that 25% of the refunds for unflown tickets due to Corona have still not been paid back, the media claiming a 1-billion backlog!

I was kind of shocked this week, when German Tagesthemen, one of the main news channel mentioned already that this may not be the end, but just the beginning of an expensive further bail-out series for the airline and it’s many subsidiaries. But if they burned 5 billion in three months, how long can they sustain the drought before they burned up the added nine billion?

Don’t get me wrong! I belief that aviation will recover, but that will go slow and take time. What I see now is activism and lots of wishful thinking, piling up more debt and risking the airlines’ long-term survival.

But I keep my emphasis, that bailing out the dinosaurs is not good for anyone, except the dinosaurs. At KOLIBRI.aero, we have a concept in the drawer to invest € 1.6 billion into an airline with 200 aircraft. Okay, establishing the airline in Germany would be a bit more expensive. But no more than € 2.5 billion. Give another € 3-4 billion as a reasonable amount to add a global network, we could develop a “Lufthansa 2.0” based on sustainable aviation (not the Lufthansa greenwashing), true corporate social responsibility (way beyond Lufthansa whitewashing), looking after our own, but also after the regions we serve and the overall responsibility of a major player. There are others like us out there. I’m sure, given € 9 billion, given only € 5 billion, they could make a change. No Corona debt, but a clear profitable business, paying back the debt within 10 years with (above-market) interest. € 9 billion without any strings attached? € 11 billion for Air France/KLM? And meanwhile Austrian – a 100% Lufthansa-owned subsidiary also received a bailout by Austrian government, though “only” € 600 million and with environmental demands attached. But with another € 150 million to go into equity in Austrian parent Lufthansa (Source: CAPA). Swiss received a 1.25 billion loan guarantee for its poor mother Lufthansa (Source: Reuters).

And at the same time, one airline after the other is being grounded, Level’ed. No bailouts for Air Berlin pre-, flyBE early into the crisis. None for Level (IAG), Germanwings (LH Group), Laudamotion (Ryanair). And expecting no real “recovery” of the passenger numbers this year, I foresee a large number of the small airlines with one, two, maybe even five or ten airplanes to fail this year. And I get a lot of feedback that this is the time for KOLIBRI.aero. But we struggle not for billions, to launch we struggle to get funding of a mere € 30 million.

But given feedback from “experts” out there, to start it small as a virtual airline, or “aviation investors” not seeing beyond aircraft leasing? I now have hopes that our invitation to attend Prestel & Partner later this year at their real-world conference in Zurich will open the doors of more visionary family office owners, understanding the opportunity such a crisis provides to a business concept like KOLIBRI.aero. As those bailouts must be paid back one day. If the airlines don’t go bankrupt, once KOLIBRI.aero is kicking their butts.

Food for Thought
Comments welcome!

09.04.2020 Aviation, Management, Values

The True Meaning of Corporate Social Responsibility

For quite a while, I am stumbling over the issue of the common investor understanding of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and their implication that it is the same as Sustainability. Which it is not.

Wikipedia a.k.a. an Academic Idea

Reading the Wikipedia page about it, they see it as a high-level code of conduct for large, international organisations. And focused on the representation of the company towards its customers. I think we must step back and make a change. A change to how we must understand corporate social responsibility. And not just, but especially in times of Corona, this is not a nice to have, it is a desperately needed definition update!

Shareholder Value vs. CSR

If you focus on shareholder value, human resources and only your own, personal profit, you end up in a deep, dark pit. Sometimes, like Boeing’s Muilenburg and others who have been on the Olymp, just for that much deeper a fall. Examples aplenty.

In most cases, it’s like the recent decline in employee morale at Lufthansa, Carsten Spohr shelving Germanwings in a “strategic” and likely necessary move, but without the touch to understand the emotional repercussions on overall staff. Them having very well in mind the fate of Contact Air, Cirrus Airlines, but also Air Berlin with their last CEO a Spohr-lackey sent to liquidate the airline. And sure, there is quite some green- and whitewashing involved by such CEOs, having their own “sustainability” and “CSR” departments.

