Costa Concordia

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pages: 402 words: 98,760

Deep Sea and Foreign Going by Rose George

Admiral Zheng, air freight, Airbus A320, Albert Einstein, bank run, cable laying ship, Captain Sullenberger Hudson, Costa Concordia, Edward Lloyd's coffeehouse, Exxon Valdez, failed state, Filipino sailors, global supply chain, Global Witness, Google Earth, intermodal, Jones Act, London Whale, Malacca Straits, Panamax, pattern recognition, profit maximization, Skype, trade route, UNCLOS, UNCLOS, urban planning, WikiLeaks, William Langewiesche

For most people it is a place that exists only in the BBC’s Shipping Forecast, a nightly broadcast of weather and worse in South Utsire, Dogger, Rockall, Hebrides, of storms rising and boats falling, dispensed in tones so soothing you feel lulled by other people’s danger, and a sharp guilty delight at being safe abed. No ship can protect itself against the sea. When the cruise ship Costa Concordia was holed in 2012 by a rock off the coast of Italy and toppled, a headline read ‘Big ships still sink’, as if this was news. Kendal, despite the dimensions of her hull and engine – a Doosan-Wartsila the size of a house – is still a chunk of metal floating on an element that can withdraw its support at any time, that can list us, wind us or hole us, swamp and sink us.

It seems such an old-fashioned heroism, one that belongs in the nineteenth century with shipwrecks and flogging, until something happens that proves we still expect our captains to be heroes. In 2011, Italian cruise-ship captain Francesco Schettino was widely and violently vilified for leaving the cruise ship Costa Concordia when there were still hundreds of passengers aboard. Not only had he not stayed on his ship, let alone not gone down with it, but he had fled with indecent haste (and done so by ‘falling into a lifeboat’). Perfidious captains are remembered: when the cruise liner Oceanos foundered off South Africa in 1991, its captain Yiannis Avranas was among the first to depart the sinking ship.

Meat Trade News Daily, 20 December 2009. 3 Shocked, trapped, he began to recite his prayers Ahmad Harb interview, accessed December 2012 via http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfZ7hm7amJo 4 They had to cut it off him Owen Milloy video, entitled ‘Captain John Milloy: Rest in Peace Dad’, accessed January 2013 via http://www.youtube.com/wat ch?v=yagysu7tmF4&noredirect=1 – Falling into a lifeboat Tom Kington, ‘Costa Concordia captain claims he tripped and fell into a lifeboat’, Guardian, 18 January 2012. 5 If some people want to stay, they can stay After the Oceanos sank it was discovered that it was the third ship owned by Epirotiki Lines to have sunk in three years. Avranas was found negligent by a Greek board of inquiry but never jailed, and later worked on a Greek ferry.


pages: 315 words: 99,065

The Virgin Way: Everything I Know About Leadership by Richard Branson

barriers to entry, Boeing 747, call centre, carbon footprint, Celtic Tiger, clean water, collective bargaining, Costa Concordia, do what you love, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, flag carrier, friendly fire, glass ceiling, illegal immigration, index card, inflight wifi, Lao Tzu, legacy carrier, low cost airline, M-Pesa, Mahatma Gandhi, Mark Zuckerberg, Nelson Mandela, Northern Rock, profit motive, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald Reagan, shareholder value, Sheryl Sandberg, Silicon Valley, stem cell, Steve Jobs, Tesla Model S, Tony Fadell, trade route, vertical integration, Virgin Galactic, work culture , zero-sum game

SHIP HAPPENS In recent years the best (or should that be worst?) example of bad decision-making being compounded by more bad decisions could well be the peculiar behaviour of Carnival Corporation’s billionaire chairman and CEO Micky Arison when his cruise lines suffered two major accidents in the space of a year. When his ship the Costa Concordia ran aground on a little Italian island (that it should not have been anywhere near) killing thirty-two and seriously disrupting the lives of thousands of passengers and their families, where was Micky? All that matters really is that for reasons unknown he made no attempt to get there. As soon as he was briefed as to the severity of the situation – all he had to do was turn on a TV set to see the disaster that the rest of the world was watching – he should have had his corporate jet fuelled up and been on his way to Italy.

