A Plastic Life

He focuses on the plastic.

Looking down at it, focused.

His voice disintegrates into textual ashes.

The world fades away, sober.

His fingertips extend virtual touches,

But fail to capture the soul’s thunder.

Yet he focuses on this plastic.

Like magic.

Looking down at it, hypnotized.

Looking sideways he dares not,

For his life lives in this gadget.

Connected to all,

Yet disconnected from life.

He lives on the plastic.

Reaching out for it, excited!

The mastery of the swipe!

Enslaves his soul to his skill,

Leading him to confound

Fantasy with what’s real.

He owns the thing, yes,

But fails to feel

The warm pleasure of joining a family’s evening meal.

His soul becomes plastic.

A hard processed thing; a lifeless fiction,

With no desires, no Life!

i.e. no dialectical contradictions,

With no fire, no spark!

Nothing

But for the plastic’s cancerous fruition.

On Revolutions, Tectonic Plates and Oil Prices

The price of oil has risen dramatically over the past few months. Oil prices have shot up 20% since December 2010 and are more than double what they were in 2005. What role, if any, has civil unrest in the Middle East and the Japanese tsunami’s aftermath played in this price increase?

Check out my new article at: http://balise.info/EN/balise-issue-2_4.php

Making sense of life

We are, therefore, divided by two great forces,
Our development shaped dualistically,
Our existence, binarily.
Divided by life and death,
Heaven and hell,
Right and wrong,
Positive and negative,
Light and darkness.
What lies in between lives in our memories.
Like a bridge that floats
Isolated from it's destination.

Where time and space intersect,
Where man and nature interact,
Where land and sea meet,
When semen and ovary combine,
The potency of the Divine is witnessed,
No void exists then.
The spirit of life continues to live in linear form.
We do not evolve, nor do we progress.
We merely peel off the next layer
Of what has already been crafted for us.

The magic of life is the experience;
Its tragedy: not being able to make sense of it.

Can Trade Law Prevent War?

Can trade promote cooperation and consequently prevent war?

Can trade law, in promoting trade, prevent war?

I've written a new article exploring these issues - feel free to read it at USLEXCODEX by clicking here.

Can Brazil bite without BITs?

"Brazil is not an emerging market. It has already emerged."

Brazil has been attracting an enviable amount of FDI in the past few years. Oh yes, we all know that the 'B' in the BRIC acronym stands for Brazil and that the country is set to become one of the biggest economies in the world by 2050. Yes, we also know that the country has found a colossal amount of oil off its coast which could place it amongst the biggest oil exporters in the planet. We are also aware that a number of companies once known as the emblem of Western life are now owned by Brazilians (Burger King, Budweiser, Keystone Foods, Pride etc).
We are not, however, conscious that Brazil has been somewhat of a rebel in the international investment arena. Indeed, the country has never ratified a bilateral investment treaty (BIT). It has signed some, but never ratified them. BITs offer numerous protections to foreign investors. Brazil, however, claims that its domestic legal system is enough to protect the investment of foreigners. The country does recognize arbitration as a dispute resolution method but - it is argued - lacks the formalism granted to investors by a BIT.

Despite the absence of BITs in the Brazilian legal fabric, FDI continues to pour in the country at the same rate that I pour champagne in my guest's flute glasses on New Year's Eve. FDI-wise, Brazil is "on a roll". Nothing seems to be able to hold it back. (I, on the other hand, should probably limit my alco-hospitality this year.)

Does the Brazilian experience suggest that in some cases BITs aren't necessary to attract FDI? Can investors nonetheless rely on international customary law to protect themselves in Brazil? Would Brazil's ratification of BITs further increase FDI?

I'm currently looking at these issues. Your thoughts on the matter would be greatly appreciated. Do not hesitate to drop me a line on lucasvelozo@hotmail with your views.

Happy New Year!

UK and US Takeovers

The hostile takeover is a powerful tool of corporate governance. In this context, takeover defences have evolved into increasingly complex and varied corporate weapons, with the goal of protecting target companies from the threat of hostile acquisitions. Nowadays, a large set of takeover defences exists. Despite their popularity, these defences remain controversial. Advocates of such defensive devices maintain that they increase the ability of target management to extract a higher price for target shares, as well as protect implicit labour contracts and pensions of target employees. Opponents of such devices argue that resistance reduces the probability of takeover and favours managerial entrenchment. And as a result target shareholders are worse off overall. Existing empirical work has been unable to resolve this issue since the effect of defensive devices on the value of target firms is inconclusive.

Despite clear similarities between their business and legal structures, the United Kingdom and the United States have not only pursued strikingly different models of corporate takeover regulation but also in the methods by which tactics are employed to counter takeovers i.e. via defensive mechanisms. As Armour and Skeel noted, “surprisingly little attention has been paid to the very significant differences in takeover regulation between the two countries.” This two-part post will set out the different takeover defences existent in both jurisdictions as well as try to review and compare them. Check it out by clicking here.

Back to The Future: The Living Contract's Tale

A contract is a legal instrument that binds the promisors to their original promise. To some, it may appear that signing a contract is the act of setting in stone the agreement to the effect that it becomes inflexible and unchangeable. In other words, what is done is done.

But the Futures Contract is different. It wrestles with the weather, wars and world trade. It lives in the promisors' future; a future not yet materialized. The price may be set today - but the sale only occurs tomorrow. It evolves; it is elastic. The transferability of the futures contract reminds me of a nomad: it doesn't quite know where it'll end up but it will end up somewhere.

Eventually, however, this great journey through time comes to an abrupt end. We all know that at some point, the present - now past? - catches up with the future. And so does the futures contract, as it dies in the sea of trades in the futures exchange floor. Eventually, the commodity is sold and consumed. What is done is done.

In Towne v. Eisner 245 U.S. 418 at 425. (1918) Hobhouse J stated:

"A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged; it is the skin of living thought and may vary greatly in colour and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used."

In similar fashion, the futures contract is not set in crystal like other contracts. It is the skin of living international commerce and although it may vary greatly in colour(?), content and value, it will invariably remain subordinate to its internal explosive device: Time.