Basic Principle

So what is “CSR” truly about? Or should be? Like with all such “definitions”, there has been a basic idea. Then it was abused to abstraction to #whitewash investments and make them attractive to investors.

To understand the original idea behind corporate social responsibility you simply need to read it. It is everything about the social responsibilities in corporate (organisational) environments. Is it social to support sustainability? Definitely. But not only. Those definitions applied to CSR crippled the original definition. Then the #whitewashing continued. As Wikipedia refers to, there’s a cost-benefit analysis. Don’t get me wrong, it makes sense. But then let’s name it – it’s a business model, has nothing to do with philanthropy.

Micro Level Social Responsibility

Corporate Social Responsibility starts with your immediate environment: Your own organisation!

When I started my aviation career with American Airlines under Bob Crandall, we were a family. My friends at Delta and Pan Am envied us for that family spirit, called us “brain washed”. To date, we were not brain washed, but professionally motivated. Something I miss since the button counters took over. Something Carolyn McCall at easyJet understood and (as I predicted) what left easyJet with her. The top management understanding that humans are no resource and that motivated staff and service are invaluable assets!

Aside the example i used on the different approaches between Alex Cruz at British Airways and Branson’s Virgin Atlantic, there was a noteworthy post by Tony Fernandes of Air Asia. Please read it, this is only a key message out of it:

“What always drove us was our people, our AllStars . It’s what’s drives us every time we are in a Crisis. We must do whatever to protect their jobs.”

CSR the KOLIBRI.aero Style

Co-Founder Ndrec coming from a military background, me grown up with American military and starting my career with American, it was clear from the very start, that developing such a better airline, aside profitability ☑ (check), USPs ☑ (check) and sustainability ☑ (check), we must take care of “ours”. What we considered and consider true “CSR”. From the outset, we such looked at staff management and banned to wording of “Human Resources” and its shortened version “HR”. And we looked at the locations we plan bases for, beyond the company, but the impact such development has to the communities “we serve”.

It might be surprising to the bean counters (accountant-mindset “managers”) that all of our related “cost centers” turned out to be no just driving loyalty, but to be true profit centers and vital in our attempt to melt the cost factors to competitive levels. As a start-up, investing into all the company’s assets, you must be competitive against all those large, established companies like easyJet owning around 70% of their fleet, cost down to maintenance, with roughly 25% being paid off and around 5% being leased to cover ad hoc opportunities (like taking over Air Berlin routes). And while now being a “burden” in Corona times, airlines cannot drop out of leasing either, so the cost still is there. But those airlines can secure credits based on their (aircraft) assets. To develop profit centers that allow to cut down the cost to competitive levels such ain’t a mere strategy, but a vital need.

Summary

As in all my posts addressing moral and ethics, I turn back to my father, who told me that you got to be first and foremost someone you see in the mirror and you like the guy. Secondly, despite all mistakes you do, you must keep your sheet clean. Your sins will backfire on you.

So you got to start with the good old (wo)man in the mirror. Then think about “yours truly”, family, employees. Then look after the extended community, local and work. If you look at all that, sustainability will be a “natural development” for you.

Food for Thought
Comments welcome!

19.08.2016 America, Europe, Religion, Russia

Evil Russia and Propaganda

“Our Heads Are Round so our Thoughts Can Change Direction” [Francis Picabia]

Since being (happily) married to Yulia, I am more frequently approached about Russia and the ultimate evil represented by Putin. Recently, with the Crimea crisis and Turkey, the discussions become more frequent, so I thought to make some statements in a single blog of which I used some before either here or on Facebook or LinkedIn. They keep coming up.

First of all a quote from Robert Heinlein’s Lazarus Long:

Initially there was a wording in Wikipedia (meanwhile removed / I can’t find it any more) calling Russia a “democracy Putin style”. Then came the Crimea crisis.

Coup d’Etat vs. Referendum: What’s Democracy?

