Weekend Reading
Ahhh, glorious Spring is upon is: The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and the muddy remnants of recent storms are beginning to dry out. The hammock beckons!
Before I head out East to see if our summer house is still standing, here are a few worthwhile reads for those of you suffering in less delightful weather zones of the world.
• NBER’s Hall Says Payrolls Make It ‘Pretty Clear’ Recession Over (Bloomberg)
• Time to rebalance (The Economist)
• Pssst: Wall Street Is Hiring Again (Time)
• A Mark Hulbert Two-fer:
. . . . .-A bullish reading of the Presidential Election Year Cycle (Marketwatch)
. . . . .-Should you sell in April and go away? (Marketwatch)• John Bogle: Old-fashioned investing advice still applies (LA Times)
• A Banker Finds Cash Cow in Failures (WSJ)
• CNN.com launched a new breaking news blog: This Just In
• Barney Frank: Another Staffer Flips to Wall Street (Marketbeat)
• You Tube turns 5 (Wired)
• Moral judgments can be altered … by magnets (MIT)
• My favorite April Fools headline: Man arrested at Large Hadron Collider claims he’s from the future (CNET)
• Catfight! Blodget and Salmon on Blodget vs. Salmon: The Last Word (Village Voice)
Let’s go open thread with the rest of this: What are you reading that is particularly insightful, informative, or simply interesting ?
Or are you simply marking time, waiting for the premiere of the new Dr. Who series on BBC in 2 weeks ?
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April 3rd, 2010 at 3:11 pm
Contesting Jobless Claims Becomes a Boom Industry
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/04/us/04talx.html?hp
Jon Stewart was right when he said that the difference between the Mafia and Wall Street is that the Mafia is more humane.
April 3rd, 2010 at 3:47 pm
Marking time waiting for the purple and pink polka-dotted Swan to make it’s appearance/other shoe to drop.
April 3rd, 2010 at 4:13 pm
@f411: Thanks for the link.
It is indeed a sorry state of affairs. And long, long from being resolved.
When a company like TALX can be in business for such a short time and then be acquired by a company like Equifax for $1.4B??????
We do not occupy a real space in time.
And as everyone here likes to point out, it will not end well.
But I suppose the elites will see their 15,000 or 20,000 DJIA. As we speak they are building their fortified mansions on remote islands.
And the rest of us can deal with TALX. And everything else Bananamerica.
April 3rd, 2010 at 4:38 pm
Lots happening in little old ireland this week. Our “bad bank”, the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) finally bought lots of bad assets (loans) off banks, and revealed the haircut they paid. We’re yet to see what banks they will control, Anglo Irish went along time ago, the big remaining questions is what percentage they will take of the rest. One, two, or three more nationalisations on the way. (We only have a half dozen banks)
The government have leveraged heavily to buy lots of property (loans). I ask you, what could possibly go wrong!?
For anyone looking for informative pieces on the irish economy, look no further than http://www.irisheconomy.ie
April 3rd, 2010 at 4:40 pm
Here’s a recent Blodget post parroting the GOP media machine lie that the recent “write downs” are companies “cutting benefits” due to the health insurance reform…
http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/businesses-react-to-rising-cost-of-obamacare-they‘re-cutting-benefits-450638.html?tickers=mdt,cat,vz,xlv,ixj,^dji,^gspc&sec=topStories&pos=2&asset=&ccode
When. the fact is the “write downs” are reversing a loophole in the Bush Prescription Drug benefit that was repealed in the recent health insurance legislation that stopped companies from double deducting those benefits.
Blodget is either a slip-slot analyzer of these accounting fixes …or a GOP tool.
April 3rd, 2010 at 4:40 pm
Joseph Tainter’s, “Collapse of Complex Societies”. Why the unUnited States cannot continue to exist.
