One my greatest fears is that the North American Innovation Machine may be badly broken. In a previous post, Chevrolet Volt and LED Lights, I raised the issue of premature adoption of new technologies that are going to be needed in the green and “less is more” revolutions that will be adopted or, later, imposed […]
Innovation Markets Failing Read More »
An MBA buddy and I have been chatting a lot about the lessons to be learned from the Subprime Mortgage and Ensuing Financial Disaster. His latest posting came from the venerable Wall Street Journal where John Steele Gordon has a one-sided diatribe on Why Government Can’t Run a Business . The article counts 7 ways
Wall Street Journal’s Anti-goverment Diatribes Read More »
The NYTimes has a very instructive story on the rise of LED lights for the home. LED lights are what are used in many cameras, PC Screens and large screen TVs among other uses. But users see them most often as traffic lights at just about every big city street corner. They are used because
The Chevrolet Volt and LED Lights Read More »
There are 5 Elephants in the Room in North America that even the most candid of politicians have not dared to mention accept in passing. Yes, even the frankness of President Barack Obama has barely touched on these issues. The first and foremost of those elephants in the North American room is the profligate and
The Consumption Elephant Read More »
“Junk Bonds Signal Revival of Credit” is the headline story in the Report on Business – Globe and Mail in its Friday April 17th 2009 edition. This comes after 6 weeks and 4 weeks of rallies on the Toronto Stock Exchange and New York Stock Exchanges respectively. And if the banks are into issuing and
Junk Bonds Signal Revival of Credit Read More »
When one reads the Economist’s Special Report on The Collapse of Manufacturing, Tom Friedman’s book Hot Flat and Crowded, the Booz and Hamilton book on Manufacturing – Make or Break, or the Obama Administration’s Agenda Paper – it becomes obvious that US industry is going to need an extra heavy dose of innovation and entrepreneurship
Trying To Stimulate Innovation with Tax Cuts Read More »
Steady, reasonably-paid jobs for your populace is the new Gold Standard valued by governments and politicians of every persuasion.What proof do we have for this notion. No less than Barack Obama has pledged no Hoot Smalley-like protectionist tariff measures will get signed into law by his administration. But the same Barack obama has said there
The New Gold Standard: Jobs Read More »
The comment here is that recent presidents are crying wolf over “Emergency situations” in order to accrue power and support for near unilateral policy making. The two debaters are saying that both Barack Obama and George Bush have been engaging in a Ponzi scheme for power instead of money based on National Emergency Cry Wolf.
Emergency, Emergency Read More »
Slashdot has a great posting which acts as an antidote to the domestic “Gosh iPhone is Wonderful” worship from many US Gadjeteers and IT pundits. I repeat the essence here: “With a high level of technical sophistication, critical customers, and high innovation rate, Japan is the toughest cell phone market in the world. So it’s
The New York Times is sponsoring on its website a very interesting, challenging and hoefully helpful blog, Room for Debate.The idea is to have 4 experts in the field address a serious contemporary issue/question and use that base to constitute the forum for debate by readers and commentators. Yes it is risky business because online
Future Job Markets in the Good Old USA Read More »
No time is a good time for incompetence but it appears even under Obama incompetence in the position of US Treasury Secretary has won out again. For Tim Geithner appears to be Henry Paulson II. Now I should immediately qualify the word “incompetence” and replace it with deliberate deviance. This deliberate deviance is sort of like Mr.Geithner’s
As a “foreign” observer I was struck by two things in the inaugural address: First, the direct repudiation of the former President and VicePresident to their faces on the shortfall of “ends justifies the means” arguments regarding dispensing with rule of law in wartime(read “torture” in Iraq, Quantanamo Bay, Iraq’a Abu Ghraib, Rendition flights, etc)
Observations on Obama’s Inaugural Address Read More »
China has a number of deals going on with its people, the US and the rest of the World – and those deals are being severely tested in the latest economic downturn. First, domestically the deal is that the people tolerate a one-party systems with most of the decisions made at the top for 10%++
This is a tongue in cheek “PRAISE” for the Economist story on the Failure of the US bailout of its auto companies. The Economist gets two very important points dead wrong; The Economist says – “A number of Republican senators were prepared to do just that, essentially because they believed that pouring more money into
The Economist Errs Grievously Read More »
Governor Rod Blagojevich provided all the US political humorists a recharging since the end of the US Presidential campaign – the Jon Stewart Show, Steven Colbert Report, and even the Sunday Funnies on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos were crammed with “wise cracks”. But as David Letterman shows, the political humor virtually wrote itself.However,
Blagojevich Humor Has Bite Read More »
The reason that stock prices continue to gyrate so much as they head down and the credit markets still are frozen – even after unprecedented action by the Fed and worldwide central banks – all is captured in a single phrase – the derivative mess. The Size of the Problem That is why I am
The Derivative Mess Read More »
The World Finance industry and especially the Wall Street Branch has been able to fend off most monitoring and regulation under the guise that a)financial institutions and markets are Darwinian effective – as long as they remain unfettered by regulations, financial markets will be transparent and efficient at reaching very risk balanced valuations of any
Finance Self Regulation Read More »
NYTimes is leading the charge in re-examining the nature and worth of the influence Alan Greenspan had on broad US Economic and Financial policy. As long serving chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Mr. Greenspan set monetary policy as FedCharman from 1987 to 2006 under Republican and Democratic Presidents. As seen in the article Mr.