The Crimea Crisis. Where an elected government was removed by a “people’s coup d’Etat” (Kiev), with lots of reports that tons of Dollars floated around Maidan. And active political support by Europe and America. I have personal Ukrainian friends who told me stories about the dollar flooding there. And using the plural intentionally: Not just one.

UkraineReferendumUSreject — US politics: Rejecting the Referendum

And then, there was a democratic referendum on the Crimea, which the Western nations instantly denied it’s legality.It’s also interesting to note that most Eastern Ukrainians did not initially want to leave the Ukraine, but they did not want to become European either. Why does that nowadays remind the Russians of Scotland or Catalunya? Maybe they have own reasons to want to leave Britain or Spain? And they are allowed? Or will the British or Spanish also apply military intervention to force them? Like Europe does in the Ukraine? What’s Democracy? A religion? If you don’t believe me, I kill you? The first killing shots in the Ukraine came not from the “separatists”, but Kiev was and is to date the aggressor. Despite all that our press says, even they admit it. With very little words and questioning every one of it: Propaganda. And even German state television NDR named it: Propaganda! If you understand German, it’s interesting to listen to the tiptoeing of the interviewing journalist trying to trivialize her harsh, clear statements. Propaganda.

It’s interesting to see the Western-dominated Wikipedia’s wording, approving the coup against a democratically elected president but at the same time condemning any actions by the Crimean, Eastern Ukrainians. Condemning the Russian support that they have been asked for by those regions. It’s not that Wikipedia does not mention it. Propaganda is more subtle. It’s in the wording and the amount of explanation you give or keep. It’s that exact example that makes Russians (people!) question “Western democracy”. Or the neutrality even of a trusted source like Wikipedia – it’s written mostly by Americans. With the best intentions. But in the political environment they work from. It’s hard to fight off that subtle, omnipresent propaganda…

Saboteur or patsy? The Russian Security Service parades ‘captured’ Ukranian Yevgeny Panov

Two weeks ago, a Ukrainian sabot
eur was caught on the Crimea and confessed on Russian television. In return, our (European) politicians feed the press that there’s no proof and the Kiev government is right to increase the military activities in the Eastern Ukraine. Putting the fox in charge of the hen house…? Reminds me of those (U.S.) Mission Impossible movies: “As usual, should any members of your IM Force be caught or killed, the Secretary of State shall deny all knowledge of any of your actions.”

My personal interpretation: When the elected president tried to sign a strong bond with Russia (still independent), Europe tried to force Ukraine to side with Europe instead (dependency), forcing it into an unmanageable situation. When they messed up they stuck to their self-invented stories not to confess their mess-up. And the mess up will remain unresolved for European politicos now fight the deamons they let loose.

My idea for the Ukrainian people would be to force peace and a status quo to both sides. And organize peaceful elections. And commit to them. That would be democratic.
Or make them a neutral country as they were, in between the two blocks. Together with Belarus and the Baltics a buffer zone.

But that would be both against the interests of the PTBs… It won’t happen.

New monetary support. You can deposit it right here with us.

European Separatists

Again: Think about the Brexit. I’ve been asked (on several occasions), why Britain is allowed to elect “out”, but Scotland, Gibraltar, Catalonia or Crimea aren’t. In all cases, there’s big money involved and political interests by the PTBs (Powers-That-Be). But where’s the democracy? And thinking about it, why does Merkel and her CDU in a core country of democracy still have neither signed the United Nations Convention against Corruption, nor do they approve of the basic democratic tool of national referendi? Are they “democratic”? Or capitalists?

Think about Greece. Russians are very much aware that all the money goes to the banks and not the people. Their press tells them the reasons why: Our politicos saving the banks but not the people. Is it Propaganda? Or simple truth?
And such they have a very different view about the situation Russia. The situation is improving for the people. And all setbacks are tightly linked to Western attempts to dominate. Are they wrong? Or do we, do our politicos fool ourselves in the attempt to justify our / their own immoral actions and decisions?

