The World's Newest Banking System

On July 9^th, 2011, South Sudan became the newest country on the planet.  The South Sudanese government setup a unique South Sudanese pound and a central banking system.  Alice Liu’s lecture and the two videos email to us illustrated the complexity of a country’s banking system, and thus creating this complex system in a new country must be difficult to say the least.  After doing some extensive research (a robust Google search), I was able to find information on how this new South Sudanese government is going about creating and maintaining a central banking system.  As in most every other central banking system in the world, the Bank of Southern Sudan (BSS) uses modern electronic technology to help keep the banking system network connected and operational.  A was able to locate the document of policies that Southern Sudan models its banking system off of (http://www.bankofsouthernsudan.org/docs/THE%20CENTRAL%20BANK%20OF%20SUDAN%20POLICIES%202008.pdf), and was able to find several examples of how modern mobile media is propelling a country with out of date infrastructure into the 21^st century.

                First off, the BSS is attempting to teach its employees how to use the lasted electronic networking systems and programs by having them use Facebook and other social media sites.  In an attempt to learn from other systems that have already modernized within Africa, the central banks of South Sudan are reaching out to others through Facebook in hopes of learning the best and most efficient banking models.

                The BSS is also trying to modernize its banking system through the establishment of a Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) System.  An RTGS allows for the transferring of money from one bank to another in real time.  In other comparably poor nations, the transferring of money from one bank to another may take several days if not weeks to be fulfilled, and often the transferring has to be done by someone either on foot or by car, bus, train, etc.  This process is very time consuming and leads to the populace of an underdeveloped nation being less productive with the limited amount of time in a day.  With RTGS systems, ATMs are being put up all across South Sudan according to the website of the Bank of Southern Sudan (http://bankofsouthernsudan.org/home.php).

                Through modern electronic communication technology, the banking system of South Sudan has also setup a Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication or SWIFT network.  A SWIFT network is a internationally connected messaging system for financing.  Messages are able to be passed through the network to different banks as well as other financial institutions.  Through a SWIFT network, a country’s currency exchange rate is much easier and more reliable to establish.  With independence has also come a new currency for South Sudan.  The South Sudanese Pound currently has a one-to-one exchange rate with the Sudanese Pound, which is the currency of the country that South Sudan used to be a part of.  A “currency war” between Sudan and South Sudan has begun according to the BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14267746) in the face of the original Sudanese government recently issuing out a new currency to its people.  The International Business Times has estimated that the South Sudanese Pound will have about a three-to-one exchange rate with the dollar in the beginning.  None of the exchange rate calculations for the South Sudanese Pound could be accomplished if the BSS did not put in the effort to establish a SWIFT network. 

                The creations of these electronic technological banking operations (RTGS and SWIFT), which we might find to be basic in this country (USA #1), are becoming the backbone of the world’s newest banking system. 

Believe What You Want

              Like many young Americans I get the majority of my news from the Daily Show with Jon Stewart and the Colbert Report.  Beyond the mere humor, there is something else about the two programs that make political news easier to digest.  While more serious cable news programs use paranoia and fear to drive home an often times bias political point of view, the two “fake” news programs on Comedy Central use calmness and decorum to satirically poke holes in the credibility of both politicians and other news sources.  From watching the Daily Show and the Colbert Report, one can see just how absurd cable news programs on stations such as Fox News and MSNBC are, which begs the question wh  y anyone would continue watching these programs?  How do they maintain respectable ratings?  

                To answer this question I of course turn to the very serious news program that is the Colbert Report.  On Mr. Colbert’s July 11^th show he welcomed guest Michael Shermer (link to interview below).  

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/391554/july-11-2011/michael-shermer  

Michael Shermer is a science writer and editor for Skeptic Magazine who new book Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies – How we construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths, helps to explain why people seek out information and opinions that they already agree with.  As Mr. Shermer said in his interview, “Are brains are like lawyers who lawyer data to fit our beliefs” (Mr. Colbert asked if our brains are charging us by the hour).  He continued to explain that we as politically-minded people “who will only find and remember the data that supports what we believe”.  This is why conservatives will flock towards news programs such as Hannity, O’Reily and Beck, while liberals will seek out and watch Rachel Maddow’s news program on MSNBC.  I think the notion that people only want to hear what they already believe explains the popularity of such right-leaning talk radio programs as Rush Limbaugh.

                Mr. Shermer used an analogy to explain why the human brain does seek out information it is already sure of.  He gave the example of a tribesman who was walking through the African desert 3.5 million years ago.  While the tribesman is walking, he suddenly hears a rustling sound coming from some bushes.  The tribesman has two choices.  He can go towards the bushes, look around, and assess the situation (i.e. find out what is making the sound), or he can assume the sound is being made by a snake and blindly attack the bush.  Mr. Shermer makes the point that humans do not like the feeling of taking time to assess the situation when they do not know for sure what the situation holds (i.e. is the snake in the bushes?).  Thus Americans ensure themselves of what they want to think (snake is in the bushes) and look for news sources that reinforce these beliefs.