As soon as he was briefed as to the severity of the situation – all he had to do was turn on a TV set to see the disaster that the rest of the world was watching – he should have had his corporate jet fuelled up and been on his way to Italy. Instead Arison buried his head in the sand and went to a basketball game to watch the Miami Heat (the NBA team he owns). Amazingly, even after the lambasting he took for failing to make his way to Italy as soon as he heard of the Costa Concordia disaster, it seems he isn’t one to learn from his mistakes. Almost a year later another of Arison’s huge cruise ships – the ironically named Carnival Triumph – was towed into Mobile Alabama after a fire had destroyed the ship’s generators and left the passengers stranded at sea for five days in disgusting conditions with no power, refrigeration, water or toilet facilities.

(The initials RB and TB refer to Richard Branson and Ted Branson) Abbott, Trevor 49 Achor, Shaun 259–60, 270 AIDS 55 Air France 298, 312 Air New Zealand 138–9 Alexander, Tom 160–1 American Airlines 76, 77, 209, 233 and collaboration 312 Anna, Kofi 118 Ansett Australia 138–9 ‘Antonio’ (Google investor) 135–7, 138, 139–40 Apple 68, 130, 137, 147, 148–50, 288, 315, 365–8 and Google Maps 310–11 and Nike 311 and Starbucks 169 ‘Think Different’ campaign of 162 Apple Stores 148–50 Apprentice, The 21, 197 April Fool stunts 260–9 Arison, Micky 341–2, 345 Asymco 148, 150 AT&T 171 Atari 137 Atlantic Records 135 Audi 311 B Team 291, 357–9 Bader, Douglas 102–3 Ball, Lucille 214 ballooning 266–8 Baloyi, Xiki 206 Barnby, Tim 98 Barra, Mary 285 Bay, Michael 85 Bayazid II 178 Beevers, David 287 Berry, Ken 263–5 Biffa 238 Big Jake 29–30 Blair, Tony 118 Blakely, Sara 192–5, 199 Blockbuster 216 Boadicea, Queen 295 Boeing 333 Bolt, Usain 171 Borghetti, John 72–6 Boston Consulting Group 284 Boy George 23, 256 Branson Centres of Entrepreneurship 274–6, 291 Branson, Eve (mother): always on the go 13–14 charity polo match organised by 15 cricket advice from 28 dancing and stewardess work of 14–15 and ‘death of conversation’ 29 invited thoughts of 15–17 and RB’s church insubordination incident 18–19 and RB’s television watching 29 and speaking no evil 25–6 stalwart efforts of 18 successful venture of 14 Branson, Holly (daughter) 216–17, 223 at party for new HQ 259 RB’s early notes on 35 and Virgin Hotels 62 Branson, Joan (wife) 48–9, 53 as ‘focus group’ 54–5 at party for new HQ 259 and RB’s April Fool stunt 263–4 and RB’s ‘blether’ 94–5 and ‘Virgin Condoms’ 55 and Virgin Hotels 62 Branson, Richard: and April Fool stunts 260–8 ‘arrest’ of 264–5 ballooning by 266–8 borderline attention-deficit disorder (ADD) suffered by 4, 369 church insubordination incident of 18–19, 26 cricket loved by 28 ‘Dr Yes’ 117–18 dyslexia suffered by 4, 33, 103, 199 first camera bought for 124–5 and Giving Pledge 195 hard-wired passion of 241 indomitable spirit of 18 inherited traits of 13 King’s ‘pirate’ gibe against 301–2 London Marathon run by 322 making speeches disliked by 83–4 mentoring of 287 money ‘borrowed’ from TB by 19–20 note-taking by 5, 30–1, 33–7 parents’ influence on, see Branson, Eve; Branson, Ted passport incident concerning 256 at school 3–4, 30, 80–1, 83, 103–4 student advisory centre begun by 347 TB’s fake spanking of 18–19, 26 teenage purchase-tax ‘manipulation’ of 25 top leadership attributes favoured by employees and 44–5 transatlantic ballooning attempts of 304 transatlantic speedboat attempts of 303 UFO stunt of 266–8 unconventional ‘offices’ used by 48–9 Virgin Atlantic customers cold-called by 66–7 Virgin Cola stunt by 305 Virgin logo stunt against BA by 301–2 voluntary jail stint of 23–4 Branson, Sam (son) 223 at party for new HQ 259 Branson, Ted (father) 13, 103, 147 death of 27–8 fake spanking of RB by 18–19, 26 and RB’s church insubordination incident 18–19, 26 and speaking no evil 25–6 stalwart efforts of 18 young RB’s ‘borrowing’ of money from# 19–20 Bridgeway Capital Management 359 Brin, Sergey 137, 191, 199, 288 Bristol-Myers 106–7 British Airports Authority 21 British Airways 31, 42, 77, 140, 156, 171–2, 298 and collaboration 312 and ‘diversion of market share’ 301 and Laker 299, 300 libel action against 300 and RB’s logo stunt 301–2 British Caledonian 140, 300 British Rail 144, 248, 317 British Telecom 159, 160 Bucknall, Matthew 108, 207–8 Buffett, Warren 195 bumblebee, flight anomaly of 177 Burns, Robert 53, 263 Caan, James 283 Cain, Phil 250–1 Calvin, Kathy 357 Cameron, Don 266–7 Canon 125 Carbon War Room 291, 355–6 Cardigan, Lord 295–6 Cardoso, Fernando 117 Carlson, Nicholas 307 Carnival Corporation 341 Carnival Triumph 341 Carter, Jimmy 38, 118 Castrol, Fidel 60–1 Caulcutt, John 301–2, 305 Change through Digital Inclusion 361–2 Chrysler 175 Churchill, Winston 31–2, 86 City Link 238 Civil Aviation Authority 21 climate change 355 Clinton, Bill 79, 80 CMG Communications 172 Coca-Cola 58–61, 147, 304–7 collaboration 222, 309–25 co-branding 310 and good causes 320 vs silo mentality 313–15 and team dynamics 322 Collins, Tony 241, 247–9, 337, 343–4 Columbus, Christopher 356 Comic Relief 23 Concorde 158, 256, 301 condoms 55–6 Connery, Sean 118 Consumer Reports 247 Continental Airlines 150–1 corporate culture: coral reefs as metaphor for 237 differentiating nature of 51 ‘eats strategy for breakfast’ 227 and exemplary leadership 228–9 and hiring 202 and ‘knowing your position’ 120 monitoring: the ‘we/they’ test 235–6 and pecking orders 121 people-first 228 Southwest Airlines’ 228–31, 233 and us–them standoff 234 Virgin’s, beginnings of 235 Costa Concordia 341 Costolo, Dick 365 culture, ‘eats strategy for breakfast’ 240 culture, corporate, see corporate culture Cush, David 77, 209–10 customer loyalty 151–3 CV 203 Daily Telegraph 216–17 Darling, Alistair 187 decisions: art of making 332–4 bad, notable examples of 340–2 considered 330, 334 and Just In Time (JIT) 327 and procrastination 328; see also procrastination snap 329–30 delegation: and leadership 124, 195, 198, 199–200 and Virgin Atlantic 200 Delta Air Lines 77, 312–13 Department for Transport 31, 41, 337, 338–40 Dr.