Putin-quote-GMO — No Gen-Manipulated Organisms in Russia

Democracy or Capitalism

A fan of German political TV reports Monitor, I can only confirm that our politicos largely do not follow the interest of the people but that of the Lobbies! Russians rightfully ask, why they should not allow Putin to help his friends, when he looks more after his people than those Western politicos do? There’s no need to fight for the right to water or against the draining of entire landscapes like the ones by Nestlé in Michigan, California or elsewhere. Interesting how little reports we get in the Western news channels about these issues, ain’t it. The same about Monsanto’s contamination of crops in Mexico, endangering the natural biodiversity of corn in Mexico; Ecowatch reports 59 indigenous species of corn already endangered by such Monsanto contamination!

armstrong-doping — Doping Legend: Lance Armstrong

Olympics

The Western dominated countries once again tried to remove the Russians from the Olympic Games. Whereas the Russians believe the U.S. to be the center of steroid doping in the world. Now Chinese, Bulgarian and Polish athletes have been found doping, but there is no kin liability applied to those countries as it was to Russia. CBS reports on those three cases. In all of them state doping programs are considered to be likely in place German news reported.

The same for the case of Ethiopia’s Almaz Ayana and her new world record on 10,000 m running – the former world champion, Chinese Junxia Wang, having admitted doping just last February.

NATO Expansion

Look at the NATO. And the promises that were given, though not written down. To not expand militarily into former “Soviet” areas. Now suddenly NATO moves rockets and in the Russian believe nuclear warheads into Poland and the Baltics. Just miles from St. Petersburg and Moscow! Compare the distance between Cuba and Florida or Washington and then think back to the Cuban Missile Crisis. Wonder why Russian people believe in the Western hypocrisy?

I’m repeatedly reminded about the 1997 movie Wag the Dog. Where during elections the U.S. powers make up a war in Albania to influence the election. Is it a comedy? Movies like that, Homeland or Enemy of the State are simply too close to the perceived reality that Russian people take them as “comedy”.

Simply try to look at it from the other side when the press and especially our politicos tell you something. Why should Russia, Turkey or any other state trust us? We’re only about money. No soul.

Putin’s arguments may be propaganda, but he does it better than ours. He’s the victim, we’re the bullies. And we give the Russian people all arguments they need to believe just that.

The Arabian Spring

It’s the same for Arabia, where yes, the Arabian Spring was something theoretically good. But see how it destabilized the region? We all pay for the “unfinished business” in Syria. If you talk to Russians, it was the West that wanted to run a coup d’etat there, to weaken Russia and deprive it from a friendly harbor for their fleet in the Mediterranean. For the same reason the West wanted to deprive the Crimea to Russia. Aside of the oil.

I’m personally ashamed that our country is one of the big weapon developing and exporting countries in the world. After the Nuremberg Trials, we must be aware that the deaths by the weapons we produce are burden on our souls. We are “Christian”? We may be. Our politicos are not. We’re Accomplices. Our politicos sell their souls. For money. Besmirching ours.

Turkey

Having recently discussed online with a Turkish friend living in Turkey, I could not answer some questions. Don’t get me wrong, we agreed Erdogan is a danger. We agreed the “cleansing” based mostly on denunciation and suspicion is dangerous! Taking control of the executive, legislative and judicial branches of power is how Third Reich happened. Beware. But our propaganda would make it worse.

Turkey would be victim to power games between Russia and Europe/the U.S. – and why did that remind me of that “joke” showing up 2015 on the social networks?

If Gülen is behind the attempted coup, would America or Europe act any different? If AFD would be found attempting a coup d’etat with the support from Russia, how would Germany, Europe or the U.S. react? Double values.

We’re afraid Turkey will become Sunni country soon. With repressions on other religions. Will this be bad for the country? Bad for it’s people? A clear Yes. Not for the Sunnis. And funny as it is, in the wake of the Turkish demonstrations pro Erdogan in Cologne, many of my friends in Germany currently argue that if Turkish are not happy with the rules of democratic Germany, they should emigrate to a country of their liking (here: Turkey). But isn’t that exactly the line of argumentation Erdogan follows?