                This analogy may not fit perfectly, but the general idea is understood.  Americans like to hear what they already believe.  Our last lecturer, Andrew Smith, also made this point when describing the research the Pew Research Center.  To see how true this statement is, I decided to explore the comments on the webpages of Fox News and MSNBC to see how many of them are consistent with the deemed political views of the news organization.  Do only conservatives really go on Fox News?  Do any comment on the pages of MSNBC, and vice versa?

                For this study I will look at an opinion pieces written by each news station in the past week and record how many liberal or conservative comments were posted.  While this little study is by no means properly scientific (the sample size will be too small due to lack of time), I think the study will give a clearer view of who follows which news sources for politics. 

                The first piece I looked at was on Fox News’ opinion webpage titled “President Obama doesn’t know the First Thing about Economics” (http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/07/16/president-obama-doesnt-know-first-thing-about-economics/#comment).  Going solely on the title, it is quite obviously an article written from a conservative point of view.  At the time there were 24 comments on the article. 23 were supporting the conservative view, while only one, written by a man named Terry, supported President Obama.  Terry was then berated in the next series of comments.  Few of the comments were moderate in their criticism of Obama.  And what I found even more interesting was that the criticism of Obama that the readers wrote about were often now about the economy (the subject of the article).  Many of the commenters railed on Obama for not making his Harvard academic records public.  Others railed on the mainstream media (they are protecting Obama says a reader whose account name is libh8r).  Another comment even made fun of Al Gore for claiming he invented the internet (not related to the current economic situation in anyway).  More and more comments keep coming in, and while a few support a liberal view, the vast majority seem to be coming from staunchly conservative readers.

                The piece I looked at on MSNBC’s opinion webpage is a copy of Rupert Murdoch’s apology letter he sent out in the wake of the terrible phone hacking scandal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_of_the_World_phone_hacking_scandal).  

Here is the letter of apology,  http://www.typophile.com/node/83817 .

                    There are 7 comments underneath on MSNBC’s opinion webpage and all are mocking the conservative media mogul.  The comments also take shots at our News Corp leaders such as Roger Ailes.  One comment by James Mc even references that the current budget situation would be solved if Murdoch was put in jail and Fox News cancelled.  All in all, the comments are very liberal.

So I guess this little study proved what Mr. Smith and Mr. Shermer had already said.  Are minds are thus wired to pick out the information that already best suits us.     People do not like to have their ideals challenged.  We do not want to be unsure of what they believe.  Going back to the analogy, we do not like not knowing what is making the rustling sound in the bush.  

According to TED: The faults of healthcare information services

It was about halfway through Jody Ranck’s lecture last Tuesday night when I heard him refer to somebody named Ted.  I did not know who this “Ted” was, which was quite annoying, for I had remembered that the past two lectures before Mr. Ranck also mentioned this mysterious Ted fellow.  Was Ted the world’s smartest man?  I would assume he was, considering the amount of knowledge he must possess in order to be referenced in lectures about climate change, education in the classroom, and now global health care services.  I came to the conclusion that Ted must be a superhero, who only goes by the name Ted when he is not flying around the world picking up bits of knowledge in various fields.  Thus I was a little disappointed when I actually googled “Ted” and found that he had no supernatural powers.  “Ted” was not even a single person.  TED, standing for technology, entertainment, and design, is a series of conferences held across the world that strive to promote innovative ideas, or as the conference’s tag line reads: Ideas worth spreading.  In regards to health care and information systems, which was the topic of Mr. Ranck’s lecture, TED has a series of conferences titled TEDMED.  The conferences feature speakers and authors who have specialized and experienced the real world applications of innovation in health information systems.  One of these speakers was Eric Dishman, a high-level Intel employee.  Dishman gave a lecture at TEDMED (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3OhcpK-UBc)  that discussed how healthcare services need to become more personalized in order to be more both cost and performance efficient (This was one of the major themes of Mr. Ranck’s lecture as well).  Dishman tells the story of a 90-year old woman, who after suffering a broken pelvis from a fall, ends up dying because a doctor prescribed her a drug (Tylenol), which the elderly woman was allergic to.  Dishman then revels the elderly woman was his wife’s grandmother and makes the point that if medical confusion can happen to someone who was wealthy, connected, and spoke English, then it could happen more frequently to billions of people across the globe who did not have the same resources as Dishman’s grandmother.  Dishman’s solution is to have a chip developed that would keep track of everyone’s personal medical information.  A chip like this, Dishman argues, would have prevented the death of the old woman.  This shift to personalized health care was featured in this week’s reading, and can be compared to the shift that occurred in computing in recent history.  In the 1970’s, computers were big and bulky.  They were not connected to each other, and only experts operated them.  Yet as technology advanced, the computer became more personalized to the average person.  The computer became smaller.  Computers became interconnected to each other through the Internet, and now anyone can use a computer, not just experts (remember the OLPC program last week).  The same thing needs to happen with healthcare services and information.  Right now healthcare services are big and bulky.  Healthcare services are not interconnected.  Healthcare services are not personalized.  Mr. Ranck spoke of how we allow certain aspects of healthcare to be personalized (insulin shots), but that the vast majority of healthcare is still performed inefficiently.  Healthcare information is not transferable from different medial centers, which is part of the reason why Dishman’s grandmother died.  An institution such as TED is working to digitalize all the healthcare information in order to make it more connected across the world.  The central conclusion of Dishman’s lecture is that healthcare needs to be moved away from expensive, inefficient institutional bureaucracies, or as Dishman calls them, the mainframe. 