Re-examining Greenspan’s Era Read More »
There is a news item at the NYTimes that confirms in no uncertain terms what has become abundantly obvious – Wall Street will not regulate itself. Not only that but Wall Street cannot rescue itself when it gets into trouble. The whole reason the banking system is failing now is that a)no financial institution trusts
Wall Street’s Incompetencies Read More »
After the VP debate, it is becoming obvious that Barack Obama and Joe Biden are shaping up to win a landslide victory in the Presidential election. Despite doing much better than in the Katie Couric interviews, Governor Palin simply could not deflect (and almost every time switched the subject) on Joe Biden’s telling criticisms of
After the VP Debate Read More »
The Presidential Debates were proof positive that both candidates are hopelessly caught up in “PCS-Polically Correct Speak”. Even with Jim Leher’s promptings, both candidates backed away from spelling out: 1)the causes of the bailout problem ; 2)the what should be done in the short term and why it makes sense; 3)what has to be done
The Presidential Debates: Economic Tricklings Read More »
One would hardly know based on the coverage in the Press and on TV – Economic and Political Revolutions are taking place right before the pundits eyes and they have scarcely acknowledged them. 1)The Web as a shaper of direct governance rose significantly. The Web through blogs and business webstes a)carried the latest news of
Economic and Political Revolutions Read More »
The advisories on regulation of the Wall Street seem to be of the “deeply vested interest” type. I wish that news sources like BBC, Barrons, The Economist, Forbes, Fortune, NYTimes, Washington Post and many other adhered to the disclosure rules required of financial “experts” on TV programs like Nightly Business Report and MSNBC. And these
Regulation of Finance Read More »
What is happening in the rest of the World outside Wall Street ? Well judging from the features and Apps Google’s new Android mobile phone may be more competition to iPhone then anticipated. Information Week gives the phone a solid thumbs up while eWeek spotlights some of the phones features. In sum, Google has a
Thanks heavens that Congress, Democratic Senator Chris Dowd and Republican SenatorRichard Shelby, have taken a whoa, wait a minute view on this bailout measure. Under the guise of an emergency, the Bush Administration is doing a Financial Iraq – let us in with no controls or otherwise the system will meltdown and there will be
Moral Hazard V – Blank Cheque Bailout ? Read More »
The day after assesments of the Wall Street Fix are not sanguine. The essence of the argument is that the government has still not done the right thing because all the derivative based bad debt has: 1)Not been identified and reported completely to the SEC+Fed by the investment banks and other bad funds holders; 2)the
The deal is not done yet, but Bernanke and Paulson (SEC Chairman Cox seems to have no credibility) appear to have sold Congress on the idea that the total US Financial System was in the throes of completely freezing up. Now taxpayers as Moral Hazard Insurance providers are on the hook for probably a sweet
You have probably guessed it – you have a gut instinct for numbers. Sometimes the exact number of things up to 7-9. But also large collections of things such that distinguishing quickly which are most numerous is of survival import – are there more women then men at a party or more black pieces than
Perception of Numbers And Irrationality Read More »
The article has a tinge of shadenfreude and reads like a clever Steven Colbert rant, but the punchline is literally the lethal level of truth – see Rosa Brooks column in the LATimes here.
USA gets a letter from the World Bank Read More »
I have been arguing in this column that Executive pay has no correlation with the real risks taken. And measured against the real life or death decisions made by doctors, service men, captains of ships both air and nautical – CEO’s pay vis a vis their performance seems to be great outliers – almost ridiculous
It appeared that with the refusal of FedAid to Lehman and the shotgun wedding of Merrill to Bank of Captain America, Treasury Secretary Paulson had closed the Moral Hazard Insurance window for your friendly Investment Bankers-only service. But I demurred here. And sure enough, two days later, the Moral Hazard Insurance window is open again
Two days ago I raised the question of whether US Secretary Paulson and the Treasury would be able to stop Wall Streets run on the Moral Hazard Insurance Company – that is as Paul Krugman of the New York Time’s calls it: “[Federal] officials are worried that their rescue efforts will encourage even more risky
The Moral Hazard Denoument Read More »