Summary

But we bend our own rules. We constantly break them. For the sake of profit. Germany’s Joseph Goebbels was a propaganda artist. Today mostly more subtle methods are used by industry and politicians to steer the press and it is very difficult for journalists and us normal people to recognize it and not fall victim to it. With very limited success I’m afraid.

To make this very clear: There is a lot of Propaganda. On both sides.

Food For Thougth
Comments welcome!

01.06.2015 Values

The +50 = Useless Myth

Okay. So I turned 50 this year. And aside a major C-Check that will make me take additives for lost hardware and discuss health issues with friends and strangers alike? Aside being a dirty old man? Am I useless?

Why should I be?

I still will likely work another 15 years at minimum – maybe 20 or more! Many retirees are still fit to work and get bored if they don’t. The majority of students taking up their first new job will be with the company less than five years in the end. Inexperienced and with low salaries companies invest heavily to train them on the jobs they do (or risk to invest into their mistakes). Whereas you can hire experienced people who know their jobs, make less (costly) mistakes and who have a “knowing” touch, usually good for building trust with new customers or prospects.

Not the U.S. ... China. But this graphs looks similar in any "modern" society — Not the U.S. … China. But this graphs looks similar in any “modern” society

Now we also have less and less young people entering the market here in Europe, as well as the U.S. Politicians and commercial bodies paint the picture of lack of junior employees. At the same time, they send their experienced workers home at relatively young age. Or disqualify them as employees as “too expensive” or “less resilient”. It’s the same issue about the demand of an “academic degree” for all employees. Misjudging and neglecting the value of “practical experience”. And yes, that also goes to you Marisa Meyer, whereas I also enjoy similar such personal experience with Lufthansa Group…

What really bugs me about this, is that even renowned entrepreneurs and investors often disqualify older entrepreneurs from their support activities, very often, activities address “young professionals”, “under 30” and enjoy other such limitations. The same is true in talks, where “older” entrepreneurs are faced with far higher “expectations” and demands and still don’t get the investment but “hip” high risk investments by teams without any professional experience do. I believe the time to disqualify experience or “gray hair” are over soon. If companies look for good people, they will have to pay more for the few “young professionals” left, who proof to be less loyal and require more mistakes to become experienced. And I know of too many experienced people as well as honor students leaving “bad paid” aviation or not even interested to start in it, as motivation and loyalty are no one-way-street and other industries simply proof more attractive to them than ours.

German Birthrate Image by Welt.de — German Birthrate Image: Welt.de

Oh… And didn’t I just hear Germany became Champion again? In the f#%@ing lowest birth rate in the world!!! Well, that does confirm my own experience about “political child support” by our self-proclaimed “Christian-Democratic Union” led by our Chancellor Merkel. And no, I do not want to talk about “atomic exit”, Greece or “lobbyism” in Germany today. We just have a family tax system that supports DINKs (double income – no kids), but increasingly forces single parents into poverty. With the demographic results shown. So what was that again about 50+? Im now beyond 50. And happy 😀

Food for Thought
Comments welcome

21.08.2013 IT

What is ‘Big Data’?

A new hype shakes up the business world. Everybody talks about “Big Data”. But what is that all about?

nsa — Source: AP Photo/Google, Connie Zhou

Basically it’s an utterly normal issue. More and more data is collected, increasingly larger amounts of data have to be analysed and made “usable”. And this is the crux of the matter, even NSA faces problems with. Because you can’t see the wood for the trees. And to call for the example of the Needle in the Haystack… As I showed years ago, that “problem” is none, but can be solved quickly with the right tool (a strong magnet)…

But what the “experts” try here, is to find from a randomly found pine tree needle from the forest, all the other needles that originally belonged to the same tree. And the forest grows!

The first, Big-Data-experts came up with, have been personal profiles, coming from a variety of different sources. That Google and Facebook still offer me young Russian ladies for marriage is a good sign that they are way off even that goal. It makes their life not any easier that I don’t work at German Mail in Bonn, neither being the treasurer of Kassel.