pages: 570 words: 158,139

Overbooked: The Exploding Business of Travel and Tourism by Elizabeth Becker

airport security, Asian financial crisis, barriers to entry, Berlin Wall, BRICs, car-free, carbon footprint, clean water, collective bargaining, colonial rule, computer age, corporate governance, Costa Concordia, Deng Xiaoping, European colonialism, Exxon Valdez, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Frank Gehry, global village, Global Witness, Great Leap Forward, happiness index / gross national happiness, haute cuisine, high-speed rail, indoor plumbing, Kickstarter, Masdar, Murano, Venice glass, open borders, out of africa, race to the bottom, Ralph Nader, Scramble for Africa, Silicon Valley, statistical model, sustainable-tourism, the market place, union organizing, urban renewal, wage slave, young professional, éminence grise

What is known is that tourism and travel is responsible for 5.3 percent of the world’s carbon emissions and the degradation of nearly every tropical beach in the world. Without global enforcement of basic rules, cruise ships are a major polluter of the seas and pose serious risks. The dramatic capsizing of the Costa Concordia cruise ship off the Italian coast in 2012 killed at least 32 people and raised questions about the safety of these mammoth ships. To make way for more resorts with spectacular views, developers destroy native habitats and ignore local concerns. Preservationists decry the growing propensity to bulldoze old hotels and buildings in favor of constructing new resorts, water holes and entertainment spots that look identical whether in Singapore, Dubai or Johannesburg; a world where diversity is replaced with homogeneity.

Understanding how these businessmen cobbled together the new industry—where they bent the rules, how they designed a ship to match social behavior—goes a long way toward explaining why the cruise industry is both admired and reviled today and why it is considered a harbinger of where mass tourism is headed. The 2012 disaster of the Costa Concordia, an Italian cruise ship, brought some of these issues to light. The pilot ran the ship aground off Italy’s coast, capsizing it, killing 32 people and destroying the 54,000-ton vessel. The Italian line Costa Cruises is owned by the Carnival Corporation, headquartered in Miami, where multimillion-dollar lawsuits have been filed.

