Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Monday, February 16, 2009
Economy | New Term - Babygloomers | Daily Telegraph
The Babygloomers - defined as those who are having to support both their own children and their parents - are being stretched to the limit as they also struggle to cover the cost of their own family, which often includes grown up children who cannot to afford to leave home.They have had also had to cope with an increase in their own cost of living as the recession takes hold.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Monday, February 9, 2009
Learn | Vocabulary | MMK
Here's your vocabulary lesson for today:
Liquidity
When you look at your investments and wet your pants
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Humor | Statistics & Gates |
Have you heard the old statisticians' joke about Bill Gates walking into a room of 30 people and raising everyone's average net worth by $1.6-billion?
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Money | Help for Homeowners | WSJ
Programs to help-out homeowners who are way behind on their mortgage payments and underwater in terms of loan-to-value haven't been effective. Here's a somber assessment from the WSJ:
"The latest embattled foreclosure-prevention program is Hope for Homeowners, which was approved by Congress last summer and supposed to help 400,000 homeowners. Only 357 people have signed up so far for the voluntary program. The Department of Housing and Urban Development, which is administering the program, acknowledges that it has been encumbered by high fees and narrow eligibility requirements.
Another government program, FHASecure, was intended to help 80,000 homeowners who had fallen behind on their payments after their adjustable interest rates reset. It has helped only 4,100 delinquent borrowers refinance since September 2007 and will stop taking new loan applications as of Wednesday.
The full article is found here.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Friday, January 9, 2009
Money | Read This Before You Remodel | WSJ
The HGTV/Contractor/Designer/HomeDepot/Mortgagebroker juggernaut drives on. But does it make sense? Viewing your home as a fashion statement will line several folks' pockets but certainly not yours. Check this for a current perspective on what is common sense in the remodeling world.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Tech | China Internet Users > US Pop in 2009 | Kedrosky
According to some new research from JPMorgan, 2009 will be the year that China Internet users surpass the entire population of the U.S.
Life | What have you changed your mind about | Kedrosky
From Paul Kedrosky's blog
What Have You Changed Your Mind About?
What have you changed your mind about? This year's Edge question is the preceding one, and John Brockman gets answers (many of them interesting and/or unpredictable) from a long list of people, including scientists, economics, psychiatrists, writers, etc.
So, what have I changed my mind about? it is a question that has been gnawing at me a great deal lately, with a general sense that changing my mind on things is more important than ever, and that I'm not doing it often enough. Not, of course, in some whimsical sense -- today I like blue,tomorrow I like red -- but in the sense that the world is saying on many levels that so much of what I thought I knew is wrong. I can hardly keep up with the long list of things that I've changed my mind about recently, so many that I feel a little like Billy Pilgrim, that I've come unstuck in time.
Some examples of things I've changed my mind about in the last year:
- Whether there are institutions that are too big to fail (No)
- Whether phones need keyboards (No)
- Why TV exists (I don't know anymore)
- Whether bond yields can go negative (Yes, obviously)
- The important of ignorance (Vastly underrated)
- Whether economics matters (Maybe)
- Mountain-biking (Not just for wahoos who don't ski)
- The role of contrarianism (Important, but entirely misunderstood too)
- Whether blogs matter (More than I thought they did)
- Whether Twitter is any use (Yes)
- Whether AM radio is a wasteland (Yes, but still matters)
- Large data sets (Way more dangerous than I thought they were)
- Reading books on screen (Totally doable)
- Venture capital (Much closer to unnecessary)
- Hedge funds (I've gone from it being mostly about chance to it being almost entirely about chance)
- Sincerity (Under-rated)
- Market valuation (Historical numbers matter only minimally)
- Technical analysis (It works until it doesn't, but it can work)
- Agnosticism (It's a cop-out. I'm an atheist.)
- Warren Buffett (Smart, but also the ultimate market limit order that will one day be disastrously taken out)
- Babies (I now smile inanely at other people's)
- China recession (Better than 50% chance it happens, up from near zero)
- Vanity Fair (Worth reading for more than the pictures)
- Eschatological leanings (Rational response to universal entropy)
- Current account deficits (Hugely important, but can last far longer under unique circumstances)
- Wholesale funding model (Works until it doesn't)
- Debt (Even more necessary more dangerous than I thought it was)
- 50-year Treasury (Has to happen)
- Lessons from Japan bubble/decline (It is a cop-out to say they didn't try hard enough)
- Marx (Funnier than I thought he was)
- Bonds and bond market (Baffled why I was under-allocated for so long)
- Professional sports (Gone from being a waste of time to a _complete_ waste of time with looming bankruptcies)
- This time it's different (Sometimes it really is different)
- Whether oil can get to $200/$20 again in 12 months (Yes and yes)
I'm sure I'll come with more, but I'd cheerfully have others add theirs.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Business | Domestic US Auto Industry | Kedrosky
Quote du (Almost) Jour: Auto Industry Stresses
Over the past year, the domestic auto industry has experienced sharply reduced sales and profitability, large indefinite layoffs, and increased market penetration by imports … The shift in consumer preferences towards smaller, more fuel-efficient passenger cars and light trucks … appears to be permanent, and the industry will spend massive amounts of money to retool to produce the motor vehicles that the public now wants.