Big Data is simply a reality, no “hype”. But it remains a “problem”. To manage “big data”, I need the matching technology on the one side, on the other intelligent and fast fitering algorythms. And as the amount of data grows faster than the processing power, the real problem is predictable. Either I filter the large amount of data very rough, or I filter smaller amount of data very detailed. A question of width and depth of information. So what does NSA do with the data? First, filtering it by catch words and phrases. Then have a highly paid analyst try to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Two dangers:

1. False Positive. This defines information that is incorrectly assessed. I.e. in Spam an important message the computer considers Spam. Is it about people and the NSA, a “false positive” can have devastating repercussions, such as the denial for totally innocent people trying to enter the U.S. (such happening).

2. Privacy Protection. It’s being compromised and I keep lately quoting the former U.S. Presidents Franklin und Truman:

“Those who surrender freedom for security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.” [Benjamin Franklin]

“we want no Gestapo or secret police. FBI is tending in that direction. They are dabbling in sex-life scandals and plain blackmail. J. Edgar Hoover would give his right eye to take over, and all congressmen and senators are afraid of him”. Ersetze FBI durch NSA… Und was, wenn die “Teaparty” tatsächlich an die Macht kommt (vergleichbar bei uns der NPD)? [Harry S. Truman]
Replace FBI by NSA… And what, if the “Tea Party” in the U.S. really get’s to power (comparably our NPD)? We call it something falling into the wrong hands.

In aviation, we also work daily with “big data” and not just British Airways develops ideas to merge their customer profiles with the public profiles of their clients from the Social Networks… We also have to think about how far we want to go. Or if there are other areas of “big data” of interest, such as operations management.

Food for Thought
comments welcome

17.08.2013 Religion

Heresy

Writing last week’s blog, I was confronted again with my criticism of church. For the ones of you who don’t know: I believe in God. Being maybe not what church tells us, but “some higher entity”.

Researching on “heresy”, I sure stumbled over Galileo Galilei. Church-accused of heresy and put under house arrest for the remainder of his life, we nevertheless all know today that church was wrong and our world is not the center of the universe.
Galileo’s approach taking Augustine’s position on Scripture, can be interpreted today as the reminder that the bible was written by people who never heard of contraception, Internet or space flight … Trying to interpret things they could not understand they used metaphors.
So I believe the Bible and especially the life of some Jesus of Nazareth to have a good ethic and moral message, but written and rewritten in centuries after Christ lived, from hearsay, tales and songs, church only declared Christ to be son of god a good 435 years later.

I also deny to condemn people with other believes to hell, as it was Christ who died on the cross to take the sins of humanity until the final day of judgement at the end of the world. Being a Jew himself, I doubt that he made or wanted any differentiation between confessions: “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they are doing”.

And he might have known of some religions, but I am sure the people later interpreting his life never imagined Australia or the Americas. Though isn’t it important to believe in God? Looking at the different churches and religions that raised from the Old Testimony and believing in the same God, they are their worst enemies. Thinking about Manitou as the god of the Indians, his “ghosts” as the angels, I don’t see, why it should not simply be a different understanding of God and his angels, stemming “naturally” from a different history. And in fact, they understood their position as a caretaker of nature, not rulers and destroyers (what blasphemy).

It’s not about church, or the Bible, it is about being a good man. If you interpret the Bible (or the Koran or any other religious foundation) to justify murder, war or theft, you are evil and have a sick understanding of what Christ, Mohammed, Buddha or whoever you believe in wanted.

Is it heresy to question interpretations of church? Is it heresy after millenia of proven mistakes they made? Didn’t church fall in with the Third Reich and condemn Jews happily to death? Did they not enrich themselves by stealing their money? Did they not commit murder and sanction war – in history to date? Are they not accused through time and again to abuse children? No, I do not believe in church. I believe there are many decent people in the churches. About the system I agree with Lazarus Long:

“The most preposterous notion that H. Sapiens has ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all of history.”

And yes, by the way: “The second most preposterous notion is that copulation is inherently sinful.”

Food for Thought
comments welcome

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