            A second video lecture  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCGlWQnzDVE) on TEDMED continues the idea that information is the area that presents the most problems to global health care.  Thomas Goetz of the Decision Tree think tank argues that healthcare is not a science problem, but in fact an information problem.  He also echoes the sentiment of Mr. Dishman that people can start personalizing more of their healthcare.  He uses the example of how people personalize the work of a dentist office by brushing and flossing everyday.  He argues that people need more information in order for each person to make a better-personalized choice regarding their health.  He states that most people do not understand their choices, and according to Mr. Goetz, most doctors do not know either.  He suggests that doctors do not take the time to learn about how their patients can personalize their healthcare because they will make the most amount of money if healthcare remains almost completely institutionalized. 

When laptops aren't the answer

The U.N. said in a report Thursday that Sudan is denying it full access to tens of thousands of civilians near an area between north and south Sudan…

            The above text is the first line from a recent Associated Press article focusing on the rising levels of ethnic cleansing in Sudan.  The article is not referring to the Sudanese government denying tens of thousands of its civilians access to the internet.  The article is not referring to the Sudanese government denying tens of thousands of its civilians access to cell phones.  The article is referring to the fact that the Sudanese government is denying its citizens access to United Nations efforts to provide food and protection to the tens of thousands of Nubas who are the current target of ethnic cleansing in the African country.  Now I make this point because I do not see how the international community (like the World Bank) will be able to get laptops to the peoples of countries like the Sudan, when the international community (UN) is currently unable to get basic food and shelter for many Sudanese people.  Going beyond the Sudan, I do not see how the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program can work in the plethora of countries around the world which frequent “Most Corrupt Government” lists.  I agree with the message of the readings and Mike Trucano’s lecture when it says that a laptop to a child can be the gateway to educational enrichment and thus socio-economic advancement (in a way replacing the traditional role of the book in educational settings), but I am weary that funding large scale OLPC programs or cell phone distribution programs in countries with corrupt and violent governments will bring about few positive results, and potentially many negative results.  The powerful but disorganized Sudanese government-backed force that is currently killing thousands of Nubas would probably become an even more efficient killing force if it was able to use hundreds of new laptops that they confiscated from Sudanese civilians who were part of the OLPC program.  Attacks on Nuba villages might be better coordinated, and the Sudanese government could better use the internet to spread negative propaganda against certain ethnic groups (like the Nuba).  As long as the current Sudanese government is still in power, the Nuba, like the Sudanese ethnic groups of the Darfur region some years ago, will be violently targeted.  And the current Sudanese government will continue to stay in power unless the common citizens of Sudan rise up to overthrow or exile the current government officials.  Computers, cell phones, and the educational and organizational benefits that come with these technologies will be needed by the common peoples of Sudan in order to run out the current government.  Yet if the current government is not allowing its people access to food, then it will surely not allow the people access to the technologies needed to coordinate, educate, and eventually kick out the corrupt leaders who are leading ethnic cleansings.   

                Initiatives like OLPC can do wonders in a relatively uncorrupt nation like Uruguay, which has a Corruption Perception Index (CPI) of 6.7 according to Transparency International  (The higher the score, the less corrupt the nation.  United States has a score of 7.5).  A laptop in the hands of a student gives the student instant access to a million book’s worth of information.  I just spent the past 2 minutes surfing the internet, and in that time I learned about various things such as sustainable farming and how best to prepare for a job interview.  With the power of the internet (and programs such as Java, Excel, PowerPoint, iMovie, etc.) the Uruguayan lower-class will have access to learn the skills needed to advance their positions in society. 

                But in place like the Sudan, which has a very low CPI of 1.5, the lower class will not have access to the laptops needed to advance in society.  Thus in my opinion, the laptop money that cannot be spent in places like the Sudan, should be used as funding for military and police actions by the international community in the corrupt and violent nations like the Sudan.  Now I am not usually one for military interventions (not a big fan of Iraq and Afghanistan operations by the U.S.), but unless the current governments in some of these nations are removed, the food and technologies that would improve the lives of millions, will never reach those who need it most.   The Sudanese people themselves might have to buy bullets in order to rebel against the current government, before they can spend whatever money they have on technologies such as laptops.  While giving every child in Uruguay a laptop has been a noble and realistic goal, giving every child in the Sudan a laptop would be an unrealistic and irresponsible dream.  International organizations might want to spend on military operations in places like the Sudan before they spend on technology.