To improve the overall future prospects for the domestic motor vehicle manufacturers, a quality and price competitive motor vehicle must be produced … If this is not accomplished, the long term outlook for the industry is bleak.
-- Source: THE U.S. AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY, 1980. REPORT TO THE PRESIDENT FROM THE SECRETARY OF TRANSPORTATION
It's probably necessary to prevent the domestic US auto industry from careening over the cliff and dragging parts suppliers, dealers, and associated business partners with it. However, how we're going to get this dinosaur of manufacturing to change its ways is beyond me. I'm thinking that Chrysler sells-off Jeep and kills-off the rest. GM sells Buick to the Chinese, Saab to the Swedes, Hummer to the Russians, and then just struggles along until the rest crashes and burns. Who needs a $40K Volt? If Ford can restructure fast enough then they may have a chance to survive. Meanwhile the other US auto industry is hurting but capable and makes quality, efficient cars and trucks that Americans want to buy.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Money | Bailout Big Three? Pro vs Con | Kedrosky
The biggest question of the moment ... maybe of the decade. Here's a quick pro vs con blog with a Big Three promo video and lots of feedback. See also the recent articles in the WSJ.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Money | Real vs Financial Engineering | GE
Immelt of GE announced on Friday the 24th that General Electric Co. is cutting costs, preparing for a new wave of regulation from Washington and embracing manufacturing over financial services as ways out of the economic crisis. I think we've had enough of financial engineering. Time to return to product and system engineering.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Money | Finance Crisis | Schwarzman
Stephen Schwarzman, chairman of Blackstone Group, was part of an impromptu roundtable of roughly 30 finance luminaries hosted by the Yale School of Management and co-sponsored by The Wall Street Journal. Schwarzman kicked off the audience-participation segment with a nearly all-in-one-breath summary of the causes and effects of the credit crisis:
"It's a perfect storm. It started with Congress encouraging lending to lower-income people. You went from subprime loans being 2% of total loans in 2002 to 30% of total loans in 2006. That kind of enormous increase swept into the net people who shouldn't have been borrowing. Those loans were packaged into CDOs rated AAA, which led the investment-banking firms [buying them] to do little to no due diligence, and the securities were distributed throughout the world, where they started defaulting. When they started defaulting, out of bad luck or bad judgment, we implemented fair value accounting….You had wildly different marks for this kind of security, which led to massive write-offs by the commercial banking and investment-banking system. In the face of those losses…you needed to raise new equity…which came from sovereign-wealth funds in part, which then caused political resistance to sovereign-wealth funds, who predictably have withdrawn from putting money into the system….It seemed pretty obvious that would happen. We now find ourselves with a liquidity crisis where fundamentally the cost of money for financial intermediaries [such as investment banks] is significantly in excess of their cost of lending it. So several institutions found themselves in a structurally impossible position. We had a series of bankruptcies, whether Bear Stearns or Lehman, or forced sales like Merrill. Goldman reverted to a banking charter for a lower cost of funds, which today is still not low enough for the business."
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Money | Buffett Interview | CNBC
Worthwhile tidbits here from Warren Buffett. If this very sharp and common sense investor says that the government needs to intervene in the credit crisis then I'm sold. Hopefully, Congress will wrap-up venting their collective spleen in the next day and get on with business. They can talk all they want about caps on executive compensation - for this credit crisis, the bad boys and girls who have driven us to the brink have largely already collected their big $$$. Nonetheless, IMHO the train-wreck-causing easy-credit/credit-securitization situation needs to be reined-in hard.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Monday, September 22, 2008
Money | $0.7T Bailout | US Treasury
Here's a one-page summary of how $0.7T of new US debt will be used. Paulson was asked what if it doesn't work? He responded it must work. More than a little unsettling. I'm thinking that we're looking at a whole new economy down the road. Prudent spending by individuals, businesses and government - if that's where we land - will resonate through the global economy like an 8.0. Cheers!
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Disasters | Hurricane Ike | Boston.com
Some incredible pictures of the aftermath of Hurricane Ike. My wife was in Houston during and after the storm ... we'll be beefing-up our emergency supplies after experiencing that situation.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Education | Mideast Geography |
Think you know the geography of the Mideast? Try this game and see for yourself.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Money | Retirement Planning Case Studies | ESPlanner
There is useful reading in these case studies on retirement financial planning. Retirement living standards, IRA/401k account withdrawals, Social Security, annuitization of assets. This site is from the ESPlanner retirement planning model which is powerful, but a bit pricey for individuals.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Money | Consignment Shopping | SacBee
Here's a great idea, especially for young families. Takes the yard sale & 2nd hand shop concepts to a new level. If they opened one of these for electronics, they'd have to fight the engineers off with slip sticks. Sort of like the MIT and TRW monthly electronics swap meets for amateur radio and computer stuff.
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