Gah. This is a screenshot of the "improved" Anthrosource website. This is the journal aggregator for my discipline in the United States and the design value is quite low: the visuals are horrendous, links don't work, the search engine is incredibly limited. It seems like it was designed by and for people who don't use the internet.

And it seems that the feedback of internet savvy anthropologists has had zero effect on them. As has the feedback of dictionary or spelling savvy anthropologists (like me!) who know that the word "search" as in "Search Engine" always always always has a "c."

I sent them word about this 11 days ago and, aside from some response from Wiley (the academic journal publishers who run the site), nothing has happened. Academic journals that don't spellcheck text before publishing it?

Decisions on design and functionality should be left to people who had email accounts before entering college.

UPDATE: This has been corrected, which is good. If only the rest of the site could undergo a makeover and reconstructive surgery.

Fernando Lugo's presidential campaign included a pledge to renegotiate Itaipú Binacional with Brazil. Itaipú is the world's largest hydroelectric dam, producing 19% of Brazil's and 95% of Paraguay's electricity needs. Though owned equally by the two countries, Paraguay cedes its unused energy to Brazil and receives about 1/25 of the market price for that electricity. Popular outrage at this relationship has made the issue and the 1973 Itaipú Treaty now a "national cause." Brazil obviously benefits enormously from this situation and has shown itself quite opposed to altering it.

A team of negotiators was appointed by Lugo even before his inauguration as president on August 15, 2008, in order to clarify Paraguay's aims in its negotiations with Brazil. Brazil's president Lula agreed to discuss Paraguay's claims and thus began a series of formal meetings between representatives of the two governments that continues to the present. The Paraguayan negotiating team (Mesa Negociadora) presented Brazil with a list of 6 issues (6 puntos) it seeks to redress.

The 6 Points:
1. Libre Disponibilidad. The freedom for Paraguay to dispose of its half of the energy as it wishes. That means the ability to sell to whatever market it chooses at the price it chooses. Right now, Paraguay may only cede its unused energy to Brazil.

2. Precio Justo. A fair price for the energy. Currently, Brazil compensates Paraguay a little more than $2/mWh for electricity, a price that is anywhere between $40-$50/mWh below the Brazilian market price.

3. Revision de la deuda. Re-examining the debt incurred during construction of the dam. Electrobras, the Brazilian state electricity company, was responsible for financing the construction costs of the dam which are to be shared equally between both countries.

4. Cogestión. Equal administration of the dam, alternation of top positions. Itaipú is run by a team of directors, equal in number from both Paraguay and Brazil. The most powerful positions (technical and finance) have only been Brazilian.

5. Contraloría. Allowing the Paraguayan Comptroller access to audit the books of Itaipú. There has been no auditing ever done on how Paraguay administers its $300 million (annually) half of the agency.

6. Obras faltantes. Completion of pending projects that were stipulated during the negotiations of the 60s and 70s, such as the construction of an electricity substation.

To date, Brazil has agreed to points 4 - 6 and has flatly refused to budge on 1 - 3.

(word of the day: estafa, which means "scam"... also, you can use it as a verb, estafar)

Lest it seem that, in the global turmoil of international Ponzi schemes collapsing, Paraguay should alone have nothing of Madoff or quesitos mágicos, here we are with the estafa of today: Microinversiones Amambay, a home-grown, Paraguayan style Ponzi scheme.

As the helpful slide presentation shows, you just put in 55,000 Guaranies ($11 USD) and then invite four of your friends to a presentation (for which they pay 7,000 G admission... $1.20 USD) on how to market the business you're starting with 55mil (mil = thousand) and if they also bring their friends, then, thanks to investing and the market and marketing and magic fairy dust, you get $800 USD back in 6 months.

Wait. You don't understand what it is that turns an investment of 11 bucks into 800? That's because you don't understand the useful economic principles of the market that are guaranteed to work and solve any economic quandary, which you can get for $1.20 and which, obviously, all the world's greatest economists don't know, otherwise the world economy wouldn't be in the horrid state it is.