.: cruise industry and, 139, 142, 164, 348 tourism policy and, 14, 352–53, 362–63 and War on Terrorism, 354 Congressional Research Service, 161 Connolly, Nellie, 321 conservation philanthropy, 225–26, 238–240, 254, 264 Context Travel, 152 convention business, 18, 370–74 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), 221, 234 Cook, Frances, 72–73, 74 Cooray, Dharshi, 281 Cooray, Hiran, 279, 281, 287 Corajoud, Claire and Michel, 59 Corcovado Foundation, 259 Corcovado National Park, 258, 260 Cornell School of Hotel Administration, 380 Cornwall, England, 74 Costa Concordia disaster, 20, 132–33 Costa Cruises, 133 Costão do Santinho, 270 Costa Rica, 153, 245–47, 249–55, 258–63 biodiversity of, 250, 251–52 cattle ranching in, 253, 255 as center for biological research, 250–251 Central American conflicts and, 254–255 Certification for Sustainable Tourism program in, 261 colonial era in, 250 computer and biomedical technology in, 255 deforestation in, 247, 253 ecotourism in, 19, 245, 249, 252, 254, 264–65, 268 environmentalism in, 249–50, 252, 253 gold mining in, 258–59 medical tourism and, 377 national parks of, 252, 253, 261 private reserves in, 252, 253 Quakers in, 253–54 rainforests in, 246, 258 tourism as largest economic sector in, 261 Costa Rica, University of, 251 Cousteau, Jacques, 129 Cozumel, 128, 129, 134, 154 Cranley, William Patrick, 325–27 Croatia, 153 Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), 142, 151 cruise ships, cruise ship industry, 19, 36, 79, 125–65 Arison’s creation of, 133–34, 135–36 art sales as profit center for, 147–49 Clean Water Act exemption of, 156–57 Congress and, 139, 142, 164, 348 cultural and environmental degradation from, 134, 152–55 ecotourism as antithesis of, 249, 256–57 as entertainment- vs. destination-driven, 137 excursion trips as profit centers for, 151 as fastest growing segment of tourism industry, 134 foreign registry of ships in, 139–40 gambling and, 126, 146 legal loopholes exploited by, 132, 133, 134, 136, 139–41 low ticket prices in, 126, 138, 144 low wages paid by, 127–28, 131–32, 139, 140–42, 144–46, 256 as most profitable sector of tourism industry, 139 nonprofits and, 165 onboard sales as profit center in, 130, 146–51 passenger security and, 164 polar regions and, 162–63 political contributions by, 142–43 pollution from, 20, 30, 34, 82, 85, 134, 156–64 tax exemptions of, 140, 143 Venice damaged by, 77, 81, 85, 152 Crystal Cruises, 161 culinary tourism, 37 Culinary Workers Union, 374 cultural degradation: from cruise ships, 152 tourism and, 20–21, 30, 202–3 Cuvelier, Olivier, 62 Czech Republic, 116 Dachau, Germany, 106 Daily, Laura, 31 Dalai Lama, 302, 321 Dale, Terry, 151, 161–62, 164 D’Amore, Louis, 230 Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 236 “dark tourism” (genocide tourism), 37, 92, 105–8 Dassance, Rick and Jewell, 294–95 Datan, Rajan, 271 David, Armand, 335 Dawson, Barbara, 303–4, 305 Death in Venice (Mann), 82 Deauville, France, 51 deforestation, 247, 253, 275, 276 de Gaulle, Charles, 55 Delaux, Stephan, 64–65 Delom, Christian, 66–67, 68, 310 Deng Xiaoping, 304, 305, 330, 335, 337, 340, 341 on economic importance of tourism, 293, 295, 300–303 Deron, Francis, 296–97 Description of the World (Polo), 23 developing economies, tourism in, 19–20, 89–90, 99, 376 development, preservation vs., 111–12, 184–85, 326–27, 339, 340 Diamonds International, 128, 129, 130, 149–50 Diamond Trading Company, 149 Dickinson, Bob, 137, 140, 146 Dieppe, France, 51 Dinesen, Isak, 207 Dion, Dan, 245 Diotallevi, Marina, 116 Discover America website, 363 Disneyland, 324, 346, 383, 385 Disneyland France, 66, 324 Disneyland Shanghai, 323–24 Disney World, 324, 364, 383, 385 Dobbs, Geoffrey, 279, 283–85 Dobbs, Michael, 284 Documentation Center of Cambodia, 107 Dominguez-Hoare, Anna, 153–54 “Don’t Go There” (Becker), 390 Dow, Roger, 362, 366 Dreams from My Father (Obama), 244 Dubai, 38, 166–81, 189, 203 as airline hub, 170, 172–73 Arab Spring and, 181 conspicuous consumption in, 169–70 duty-free shopping in, 166, 170, 171 energy use in, 167, 195 entertainment in, 176–80 foreign workers in, 168–69, 174, 186–89 and Great Recession of 2008, 169, 175, 178, 179, 186 Hajj pilgrimage and, 170, 183–84 human rights issues in, 187–89 malls in, 167, 175–76 Middle East conflict and, 180–81 nightlife of, 167, 190 pollution in, 196–97 public debt of, 179–80 sex tourism in, 190–91 shopping in, 175–76 tourism as largest economic sector in, 168 Dubai: Gilded Cage (Ali), 187 Dubai Studio City, 180 Dubrovnik, Croatia, 155 Dunne, Ron, 119–20 Durbin, Richard, 161 Dutch House, 283, 284 East Africa, 220 Eastern Europe, 13, 115 “Eating and Sleeping with Arthur Frommer” (Ephron), 13 Ebron, Paulla A., 243 ecolodges, 246, 257, 259 economies, national: sex tourism share of, 115 tourism industry share of, 10, 15, 20, 45, 66–67, 194 Economist, 175 economy, global: China in, 292 tourism industry share of, 15, 16–17, 270, 351 ecotourism, 19, 21, 45, 241, 245–77 as antithesis of cruise ship travel, 249, 256–57 Costa Rica as birthplace of, 245, 249, 252, 254, 264–65 definition of “green” in, 263–64 genuine vs. false claims in, 265 Global Sustainable Tourism Council Criteria for, 247, 255–56, 260, 262, 264–66 guides in, 247, 248 local entrepreneurs and, 260 as small part of tourism industry, 246 ticket prices in, 256 wages in, 256 see also geotourism; green tourism Ecotourism and Sustainable Development: Who Owns Paradise?


pages: 874 words: 154,810

Lonely Planet Florence & Tuscany by Lonely Planet, Virginia Maxwell, Nicola Williams

Bonfire of the Vanities, call centre, car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, Costa Concordia, G4S, haute couture, Kickstarter, period drama, post-work, retail therapy, Skype, trade route

