The Red Sox celebrate at Coors Field in Denver after sweeping the Colorado Rockies in the 2007 World Series. Photo credit: Jamie Squire/Getty Images

Nice job, Sox! They really made it look so easy.

Woody Austin of the U.S. Team hits a shot from the water on the 14th hole during round two of the fourball matches at the Presidents Cup. (Photo taken at The Royal Montreal Golf Club on September 28, 2007, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.)

I was in Washington, D.C., last week for a meeting, and one of the conversations at the table had to do with geopolitical risk in the context of doing business overseas. The discussion brought to light many concerns that U.S. firms have when examining the potential opportunity of new markets, especially those deemed as “emerging” by economic standards.

I was searching for some rank or measure to use - independent of financial analysis - to evaluate the stability of a country. I think I may have found such a measure.

According to an article by The Economist, “Pakistan is rated as the least stable of 24 emerging markets surveyed in the Global Political Risk Index produced by Eurasia Group, a global political-risk consultancy. The monthly index uses a range of qualitative and quantitative indicators to measure both the capacity of countries to withstand shocks and their susceptibility to internal crises. Uncertainty over Pakistan’s political future, the country goes to the polls on October 6th, keeps it at the bottom. Iran and Nigeria vie with it for vulnerability to surprises. Hungary is considered the most likely to withstand trouble at home or from abroad.”

What’s interesting here is that South Korea, for example, is high on the list of risky places, but also ranks very high (32 out of 141) with regard to economic freedom.

The question then becomes, is it more advantageous to open your economy to new investments and development and hope such developments reduce risk, or is it better to stay closed and control the risk without the pressures of the broad market? And, as a firm, which risk is more easily mitigated — Those of the future of a country’s economy, or the future of its political structure? I clearly have more thinking to do on this topic and welcome any comments.

Happy eleventh birthday, Upbeat and Downstairs!

This site, in some form or another, was vaulted onto the World Wide Web eleven years ago today. As is customary over the past few years, it’s time for a little ego boost and a quick recap of the hit stats. Drum roll please…

As of yesterday’s logs, this site received roughly 2.3 million hits over the past 52 weeks, from just over 50 countries. That’s right - even French Guiana and Belarus are among the country hit lists. (Spasiba!)

As the title of the NY Times article states, this is definitely the ultimate company perk: An uncrowded, federally managed runway for their private jet that is only a few minutes’ drive from their offices.

From the article:

For $1.3 million a year, Larry Page and Sergey Brin get to park their customized wide-body Boeing 767-200, as well as two other jets used by top Google executives, on Moffett Field, an airport run by NASA that is generally closed to private aircraft.

Now executives in Silicon Valley are jealous beyond all belief, and are trying to get in on the action. Google was able to secure the contract by agreeing to place scientific instruments and researchers on planes used by the Google founders. NASA gets scientific data, and Google gets a great perk.

It seems like a perfectly sound arrangement, but the local community is, not surprisingly, getting a bit antsy about the decision. Moffett Field was supposed to remain a small air base, with little traffic outside of scientific missions. Now that the Google boys have brought some attention to the area, residents and business owners alike are concerned about its potential growth.

Infighting aside, I understand that the 767-200 in question is quite posh. When it was being refurbished in 2006, requests were filed for king-size beds in the bedrooms and hammocks hung in the main cabin. Very nice.

I am really pleased with how these two recent photographs came out, and wanted to share. Click on them for the larger versions.