Why did Jeff Bezos buy the Washington Post?
Güven Sak, PhD
09 August 2013
Amazon has begun to move toward producing a light newspaper, or even a magazine. I think it is necessary to look at the purchase of the Washington Post by Jeff Bezos within this framework. This is a new and interesting era, one in which even Big Ben has a Twitter account. It bongs every hour and tweets another bong every half hour. Now its chimes can be heard not only in Westminister, but all around the world. You know Big Ben, the famous clock at the Palace of Westminster in London. It is like the trademark of London. It seems to have kept up with the times so as to make its chimes heard. Today everyone puts their twitter account on their resumes. After all, we are talking about 500 million users. Meanwhile, the number of Facebook accounts has exceeded 1.2 billion. This is the reality of
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Turkey’s prospects
Nihat Ali Özcan, PhD
09 August 2013
Turkey’s political, psychological and security climate is getting heavier. Three elections lie ahead along with significant developments that can affect the process. At the top of the list is the Kurdish question. Negotiations with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the developments in Syria are triggering a drastic change in its character.
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Why are Africans so optimistic?
Güven Sak, PhD
06 August 2013
According to the results of a global poll on optimism, African countries dominate US-based research company Gallup recently released the results of a poll on optimism in countries around the world. According to this, African countries have a high share among the most optimistic 10 countries. This was the most shocking result of the survey to me. I will not talk about Turkey’s ranking in the league of optimism. Rather I will address why Greece and France are extremely pessimistic while Turkmenistan, let’s say, is quite optimistic. While I was checking the poll results I recalled my conversation on a plane from Afghanistan’s capital Kabul with a gentlemen sitting next to me. I will get to that in a minute. But for starters, I believe that the people who intend to govern Turkey must acknowled
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Turkey’s evaporating competitive advantage
Fatih Özatay, PhD
06 August 2013
Competitive advantage based on exchange rate proves temporary in the end turning into inflation and fading away shortly. Consumer price inflation (CPI) figures for July were released yesterday. Annual CPI reached 8.9 percent. The hike in the headline indicator (the l index) is particularly worrisome. The indicator floated within a narrow corridor over the last eight months averaging 5.7 percent while in July it reached 6.1 percent.
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Non-revolving funds, part-time, and full night
Fatih Özatay, PhD
03 August 2013
The full-time law forced professors of medicine to choose between private practice and hospitals. Think of an industrialist who throws away half of the functioning and vital machinery in his production facility. It does not make sense, does it? Let’s say that he did that for some reason and will bear the consequences. Assume that the facility produces fundamental machinery that new businesses require to open up factories and engage with production. The country has only a few of businesses producing such inputs. If the owners decide to throw away the ticking machinery, you cannot say “their business, their concern.” Right? Or assume that due to a decision of the economic management, a considerable proportion of the machinery becomes useless and dysfunctional. This affects the production of
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Turkey’s acute shortage of skills
Güven Sak, PhD
03 August 2013
It’s the creative class that makes a country tick. I see two trends regarding the one in Turkey. Firstly, in the wake of the Gezi Park incident in Istanbul, Turkey is still pursuing a vendetta against its creative class. Why? It was the creative class that took to the streets in late May and early June. Quarrelling with your best thinkers is a bad idea if you are going for an innovative jump in the economy. That brings me to the second trend: Turkey is suffering from an acute shortage of skills. That is common knowledge, but it appears now that this is getting worse. That is what makes the first trend more dangerous in the short to medium term. I am using the term creative class a la Richard Florida. These are the young urban professionals of Turkey: scientists, engineers, compu
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Neither you, nor the politicians are aware
Güven Sak, PhD
02 August 2013
It is expected that by 2018 fifty billion machines will be communicating with each other. The amount of data is astonishing. The world’s population is around seven billion. Out of this, 1.2 billion have Facebook accounts. One billion use Youtube and Google. There are 500 million Twitter accounts, with 200 million actively tweeting. Three hundred million people save and share their documents in the Cloud. We know what others like, wonder, and follow. POS devices connect companies. They can learn instantly what store is on which street, what products are sold faster or what the best location for setting up your supply chain is. That’s not all. The electricity and water meters in your home are now able to communicate with each other. Your mobile phone constantly gives signals about where you
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First praises, then criticisms
Fatih Özatay, PhD
01 August 2013
Citing temporary incidents of “success” as evidence to the anti-inflationary efforts is just not nice. Do you check the reports and studies the Central Bank (CBT) releases? The vast majority of them are just wonderful. This makes me particularly proud as I used to work at and direct the research unit for a long time. A large group of experts for whom the top universities of Turkey would compete to employ work at the CBT. The Bank achieves this high research quality by prioritizing education. It attracts the best of best young brains who studied in the top universities of Turkey. It sponsors the graduate studies of these bring people and sends them to the best universities of the world. The Bank has been implementing this model for a long time now. In addition, it attracts professionals who
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Syrian Kurds and the Turkish government
Nihat Ali Özcan, PhD
01 August 2013
The Turkish government thought the Syrian uprising was going to end in no time. Bashar al-Assad was going to fall soon, to be replaced by “our close friends,” the Muslim Brotherhood. With “our boys” in power, a broad Middle Eastern alliance was going to be established. This plan seemed sound with no real obstruction in sight. Of course, things didn’t turn out as planned. Al-Assad enjoyed an unexpected level of international support, cleverly implemented his counterinsurgency strategies and reinforced his position. The armed opposition, however, remained fragmented and disorderly.Unlike the early days of the conflict, Turkey is trying to deal with economic, social, diplomatic and security problems caused by Syria. The most important issue on both the government’s and the people’s
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Credit cards increase women’s employment
Güven Sak, PhD
30 July 2013
Credit card usage increases registered employment, both overall and among women. Banks modernize Turkey’s economy. Turkey is at the bottom among European countries in terms of female labor force participation, but it is at the top in terms of POS device usage. It ranks third in Europe in terms of the number of credit card and bank cards in use with two credit cards per person on average. The prevalence of POS devices is promising for women’s employment. Studies reveal that registered employment, overall and among women, increases in Turkey as credit card usage increases. I want to note this down to validate once again that without banks, modernization would be a daydream for Turkey. So, here is the deal:
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