01.03.2021 : Power by Opium Trade
In the beginning of the 19th century Opium became a drug for parts of the Chinese society like in the 21st century Cocain, Heroin or Crystal Meth in parts of the affluent Western societies. Especially British smugglers earned a lot by this trade : one shipload of opium did have a value of 200.000 Pound Sterling silver at those days. The smugglers could be compared with the drug-cartels of today.
To fight that illegal trade the Chinese Government appointed a national coordinator in 1839 who so successfully disturbed the smuggling that the opium-traders asked the British Crown to send battle-ships for protection . The dispute ended with the Peace Treaty of Nanking (Nanjing) granting the British trading houses access to Chinese cities and handing over the Hongkong Island to the British Crown from 1842 onwards.
The two British merchants who mainly had initiated the intervention and who after meeting first in Mumbai/India had founded in 1832 the Canton (Guangzhou) based company Jardin, Matheson & Co at the Pearl River now bought land in HK and established in 1844 their company HQ at the harbour side : being in the end of the 20ies century the skyscraper Connaught Center. Over the time William Jardin (1784-1843) and James Matheson (1796 -1882) and their families had established a global company acting in more than 20 countries and beeing the biggest Trading House of Asia in the end of the 20ies century also being called the British Commonwealth Century. One of its roots of success was a very intensive network of Chinese merchants : the first and most important of them Wu Ping-chen Howqua II from the Canton-area.
In 1997 the company moved its HQ to the Oasis for Taxes of the 21st century : the Bermuda Islands in the Carrebean Sea. Insofar the character of the actors remained the same over the two centuries. - In literature the history is according to the impressions of the trade-historian Prof.Dr.B.Hallier very well described as the back-stage by the two-part epos Taipan and Noble House by James Clavell. A phantastic intro about the history of HK, of gaining competences, of fraud, mergers, take-overs - and also indicating that back-stage of all business there always remains also a glimpse of emotion which surely is also true in real life .
The owner-family of Jardin, Matheson and Co. belongs also in the 21st century to the group of millionaires : they still own big farm-areas in Scotland and England; also as hobbies they keep on going the more feudal life-style of the past : horse-riding and hunting.
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06.02.2021 : Lighthouse 2021
Unanimously the Board of ERA approved a proposal of Prof.Dr.B.Hallier to elect the Peace Nobel Laureate of 2006 Prof.Dr.M.Yunus for the Hall of Fame. Professor Muhammad Yunus - born in Bathua/Bangladesh - got his BA and MA at Dhaka University/Pakistan and his PhD at the Vanderbilt University/USA. He was teaching as an assistant professor of economics at the Middle Tennessee State University. In 1971 Prof.Yunus joined Chittagong University at his old home-town. In 2006 he got together with the Grameen Bank the Nobel Peace Prize for the idea of micro-credits/micro-finance and its application (more at Hall of Fame).
Professor Hallier got to know Professor Yunus when both visited several times the Astana Economic Forum in Kazakhstan. Especially after the Corona Pandemic and its effects on all business along the international total supply chain in 2020/2021 Professor Hallier sees a need of micro-credits/finance for the poor countries which become the loosers in the widening gaps between oversaturated markets and developing countries. "We need Lighthouses like Professor Yunus to focus an equilibrium between economics, ecology and ethics for global harmony" Prof.Hallier stated at the nomination of Professor Yunus for the Hall of Fame 2021 of the European Retail Academy. "Also studying and teaching at different places in the world and looking for applications in business Prof.Yunus and his brother with his foundation is a hope and benchmark for young people" Hallier added.
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15.12.2020 : Environmental/Ethical Prices
In the hybrid Shymkent Conference at the 2020 International Day of Science the Korean Nobel Laureate of 2007 Prof.Dr.R.Chung proposed a new calculation for encluding the use of Carbon into the prices of products/services. That proposal was now enlarged by Prof.Dr.B.Hallier due to activities initiated by his friend, the German Federal Envirionment Minister Prof.Dr.Klaus Toepfer, in the 80ies of the last century. "Chung's as well as Toepfer's considerations are based on the idea to add the costs of Carbon(Chung) and for Redistribution of Package Materials/Recycling/Waste disposal (Toepfer) to the traditionally calculated costs for products and services. This is not only fair in respect of used resources of the environment but also ethical in terms of the present versus the future generations of our globe! We have to harmonize our economic, ecological and ethical as well as local, regional and global needs in new optimization formulars !" Hallier summarized the Conference input and presents the following new holistic environmental/ethical price calculation formular :
Recalling the situation of the 80ies he remembers three German Regulations which determined the package design ( DPP-models to measure the costs for individual products in the distribution- and redistribution processes ), standardizations of palettes/transport- and sales-units, green-dote-system for recycling etc. "Klaus Toepfer was the first politician who discovered the Power of Listing Products in Trade" Hallier remembers. "After that common experience I used the same principle for Tracing/Tracking cows/beef at the BSE-crises1994/1996 (developing the EU-Regulations in this sector) and shortly after that the European Good Agricultural Practice for fruit and vegatables (EUREP-Gap) which meanwhile is well established as GLOBALGAP as a benchmark in around 150 countries world-wide! We used publications and seminars about Best Practice of Partners as a Marketing-Tool to push the speed of transformation (Applied Sciences) between the Vision and the Realization of the projects. That was the key for the success of the systems : therefore it did not remain Theory but Applied Cases ! -- The Limits remain the Competition/ social acceptance of the price needed to get all factors in !" Hallier added.
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