Dogs are animals of integrity. We have much to learn from them.
Tag: Economic crisis
Stop doing what you are doing and watch Jacqueline Novogratz!
Small things add up to make larger things! This concept of “integration” is seen everywhere that we look.
The subject and content of this presentation are fundamental to the future of the world. And the presenter is showing what can be done.
I found this presentation particularly poignant.
By John Lewis
These are hard times for millions – transformation is the only practical option.
I’ve been working with most of my clients recently through painful transformation brought about by the recession.
An interesting metaphor really because, since the first wave of uncertainty in the UK banking system triggered panic, I 
have been picking up on that uncertainty.
That uncertainty feels like it’s stalking the globe at the moment; one has been aware of an underlying fear that was difficult to name and source in me. It has been rather like a deep river in that whilst the surface feels slow moving, currents are moving things powerfully below.
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Keynes, macro economics and other terms need to be more widely understood.
Macroeconomics as a field is not very impressive, frankly.
In my view, it is more glorified accounting and policy than anything remotely related to testable economic theory!
Keynesian economics — the stuff that most macro courses are made of — smacks of a model created to justify a pre-conceived belief that government can run businesses better than private industry can. Keynes spoke strictly of demand-side policies, namely fiscal and monetary policies, which create a large role for government intervention, as opposed to supply side policies, which basically get government out of the way by lowering taxes, fees, paperwork, and restrictions, and allow private industry to take risks and create value and manifest economic freedom.
Who really understood the forces of destruction building up in the global economy?
(This Post is longer than usual but doesn’t lend itself to being divided into multiple Posts – trust it is worth the read.)
Part One – How investing in the 80s was so hit and miss.
My education with respect to the sound management of one’s wealth came from a propitious mistake by a global insurance company, one of Britain’s largest insurance companies as it happens. Here’s the story.
Steve Keen – Associate Professor of Economics & Finance at the University of Western Sydney.
I know didly squat about economics. I know a lot about the effect of economics in the sense of government policies, of inflation and debt, international trade and much more only in how they have impacted me over a lifetime of working, buying homes, raising a family, running a couple of businesses and now contemplating retirement. I can sum up my personal strategy – LUCK! I have been lucky. The other Post out today shows an example of that luck.
Frankly, economists haven’t figured widely in my role call of people that I admired, probably because I don’t really understand what they are talking about. (That’s why this Blog has a real live economist as part of the team, to help educate me and all the rest of the readers who come to this Blog!)
The other Post on this subject spoke of David Kauders, who clearly saw it coming. Now here’s an economist who also saw it coming, Steve Keen.
Baseline Scenario publishes an interesting post and triggers a wise comment.
Regular readers of Learning from Dogs will know that we greatly admire the job done by Simon Johnson, James Kwak and others over at Baseline Scenario in debating this global economic crisis.
The comments that flow in are fascinating and often deeply educational. Not surprising! Baseline Scenario has nearly 12,000 readers! But many of them show the level of anger and frustration felt by so many.
Anyway, a Post published by them on September 24th reminded me that hope is so much a more profitable emotion than anger. The Post starts like this,
The fragility of the economy shows in many areas.
Last Thursday, the mere hint of a fairly insignificant surplus in U.S. oil reserves pushed down current oil prices and energy-related futures and other speculative plays.
Oil prices have fallen sharply as weak US home sales data and high US oil inventories prompted doubts about a potential recovery in fuel demand. Source: BBC News, 24th September.
Can you imagine the reaction to an announcement of a new source of U.S. oil reserves? Or of renewed off-shore drilling capacity? Relaxed EPA standards? Additional refinery capacity?
Our energy prices would be cut in half and we’d be so much less likely to war with oil-rich nations on whom we now depend for the functioning of our economy and who, indirectly or not, limit our economic and personal freedoms.
By Sherry Jarrell
Looks like a nice series from USA Today newspaper.
Just happened to be staying in a hotel last week that offered free copies of USA Today. Too mean to buy my own copies!
Anyway, that Monday was the start of a small business entrepreneur’s series running for 6 weeks.
Don’t worry if you missed the paper version, all available online. Week One is here, Week Two here. Bookmark it if you want to follow all 6 weeks – seems well thought out and mostly relevant to both sides of the Pond.
By Paul Handover
Stockmarkets in very foreign territory
On August 6th, a Post was published on this Blog with the title of This is going to end in tears!
It was prompted by an article by Karl Denninger and a footnote piece from Dave Rosenberg of Gluskin Sheff.
Also included were the US and UK prices for 4th August (about 7am MT) more for my own curiosity than anything else. They were:
Dow Jones 9295, S&P 500 1,001, NASDAQ 2002, FTSE 100 (now closed) 4671.
By comparison, here are the figures for these markets (all closed at time of writing) for the 18th September.
Dow Jones 9820, S&P 500 1,068, NASDAQ 2133, FTSE 100 5173.
Well another fascinating muse from Mr Rosenberg was in this morning’s inbox and important extracts are below:
Wonderful article in the Financial Times about the importance of IT documentation!
Unwinding derivatives is a complex task at the best of times. In the case of Lehman, one of the biggest dealers in some of the most complex derivatives markets, this has been even more so. Lehman’s global derivatives book included contracts with a notional face value of $39,000bn and deals with 8,000 different counterparties when it went bust. The derivatives business was actually split into multiple strands, backed up by between 20 and 30 different systems.
Once it went bankrupt, the staff who supported these systems “evaporated”, according to Steven O’Hanlon, president of Numerix, a pricing and valuation company which is working with Lehman Brothers Holding Inc to unwind the derivatives portfolio.
Say no more! Full article is here.
By Paul Handover
Learning from Dogs 