Short version here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Tainter
April 3rd, 2010 at 4:43 pm
I’ve been consumed by The Big Short – picked it up Thursday evening and plowed through it all in a few sittings. It’s a *great* read. Lewis is a wonderful writer; the way he describes the various cast and characters had me shaking my head in recognition, and at times laughing out loud. In the end, it’s not a funny story at all, but he does an exceptionally good job of explaining the abstract – the complex (by design) financial instruments and strategies, as well as the motivations of all the players.
April 3rd, 2010 at 4:48 pm
@BR: Cool. Spring there. After all the snow and rain. Well deserved.
In the grand NW Winter has returned with a fury. We had Spring in February. Maybe it will return in August. Right now it’s nasty wet. One minute Sun, the next sleet and rain.
@Flip: Tainter scores it.
And we are like deer in the headlights.
Leadership? NOT.
Greed and elitism? DUH.
My sense is the elites believe they can afford their escape pods and gated communities and that’s their salvation. Not sure that’s how it works. There is a simple explanation. But it does not serve the power gods well to disclose it now.
April 3rd, 2010 at 5:05 pm
I dont know the details, but instead of being shocked and crazed by the TALX $1.5B story…
Why not get to work creating something of value? A business like TALX. A product like iPad. A film. A book. A blog. A restaurant. Etc?
- Comment left from my iPad! (expect short comment. BR — blog looks pretty good on iPad)
April 3rd, 2010 at 5:23 pm
@cognos
Why not?
Because our indoctrination system known as ‘education’ has poisoned the creative instinct for the masses. It does not encourage innovation (look at teachers unions and their obsession with jobs in Administration), invention, and thinking outside the box. The indoctrination system serves the Masters of the Universe. All the brains and talent that gets to ‘first rate’ institutions is sidelined into careers in taking paper and turning it into paper to the 100th power, adding nothing, destroying the middle class.
For the few that thrive like Gates, Jobs, Wozniak, Packard, Bell, and the relatively few others, the unwashed billions barely survive.
It is a very difficult, for most an impossible, task to start a business. And for those of us that have, we are will aware of the risk, the difficulties, the anti-business attitude planted in the minds of our employeesvwhen we go to hire, their unrealistic view of their own worth.
Why not? A restaurant? Only a fool would do that. An Ipad? Howmany billions did that take? A book?
You’d think that anyone could just sit down and write one and get it published. Try it, I have. And forget about it.
It’s the right idea to create, but sadly successful creation is reserved for the .00001 per cent. Just a take an hour and wander thru the patents that are still awaiting approval.
April 3rd, 2010 at 6:32 pm
This was cool –
http://vimeo.com/1711302
“J.K. Rowling, author of the best-selling Harry Potter book series, delivers her Commencement Address, “The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination,” at the Annual Meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association. (via http://harvardmagazine.com)“
April 3rd, 2010 at 6:35 pm
Flipspiceland — That perspective is so sad.
The iPad — like any great restaurant, rock song, trucking business or hedge fund — is the cumination of 1,000s of single small steps.
I recommend anyone who thinks like you to stop, change, and just get started. And most “good education” is “self education”. The library is open, and its empty. Take ownership.
Id actually say the opposite. Most people can accomplish 10x more than they do. A few can accomplish 1000x more. Most people are their own worst enemies — short-term thinking, ignorance, bad habits, wasting time and energy.
April 3rd, 2010 at 6:42 pm
@cognos: So why exactly are you a WS whore?
You are obviously brilliant.
So, is it about you or us?
April 3rd, 2010 at 6:55 pm
@cognoa
I have started and sold three businesses. So I’m familiar with what it takes. I presume you have started one as well.
Agree that people could turn the 6 hours a day they “watch” into “doing” something and they could reatly benefit from that. But from own experience those who have an entrepeneurial spirit, not simply those who ‘buy their own job’, are extremely rare and the trait is likely inbred or nurtured in a family of entrepeneurs.
