Isn’t it cool to know that there is a Boeing 777 with MY initials:

PH-BVB (where PH could stand for Philips Healthcare, the company I work for)

I first ‘met’ PH-BVB flying home from Cairo, what a pleasure!

My wife already told me that ’something’ killed a pigeon in our backyard, we didn’t know what.

The next morning I opened the window and guess who is eating the last pieces?

A ‘Sparrowhawk’, ‘Sperwer’ in dutch, in our backyard, finishing the last remainings of the poor pigeon.

Sometimes during a business trip you run into a real cool place, in this case in Cape Town.

My colleague already prepared me by saying, it’s a 3 star hotel, but I promise you: you will enjoy it.

And I did, what a super cool place, amazing interior and super friendly people.

The elevators are having pictures inside so it looks like you are in a shark cage or the cable car to Table Mountain.

Whenever you plan to visit Cape Town, visit the Protea Fire and Ice hotel.

http://www.proteahotels.com/protea-hotel-fire-and-ice.html

Click HERE for my pictures of South Africa.

Imagine, driving on the German ‘Autobahn’, typically a ‘little bit’ more speed than normal in The Netherlands and the car starts to shake a bit.
The car was a Fiat, so I thought that these vehicles were not prepared to the high speed . . . within a few seconds I saw a lot of smoke behind me, realizing that this could come from my car made be slow down, the car handling got worse and I ended up stopping carefully.
The reason for this all; a REAL flat tire:

Read this post, isn’t Thomas L. Friedman totally right?

From NYT: Reading the news that General Motors and Chrysler are now lining up for another $20 billion or so in government aid — on top of the billions they’ve already received or requested — leaves me with the sick feeling that we are subsidizing the losers and for only one reason: because they claim that their funerals would cost more than keeping them on life support. Sorry, friends, but this is not the American way. Bailing out the losers is not how we got rich as a country, and it is not how we’ll get out of this crisis.

See his original post:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/opinion/22friedman.html?_r=1

I get more and more respect for what THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN writes,

Again the following column is amazingly ‘on the spot’!

Read the whole article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/01/opinion/01friedman.html

That may be President Obama’s most important bailout task: to educate the country that there is no easy escape here, except taking our medicine, getting our fundamentals right again and working our way out of this, brick by brick, by getting back to making money — what was that old Smith Barney ad? — “the old-fashioned way” — by earning it.

Hi all,

I’m just uploading more travel pictures (business travels).

http://basvanbreugel.wordpress.com/pictures/

Hi folks, despite the trouble on the financial market, our business is super busy. Had two ‘long trips’: 1 week South Africa and 1 week Dubai.

We had a blast, good customer responses and perfect weather!

Photos will follow soon!

All readers, have a happy and most important healthy 2009.

Just to have an interesting start of the blogyear, a nice picture about mounting an AC in Russia:

Hi all,

I took some time during the holidays to catch up on several interesting articles about the financial crisis. I have to say, one man always hits the nail on the head: Mr. Thomas L. Friedman.

His book.

I’m still reading in his book ‘The World is Flat’, describing how the world of business works today, it explains it all including why and how India is into the boom.

His column for The New York Times.

Now I’ve found his column on the NYT website. Again, he amazes me with a very clear, detailed and simple explanation why things are happening, and in the end. . . . how serious it is.

One example is the following; a view on the Ponzi Scheme Mr. Madoff has on his name:

“I have no sympathy for Madoff. But the fact is, his alleged Ponzi scheme was only slightly more outrageous than the “legal” scheme that Wall Street was running, fueled by cheap credit, low standards and high greed. What do you call giving a worker who makes only $14,000 a year a nothing-down and nothing-to-pay-for-two-years mortgage to buy a $750,000 home, and then bundling that mortgage with 100 others into bonds — which Moody’s or Standard & Poors rate AAA — and then selling them to banks and pension funds the world over? That is what our financial industry was doing. If that isn’t a pyramid scheme, what is?”

Check the full article here.

Europe.

Friedman describes the situation in China and the USA, but we europeans are in the same situation and the bad news is many of us don’t realize it.

Icesave, Fortis . . . want more examples?

People wake up, the financial system is bankrupt and we will feel the consequences in 2009 (and after). Hopefully your company is strong or smart enough to survive but it all starts with the people on the street!

If you believe you should drive a car you cannot afford, of live in that big house which is simply a little bit to expensive. . . . . . . don’t you see it? I’m getting SICK of all these advertisements for more ways to lend money . . . are people really this stupid? Stop this please!

I still remember the day that I discussed our mortgage; the advise:  why not put it into an investment scheme? “We made an average of more then 8% over the last 5 years”, I still hear the guy talking. . . “sir, off course it’s save, look at the history”.

I did put money into that investment, not the whole sum but only 1000 (so I could see if I was right) and guess . . It’s down the drain today, 8 years after my discussion with the advisor. Not only the US has an issue, the European balloon also emptied within a flash second.

We need a reset, and the only way is to feel the pain.

Unfortunately some people will suffer more than others and I guess your expensive car, large house doesn’t help in this situation.

We are overspending, simply buying too much, too expensive . . .  too stupid?

Who to listen to.

Now tell me WHY did Alan Greenspan not see this coming (wasn’t he the man who knew it all)? It looks like a cheap childrens game: now it’s here, and now it’s gone . . .

In my eyes, two people who get it:

Adam Curry (listen to his podcasts, he invested in GOLD).

Thomas L. Friedman (read his book, and collumn and try to find your way to survive).

Happy 2009