I’ve talked about Hugo Chavez before. He’s a man who clearly doesn’t like to be told what to do.

So when ExxonMobil took Venezuela to court for illegally seizing its oil assets in the country and asking that some $12 billion be frozen, Chavez wasn’t happy (to put it mildly.) From the AP:

“If you end up freezing (Venezuelan assets) and it harms us, we’re going to harm you,” Chavez said. “Do you know how? We aren’t going to send oil to the United States. Take note, Mr. Bush, Mr. Danger.”

“The outlaws of Exxon Mobil will never again rob us,” Chavez said, saying the Irving, Texas-based oil major acts in concert with “the imperialist government of the United States” and is part of corporate “worldwide mafias.”

You have to admit, the quotes make you chuckle.

“Mr. Danger”???

I doubt President Bush has been called that before.

But what if Chavez is crazy enough to really do it?

It wouldn’t make sense for his country, as we know. The US is Venezuela’s largest crude customer. We’re one of the few countries which can refine the less-refined type of crude.

For the US, Venezuela provides 15 percent of our imports.

Would Chavez really cut off its largest crude customer at a time when unemployment is skyrocketing in the country and inflation is running at over 10%?

Crazier things have been done, I’m afraid.

Stay tuned.

A strange thing happened when I was in Allegan, Michigan (population 4500) over the Thanksgiving holiday. I overheard the following conversation between a middle aged man and woman:

“I talked with AT&T and they said I don’t have the right cables so I can’t get the internet.”

“I called them too and I don’t have it yet either. What do you do on the internet?”

“You surf and look up things.”

“Can’t my identity be stolen on the internet? What else do I do on there?”

“You look up information. It’s cool.”

Apparently, the country has a long way to go with understanding the internet. But more interesting to me was that in this town of 4500 (which is small, but not horribly small) which is only an hour from Grand Rapids and 2 1/2 hours from Chicago, regular tax paying Americans still can’t get access to the internet in their homes. It’s not that they couldn’t afford to pay for it- they couldn’t even get it. The phone company told them they weren’t wired to get it.

Sorry, no DSL for you.

This seemed very strange to me. Living in Chicago, I just assumed that everyone was as connected as we are. That all across the country you could stroll into coffee shops and cafes and plug in your laptop and have free wifi. Not to mention in your house. What, with Cyber Monday and all? Who doesn’t have internet access in their home now? (if they want it and can afford it?)

Apparently, quite a few people are not yet on the information superhighway.

I started investigating this and it turns out that not even 3/4th of the U.S. population has access to the internet. From Internet World Stats:

But at least we’re kicking b*tt versus other countries.

What a source of pride! Our kids watch more YouTube videos than yours. Nah, nah, nah, nah.

These stats make me think that there is a bright future for the likes of, say, Google and their ever growing ad revenue. The internet has a long way to grow if these statistics are correct.

This week, Airbus finally launched its new jumbo jet, the A380, with its first maiden commercial flight. The flight was two years late, as a wiring problem delayed delivery of the jet to customers.

The maiden flight carried 455 passengers and 30 crew.

This was the first launch of a jumbo jetliner that many hope would revolutionize the airline industry since the launch of the Boeing 747 in 1970.

In 1970

Boeing 747 introduced
First double decker commerical airplane
Airline: PanAm
Destination: New York to London

Check out these comparison pictures from flightglobal.com:

In 2007

Airbus A380 introduced
Double decker commerical airplane
50% more space than the 747-400
Airline: Singapore Airlines
Destination: Singapore to Sydney

Interestingly, there was one passenger who flew on both flights. When he was 17, Thomas Lee was on board the flight from New York to London. This time, Singapore Airlines invited him to again be on board another historic flight. From the Herald Sun:

“This plane, of course, is bigger and it’s very quiet,” Mr Lee said.

“I don’t think one is better than the other, they’re both amazing planes. But this is exhilarating.”

The 747 maiden flight actually had a few snafus. The Chicago Tribune had a reporter on this week’s flight and the Tribune commented on the differences with the 747 launch:

Nor did the launch of the Boeing 747, the first jumbo jet, go as smoothly. The initial flight was called off as pilots spotted flames coming out of an engine. Pan Am shipped the passengers off to a restaurant while it brought in a back-up jet, Lee said.