Agree with the rest that they are their own worst enemies, repeatedly making the same mistakes over and over again. Why is a complete mystery only partly explained by the psycho-babble of comfort zones. I’ve long held that any real progress only comes from ‘pain’ , which most avoid at all costs.
April 3rd, 2010 at 8:00 pm
cognos,
you may care to give, additional, consideration to Ideas (collectively) presented here:
http://www.amazon.com/Constitution-Liberty-F-Hayek/dp/0226320847
and, in two books, here:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Higgs+Leviathan
and, for further, to fsl’s point about ~”the imagination-neutering effect of our, current, ‘education’ sistema, here:
“Dumbing Us Down
Have you ever wondered how our form of compulsory education got setup in the way it is? John Taylor Gatto has. He wrote many essays on the subject, a variety of which were collected into a book entitled: “Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Education.” What follows is a list of quotes from his many essays, which have been posted to the web, arranged in a manner as if Gatto wrote the article himself. After you have read these, look at my follow-on article “On Education: Division of Labor, Divide and Conquer for some more thoughts on this question, culled from the minds of such luminaries as R. Buckminister Fuller, Alfred North Whitehead, Adam Smith, and Noam Chomsky. You will be surprised to find out that Adam Smith, generally accepted as the promulgator of the “division of labor” concept, predicted that a worker placed in such a system, would be rendered “as stupid and ignorant as it is possible to become for a human creature to become.” So watch out!
Here now is the concatentated collection of Gatto quotes:
1. From: The Public School Nightmare: Why fix a system designed to destroy individual thought?
“The structure of American schooling, 20th century style, began in 1806 when Napoleon’s amateur soldiers beat the professional soldiers of Prussia at the battle of Jena. When your business is selling soldiers, losing a battle like that is serious. Almost immediately afterwards a German philosopher named Fichte delivered his famous “Address to the German Nation” which became one of the most influential documents in modern history. In effect he told the Prussian people that the party was over, that the nation would have to shape up through a new Utopian institution of forced schooling in which everyone would learn to take orders.
So the world got compulsion schooling at the end of a state bayonet for the first time in human history; modern forced schooling started in Prussia in 1819 with a clear vision of what centralized schools could deliver:
1.Obedient soldiers to the army;
2.Obedient workers to the mines;
3.Well subordinated civil servants to government;
4.Well subordinated clerks to industry
5.Citizens who thought alike about major issues. ”
2. From: Why Schools Don’t Educate..”
http://www.noogenesis.com/game_theory/Gatto/Gatto.html
While, no doubt, more people could do more with their Time, it is myopic, at best, to believe that they, generally, are assisted in grander pursuits..
and, those are, not even, half of the negative vectors arrayed against us all..
to be clear, this: “I recommend … stop, change, and just get started. And most “good education” is “self education”. The library is open, and its empty. Take ownership.
I’d actually say the opposite. Most people can accomplish 10x more than they do. A few can accomplish 1000x more. Most people are their own worst enemies — short-term thinking, ignorance, bad habits, wasting time and energy.”
is good advice, though, We should wonder how much of this: “short-term thinking, ignorance, bad habits” is being, purposely, created..
April 3rd, 2010 at 8:12 pm
@flip –
To your point, look at the J.K Rowling video I posted above. So many human advances have been enabled by a willingness to fail or the inability to avoid failure, but failure is neither fun nor easy. I’ve started five (plus a couple I don’t count) and managed to more-or-less sell four, so I know a lot about this particular subject, and you can trace my path from one disaster to the next.
April 3rd, 2010 at 9:20 pm
@MEH: Lots of words, but critically important bottom line:
“is good advice, though, We should wonder how much of this: “short-term thinking, ignorance, bad habits” is being, purposely, created.. ”
Correct.
If we existed in the right society, that would be the perfect question.
And that’s exactly what’s wrong.
So all we can do is sit by and watch the next pump and the next crash, and wonder ….
But it’s the same point.
The elites are destroying our economy and planet for their gain.