Toremar (www.toremar.it) operates car and passenger ferries from Livorno to Capraia (2½ hours; one or two daily year-round); most days boat schedules allow a return trip in a day but triple-check before setting out. South of Elba, Giglio (population 1500), the second-largest Tuscan island, is 21 km sq and was in the spotlight most as the place where cruise ship Costa Concordia met its tragic end in 2012. The wreckage was still being dismantled and removed in summer 2013. Then there is pinprick Pianosa, a haven of peace 14km southwest of Elba. It served as a penal colony until 1997. To get to both these islands, sign up for a day trip with Aquavision ( 328 7095470, 0565 97 60 22; www.aquavision.it; Piazza dei Granatieri 203, Marino di Campo), based in Marina di Campo on Elba.

In traffic-clogged Florence, smart young city mayor Matteo Renzi is considering a London-style scheme limiting the number of cars entering downtown Florence. The obvious moment to introduce it would be 2016, when Florence’s state-of-the-art tramlines will be completed – the first line is already functional and, if Florentines are lucky, Line 2 could be complete by the end of 2014. Ecological disaster was narrowly averted after the Costa Concordia cruise ship ran aground on rocks off the Tuscan island of Giglio in January 2012. The clean-up operation to salvage all 114,500 tonnes of the shipwreck from the protected waters – part of the Tuscan Archipelago National Park and Europe’s largest protected marine park – continues more than a year later.


pages: 439 words: 79,447

The Finance Book: Understand the Numbers Even if You're Not a Finance Professional by Stuart Warner, Si Hussain

AOL-Time Warner, book value, business intelligence, business process, cloud computing, conceptual framework, corporate governance, Costa Concordia, credit crunch, currency risk, discounted cash flows, double entry bookkeeping, forward guidance, intangible asset, Kickstarter, low interest rates, market bubble, Northern Rock, peer-to-peer lending, price discrimination, Ralph Waldo Emerson, shareholder value, supply-chain management, time value of money

Common indicators of impairment may include: Changes in laws, e.g. the introduction of tighter fuel emission regulations that prohibit non-compliant delivery vehicles from entering cities could impair the value of fleet vehicles. Material adverse events, such as the Smiler ride safety failure at Alton Towers in 2015. Physical damage or destruction of an asset, e.g. the grounding of the Costa Concordia cruise ship in 2012. Technological advances that make using existing assets uncompetitive or obsolete. The list is not exhaustive. Illustration Take the example of the iconic Concorde supersonic plane. Following a fatal crash in the early 2000s the plane had to be consigned to the scrapyard because safety concerns meant the plane was no longer financially viable even though BA had originally intended for the plane to remain in service.


The Outlaw Ocean: Journeys Across the Last Untamed Frontier by Ian Urbina

9 dash line, Airbnb, British Empire, clean water, Costa Concordia, crowdsourcing, disinformation, Exxon Valdez, failed state, Filipino sailors, forensic accounting, Garrett Hardin, gentrification, global value chain, Global Witness, illegal immigration, independent contractor, invisible hand, Jessica Bruder, John Markoff, Jones Act, Julian Assange, Malacca Straits, Maui Hawaii, Neal Stephenson, New Journalism, ocean acidification, offshore financial centre, Patri Friedman, pattern recognition, Peter Thiel, Silicon Valley, Skype, South China Sea, standardized shipping container, statistical arbitrage, Tragedy of the Commons, UNCLOS, UNCLOS, union organizing, Upton Sinclair, WikiLeaks, William Langewiesche

Cruise ships are often registered in foreign countries, the incidents occur in international waters, and the alleged perpetrators can be foreign nationals. When Congress held hearings on this problem, lawmakers discovered that nearly a third of the reported sexual assaults on these ships were against minors. When the Costa Concordia, another cruise ship owned by Carnival, infamously capsized off the coast of Italy in 2012, investigators uncovered reports of prostitution and Mafia-stashed drugs on board. For the hundreds of thousands of people who work on them, cruise ships are a world of extremes. These floating resorts are designed for luxury, for leisure, and to make passengers happy.