Incidentally, I have figured out the fail-proof formula for figuring out if someone is trying to Ponzi you. One, the opportunity to invest is by invitation only. Two, the business recruitment material [mis]uses the [mis]quote from J. Paul Getty (or Paul J. Getty, as it is in some of the literature) "I would rather have 1% from the efforts of 100 men than 100% of the efforts of 1 individual" or, as it is translated into Spanish: "Prefiero ganar el 1% del esfuerzo de 100 personas en vez del 100% de mi propio esfuerzo."

Carlos Slim, the Mexican magnate, has propped up the New York Times with a loan of $250 million that can/will be exchanged for actions in the company. I think we've gotten a little numbed by all the billions that are being tossed about in bailouts and scams and so the price tag of that little loan (which Mr. Slim can easily afford) seems ... meh.

Speaking of which, have you heard about DMG ("Diós Mío Gracias")? That's a pyramid scheme in Colombia that has fallen apart in the past few months. Unlike Madoff and the other new Madoff-alike in Florida, these cats scammed the poor. And, of course, there are many who are stubbornly unwilling to believe that they've been had and instead think the founder, David Murcia Guzman, is now incarcerated wrongly. Here's a tragic example:

But, back to Mr. Slim. Here's a little of what Grupo Carso (named by Mr. Slim as an amalgamation of his and his wife's first names, "Carlos" and "Soumaya") owns:

Telmex: the Mexican telecommunications giant that has stretched from the United States to Argentina.

America Movil: they do cellphones in nearly all of the hemisphere (including Paraguay!).

Grupo Financiero Inbursa: a financial services group that does banking and all kinds of financial products.

Swecomex: manufactures petroleum processing equipment, including drilling platforms.

Cigatam: a cigarette manufacturing partnership with Philip Morris.

IDEAL (Impulsora del Desarrollo y Empleo de América Latina): which focuses on infrastructure projects, building things like highways and hydropower dams.

Grupo Sanborn: including the department store chain Sanborns as well as Sears. Even Zapata's troops used to meet up at Sanborns as a rendezvous point!

Screen grab from their English-language site with tag: "Now everyone can enjoy to be involved in a great business."


For your investment dollars, Finanzas Forex has promised a minimum of 10% returns (monthly), up to 50% returns (monthly), depending on what risk-investment package you select. Though it smacks of Ponzi, some investors knowingly invested because Ponzi schemes work out for early adopters.

Click here (and here) and look through the comments as writers at first enthusiastically praise FFX and then lament their inability to withdraw their funds. Note that FFX pulls a Madoff-esque hard-to-get play by saying that it won't accept investments from EU citizens. And look at the shoddy web design (surely a giveaway).

And another dead giveaway for its suspect behavior? The terrible English translation. Here's a charming rationalization for this:

The reason Finanzas Forex does not have a strong US presence might have to do with the terrible english version of its website. Even when you are logged on to the english version, there are parts of the website that show up in spanish. Europeans might be more used to working with multiple languages, and will feel more comfortable with something that isn't written well in their native tongue.

And these people (and these) are still quite hopeful it'll work out. It's actually a bit frightening to see how unshakeable their conviction is. I was speaking about this with some friends last month when I was in New York for the holidays and the news about Bernard Madoff came to light. One person mentioned that, since people are frequently hearing stories about businessmen (women, too) making it big, almost overnight, often we come to believe that there really must be an easy way to get wealthy and the only problem is that we simply don't know the easy, failsafe secret to it. So that, when we come across something that seems to be hard to get into (Finanzas Forex is by invitation) and has stunning returns explained by hard-to-understand financespeak (which is what much of the technical side of the Wall Street Journal or Financial Times sounds like to many of us), we believe that we've found it.


Here's their convincing video:



NOTE: Comments with links to scams and money schemes will get deleted. Don't post them.