According to a Chicago Tribune account of that day, 20 of the 362 passengers who’d been booked on the flight decided not to press their luck and headed home. Remarked television personality David Susskind during the delay: “It was the most sensational flight experience I have ever had.”

Hmm…flames shooting out of an engine? No doubt the 20 passengers who bailed were thinking they were pretty smart to pass on the historic flight.

Singapore Airlines has configured this plane with 399 economy seats, 60 business seats and 12 enclosed suites- which allow nearly complete privacy. The suites are kind of like the suites you can find on luxury trains without your own bathroom.

Other airlines will soon be getting their jet deliveries, with the Emirates and Quantas scheduled to start using the jet in the next 12 months. Each airline will configure their jets to their own specifications.

Passengers on this maiden voyage were airplane buffs from all over the world, with many paying very inflated prices for the right to say they were “first” in flying on the plane. Singapore Airlines, in a good bit of PR, donated all the ticket sales proceeds to charity.

The flight was significant for various reasons, but the most important, to me, being that it wasn’t from New York or London to some other destination. The first flight of this important aircraft took place exclusively in Asia. Not an American airport even mentioned.

The airline too, Singapore Airlines, couldn’t be further from an American or European dominated airlines. And no American or European airline is scheduled to even get the plane in the next year. Singapore Airlines clearly saw this as a source of pride (and rightly so). Their CEO, who was on the flight, told the Tribune:

“This is Asia’s century,” said David Chew.

Yes, that much is obvious.

Forgive me, but I’m going to defend Wal-Mart today. Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal ran a front page coverstory called, “Wal-Mart Era Wanes Amid Big Shifts in Retail” and in it the article discussed how Wal-Mart’s numbers weren’t so hot, it was struggling in the international market, it was having trouble getting new customers in the US and how other retailers were kicking its behind.

All may be true.

But the tone of the article was one announcing the death of Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart’s story is over. Fini.

One of the examples cited was where Pepsi decided to launch a new energy drink in Whole Foods, instead of going with Wal-Mart. According to the article, Wal-Mart is Pepsi’s largest customer, accounting for $3.16 billion in sales of drinks and snack foods. And apparently, this decision to go with Whole Foods on this one item, means that it’s “over” for Wal-Mart.

PepsiCo said:

“We thought that was the best place to introduce and test it,” says PepsiCo spokesman David DeCecco. Whole Foods customers’ “health and wellness” profile better match that of likely Fuelosophy buyers than Wal-Mart’s, he says. He declined to name which other retailers were considered for the rollout.

Since when is Whole Foods even Wal-Mart’s “competitor”?

If, in this example, PepsiCo had decided to give the business to Target instead- then yes, I would be a bit more concerned if I were Wal-Mart.

But they’re not even in similar consumer space. Wal-Mart’s average customer has an income of $30,000 and Whole Foods is something like $55,000 or $60,000. Whole Foods opens its stores in certain demographic neighborhoods that are wholely in opposition to where a Wal-Mart would necessarily open. I would also hazard to guess that most of Wal-Mart’s customers have never been in a Whole Foods.

These are completely different markets.

The article takes Wal-Mart to task for struggling to “overhaul its down-market, politically incorrect image while other discounters pitched themselves as more upscale and more palatable alternatives.” All of this amid, what the author describes as, “the country’s growing affluence.”

Really? Are we really that much richer?

Does this Wall Street Journal writer live in Manhattan? If he does, then, yes, I would think you would believe the country is growing more affluent. Otherwise, the middle class and lower middle class look pretty much unchanged to me.

What gets me about the article is that it’s almost like the author is saying there is something wrong with catering to the lower class masses. This is exactly what Sam Walton wanted to do with his stores. His stores weren’t Neiman Marcus and that was just fine. The lower classes (and yes, I’m calling them that) also need somewhere to shop that is, frankly, cheap.

That’s not to say that I don’t think there are things wrong with Wal-Mart’s business model right now. Rival Target has managed to grow its market by taking the cache of the wealthy and the products they love and offering them at low prices (such as the clothes by worldwide designers.)

But that’s not why I go to Wal-Mart. Or why my 87 year old grandmother goes there. As she told me a few months ago, “I go to Wal-Mart to buy my hair dye. It’s only $2.50 a box.”

And that is why the death of Wal-Mart is, frankly, premature.