While much of my reporting took me to derelict: To learn about crime on cruise ships, I read Curt Anderson, “ICE Dive Unit in Miami Targets Smugglers Using Freighter, Cruise Ship Hulls to Ferry Drugs,” Associated Press Newswires, Feb. 28, 2011; Robert Anglen, “Comprehensive Reports of Cruise-Ship Crime Made Public, Led by Phoenix Man,” Arizona Republic, Oct. 13, 2016; Donna Balancia, “Crew Member Sues Carnival,” Florida Today, Feb. 13, 2008; “Brazil ‘Rescues’ Cruise Workers from ‘Slave-Like Conditions,’ ” BBC News, April 4, 2014; Jonathan Brown and Michael Day, “Cruise Ship Limps In—but Costa’s Nightmare Goes On,” Independent, March 2, 2012; Michael Day, “Costa Concordia: Shipment of Mob Drugs Was Hidden Aboard Cruise Liner When It Hit Rocks off Italian Coast, Investigators Say,” Independent Online, March 30, 2015; Richard Foot, “Gangs Smuggle Passengers on Cruises,” CanWest News Service, Nov. 23, 2005; John Honeywell, “The Truth About Crime on a Cruise Ship,” Telegraph Online, June 5, 2017; Vincent Larouche and Daniel Renaud, “Three Quebecers Charged with Smuggling $30M in Cocaine on Cruise Ship in Australia,” Toronto Star, Aug. 30, 2016; Jim Mustian, “Feds Arrest Cruise Ship Crewmen in Alleged Plot to Smuggle Cocaine into New Orleans,” New Orleans Advocate, Jan. 10, 2016; Natalie Paris, “Cruise Lines Defend Treatment of Staff,” Telegraph Online, April 7, 2014; “Ten Individuals Charged with Importing Hundreds of Pounds of Cocaine, Heroin into United States Aboard Cruise Ships,” Hindustan Times, June 10, 2005; U.S.


pages: 252 words: 85,441

A Book for Her by Bridget Christie

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Boris Johnson, British Empire, carbon footprint, clean water, Costa Concordia, David Attenborough, feminist movement, financial independence, glass ceiling, housing crisis, Isaac Newton, obamacare, Rubik’s Cube, Russell Brand, sexual politics, TED Talk

On an intellectual level we don’t think like this, but there are deeply ingrained responses to what we perceive as the other. Since the start of 2015, more than 1,750 migrants have perished in the Mediterranean. The Foreign Office said it will not support future search and rescue operations because they encourage migration. The Costa Concordia cruise-ship disaster resulted in the loss of thirty-two lives, many of whom were white Europeans. Will the Foreign Office support search and rescue operations for capsized cruise-ships carrying rich white holidaymakers? Or would that just encourage more people to go on cruises? The difficult truth is that there is a price list for human life, and some of us are deemed more valuable than others.


pages: 1,205 words: 308,891

Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can't Explain the Modern World by Deirdre N. McCloskey

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", Airbnb, Akira Okazaki, antiwork, behavioural economics, big-box store, Black Swan, book scanning, British Empire, business cycle, buy low sell high, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, classic study, clean water, Columbian Exchange, conceptual framework, correlation does not imply causation, Costa Concordia, creative destruction, critique of consumerism, crony capitalism, dark matter, Dava Sobel, David Graeber, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deindustrialization, demographic transition, Deng Xiaoping, do well by doing good, Donald Trump, double entry bookkeeping, electricity market, en.wikipedia.org, epigenetics, Erik Brynjolfsson, experimental economics, Ferguson, Missouri, food desert, Ford Model T, fundamental attribution error, Garrett Hardin, Georg Cantor, George Akerlof, George Gilder, germ theory of disease, Gini coefficient, God and Mammon, Great Leap Forward, greed is good, Gunnar Myrdal, Hans Rosling, Henry Ford's grandson gave labor union leader Walter Reuther a tour of the company’s new, automated factory…, Hernando de Soto, immigration reform, income inequality, interchangeable parts, invention of agriculture, invention of writing, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, Islamic Golden Age, James Watt: steam engine, Jane Jacobs, John Harrison: Longitude, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Arrow, knowledge economy, labor-force participation, lake wobegon effect, land reform, liberation theology, lone genius, Lyft, Mahatma Gandhi, Mark Zuckerberg, market fundamentalism, means of production, middle-income trap, military-industrial complex, Naomi Klein, new economy, Nick Bostrom, North Sea oil, Occupy movement, open economy, out of africa, Pareto efficiency, Paul Samuelson, Pax Mongolica, Peace of Westphalia, peak oil, Peter Singer: altruism, Philip Mirowski, Pier Paolo Pasolini, pink-collar, plutocrats, positional goods, profit maximization, profit motive, public intellectual, purchasing power parity, race to the bottom, refrigerator car, rent control, rent-seeking, Republic of Letters, road to serfdom, Robert Gordon, Robert Shiller, Ronald Coase, Scientific racism, Scramble for Africa, Second Machine Age, secular stagnation, seminal paper, Simon Kuznets, Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, spinning jenny, stakhanovite, Steve Jobs, tacit knowledge, TED Talk, the Cathedral and the Bazaar, The Chicago School, The Market for Lemons, the rule of 72, The Spirit Level, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, Thorstein Veblen, total factor productivity, Toyota Production System, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, transatlantic slave trade, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, uber lyft, union organizing, very high income, wage slave, Washington Consensus, working poor, Yogi Berra

