Mark’s Bloomin’ Journal

The following comes from a June 14th advertisement published in The Hill of Washington, a congressional newspaper that publishes daily when Congress is in session, and has a special focus on business, lobbying, and political campaigns.

I think it might better be taken in the context that it is coming from what might be viewed as a leftist regime that is quick to condemn the US as it rather quickly moves towards a Cuban-and Venezuelan- style tyranny. While we most likely want to help Ecuador’s private sector we must understand that Rafael Correa is likely to emulate Chavez and trash it anyway. While Correa is demanding access to the worlds greatest market he refuses to give the US much access to the Ecuadorian market. I am sure that the US oil interests represented by Occidental have their own spin on all this as they witnessed the seizure of their operations under the guise of their being viewed as “yanqui imperialism”. Mr Correa seems to want it every which way but equitable as he trys to salvage billions in trade and 350,000 of his countrymen’s jobs. Even if the trade pact might ultimately fail the US will still end up with imports…other than either roses or cocain…Illegal immigrants, voting with their feet.

A rose is a rose, except when it is all that stands between the US and the illegal drug trade.Thanks to the Andean Trade Preferences and Drug Eradication Act (ATPDEA), Ecuador is the only country in the region with zero coca cultivation. That is because Ecuadoreans enjoy something that most poor countries lack—jobs.

Since 1991, ATPDEA in Ecuador alone has created 350,000 jobs in thousands of local businesses that export legal agricultural products like vegetables and, yes, roses to the US, benefiting not just the local economy but the more than 100 American companies that work and invest in Ecuador.

Without ATPDEA, these rural workers could be forced into a far less savory enterprise—coca farming—rolling back the advances against drug-trafficking. ATPDEA is the most effective weapon in the war on drugs. It’s a big deal to Ecuador and a good deal for the United States. We urge Congress to move quickly to extend this Act.

ATPDEA. Good for us. Good for the US .

This is just wrong, this getting up at 3.30AM. No way is this enough sleep…to go anywhere on, let alone PDX airport and then another airport and onto yet another airport somewhere, someplace halfway down the globe. But then I have invited it upon myself as for a few years I have angled for a trip to Quito, especially if it falls during the school year! Delta’s middle seats are no better than awful, especially when the people sitting either side of you ooze both over and under the seat arms and into your already meager space. It really is too bad that at the very last second an alert ticket agent (who, doing the math at five in the morning finds me five months shy of being age enough to take my assigned seat in the exit row…despite my being near six feet tall and far more athletic than the portly sloth now assigned to it). Portland recedes and Atlanta approaches and then comes Quito but only after being treated to a beautiful sunset as we transect the Florida Keys above Islamorada (more…)

A recent WSJ article focused on the increasing frequency of children accompanying a parent on business trips. I for one, attempt to rope in one or other of my children on business trips as I really enjoy their company, it is an invaluable opportunity to have conversations otherwise never broached, it reinforces the understanding that money really does not grow on trees and at the same time as I formulate views and opinions on what I see and hear I can bank on the unvarnished insite of a party with a vested interest and refreshing point of view. All this over dinner in some far flung spot when eating alone is so obviously not what I wish or enjoy. (more…)