Cubans Can Have Cell Phones
Telecommunications infrastructure is important for any country, especially in this new information age. The quality of the infrastructure is just one part of the equation, the other part is accessibility to the infrastructure. It seems like Cuba is moving a little more to improved accessibility to telecom infrastructure.
As of today, ordinary Cubans can now own cellphones.They are able to sign up for prepaid contracts on cellphones. Granted they have to pay for them in convertible pesos and the phones will be out of reach for most Cubans, but it does signal a shift to greater telecom accessibility and this could be a very good thing for the Cuban economy.
Finding A Good VOIP Number
I have been busy looking for a VOIP number that can be used from a softphone anywhere on the internet and is cheap. I am not interested in one that needs to have some sort of hardware phone or device. I also want it to be affordable in cost. You’d think it would be easy to get, right?
You’d think wrong. I have a very difficult time trying to find one online. I am basically left with going with Skype which I suppose is ok. I’d love to hear some suggestions on a 100% softphone VOIP solution that can run under Linux. Maybe I should look more into Ekiga?
So, give me your suggestions of a cheap number, ok?
Moving Out of The Home
Sometimes working at home is very productive and it’s nice to be able to spend time with the family, but lately I have been looking at getting office space. At home, it is too distracting to do my work. Even though I am only doing part time work, if I could find an affordable office location, I could be able to make my work time even more productive.
Its hard to tell the kids that Daddy is working. In fact, my youngest says that he is working every time he plays a computer game and even as I write this, he is hanging off of my shoulder making sure my writing is good enough.
Now comes the search for business office space
Argentina Farmers Protest Taxes
I was reading today that farmers in Argentina are up in arms over new export taxes. These export taxes only affect the food products that are exported. Foods that remain in the country do not have these taxes. In effect, it’s a way to make it more financially advantageous to sell food locally and that keeps inflation down.
In a normal market, this could be atrocious, but we are not in a normal market. Commodity prices around the world have soared and farmers have likewise seen their income increase. I think it’s perfectly acceptable for a country to make a decision that feeding its own people at a reasonable price is more important than having some farmers make windfall profits.
Just my opinion.
Is The Commodity Run Over?
It’s interesting, last weekend it looked like the sky was falling down. Bear Stearns was being bought, the credit crunch was on, the dollar was going down fast and gold was the safe haven. But something funny happened. People started to realize that a bottom may have been reached.
What happened? The dollar stabilized and gold shed nearly 10% off of its value in the last few days. It’s leading a pullout in other commodities as well. Many of them have a long ways to go down, but if these trends hold, the economy could be finding itself on a lot more solid footing in the next few months.
If this trend is holding, maybe it is time to get into real estate and other assets that have been pushed down.