The Italian case shows, indeed, that the level of unethical behavior and corruption has to be quite high to do significant damage to forces of entry and exit and betterment in the private sector, if the private sector is large enough. Italy, as I said, and as the Italians say, is rich despite its government. An Italian commentator remarked that his country was like the Costa Concordia, run aground in 2012 by Captain Francesco Schettino, a beautiful ship with an irresponsible idiot in charge. In India before 1991 under the License Raj the level of imprudence, intemperance, and injustice was so high that the country was kept impoverished, at $1 or $2 a day, as against Italy’s $80 a day.

Justin: Irish diet, 655n6 cooperation in market society, 41, 199, 204, 218; Becker on, 563; Chamberlain on, 105; and conversation, 522; envy and, 63 cooperative, Spanish, 568 Copeland, Edward, 161 copyright, 40, 176; Boldrin and Levine on, 465–466; Mickey Mouse Protection Act, 175–167; NBER and blockaded entry, 559; Venice and, 460 Corinth, Greece: bourgeois, 221 corruption: Cost on US, 665n3; countries, 140–141; definition, 336; economic significance, 622, 624; in Italy and New Zealand, 133–135; in Sweden, 25; US, 665n3, 665n5; in zero-sum economy, 535 Cortez, Hernán, 92 Coşgel, Metin: Islam and governance, 483; Islamic reading, 390 Cost, Jay: US corruption, 665n5 Costa, Leonor, 477 Costa Concordia: and Italy, 624 Coulson, Andrew: entrepreneurial prevalence, 472 countervailing power, 175, 304 covenant: and Bourgeois Deal, 405 Cowan, Brian, 684n13 Cowan, Ruth Schwartz, 664n5 Cowen, Tyler: acknowledged, xxxix; birth rates, 49; fall of share of labor, 63; jobs are slots, 62; machines cause unemployment, 62; Stupidity, 206; technological pessimism, 61; unskilled labor not scarce, 62; youth unemployment, 63 Cowper, William, 158, 645 Cox, Michael W.: recent betterment, 37 Craig, A.


pages: 466 words: 146,982

Venice: A New History by Thomas F. Madden

big-box store, buy low sell high, centre right, colonial rule, Columbine, Costa Concordia, double entry bookkeeping, facts on the ground, financial innovation, indoor plumbing, invention of movable type, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Murano, Venice glass, spice trade, trade route, upwardly mobile, urban planning

As a result, there have long been calls for banning cruise ship traffic through Venice’s historic center. Opponents of the giant vessels cite the danger to Venetian buildings and waters should an accident occur. These warnings were given greater credence after January 2012 when the cruise liner Costa Concordia struck rocks and partially capsized off the coast of Tuscany. Activists insist that something similar could happen in Venice and that the results would be catastrophic. Although plans were subsequently drafted to phase out cruise ship traffic in Venice, whether they are ever implemented is an open question.