But they want to make it a social issue, as in cap and trade. As in, the non-elites are going to continue to get bled dry.
Check the tax code and the rates.
April 3rd, 2010 at 10:50 pm
I don’t envy your success or what it has brought you but talking about your summer house isn’t relevant.
April 3rd, 2010 at 11:09 pm
When reading the comments on the BP I can always be assured I’ll get my dose of conspiracy theories.
April 4th, 2010 at 12:13 am
Fed Reveals Bear Stearns Assets It Swallowed in Firm’s Rescue
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aZA_RWY3IJ2I
“After months of litigation and political scrutiny, the Federal Reserve yesterday ended a policy of secrecy over its Bear Stearns Cos. bailout. “
April 4th, 2010 at 3:00 am
I was going to comment on the great article from the Economist, but am afraid I will be attacked by the ‘blog-police’.
~~~
BR: Pussy.
As long as your comment is remotely on topic, intelligent, and not flame bait, you have nothing to fear
April 4th, 2010 at 5:07 am
@cognos
I’m glad you work on Wall Street. God forbid you were a doctor:
“What? A bus crushed your leg?……….Walk it off man!”
April 4th, 2010 at 2:03 pm
Greetings.
I decided to register after lurking since October 2008. I have lots of time now since I just got axed last week. I have been reading mostly Marxist socioeconomics lately. Lewis Mumford. Doug Henwood. David Graeber. They provide an interesting balance on the Big Picture. It’s not pretty.
Completely disregarding my own situation, I have never before seen the quality of human capital getting ditched as in this latest layoff round, and I have seen a bunch of layoffs. The city I live in is better off than most and the company I used to work for is making large profits. It is Kafkaesque. Maybe I should read some Kafka.
April 4th, 2010 at 4:18 pm
I find myself constantly repeating this quote I recently heard:
“Seems like you are looking for someone to get angry at, other than yourself.”
I’d say that sums up much of the angst expressed too often in these comments. Found yourself long too much house since 2006 — who should I be angry with? Lost your job because of the natural business cycle and the worst recession since the 1930s — who should I be angry with? Got in too much debt and the CC companies are hiking your rates — who should I be angry with? Lost a bunch of money in financial stocks because you were either too long, or too concentrated in “safe” financials — who should I be angry with? Missed out on the more than 100% run up in risk assets cuz you bought gold or held all cash at the bottom — who should I be angry with?
Its better to not be angry with anyone — but YOURSELF. And even then, just do it for 2 mins, get over it, and start solving problems. Nothing we can do about the past. Lots of solutions and the future is getting better everyday.
Nothing is as ever as good as it seems, nothing is ever as bad as it seems.
April 4th, 2010 at 5:01 pm
@hgordon
I have no beef with the attempts to fulfull one’s dreams, and every child should keep their illusions going until they shatter, which they do in 99.9% of the attempts made.
What I know is that no matter how imaginative, energtic, devoted, and intelligent one is, luck plays an extraordinary part in one’s attainment. More than anyone wants to credit the Lady.
Being realistic though I find that only a tiny fraction of the people accomplish anything significant and speaking to the creation of jobs in particular, which is really what this is all about, I don’t know but handful of people in my own acquaintance who have created even one job, let alone the millions upon milli0ns, billions of jobs that are going to be needed to sustain a world popultion heading to 7 billion then 8 billions. Do You?
April 4th, 2010 at 10:24 pm
@flip
I do, but I have been around the West Coast tech world for a long time, so I am familiar with a culture that breeds and supports innovation. I personally know some major successes, and my accomplishments are quite modest in comparison, but my sense is that success tends to be more a matter of determination than luck. At this point, starting a new business now seems as natural as breathing, though if I think back to the first one I started circa 1981, maybe there was a bit of a leap into the unknown, and I have since managed to suppress any memory of the angst at the time.
April 4th, 2010 at 11:50 pm
@hgordon: Interesting observations.
But one distinguishing factor is it takes capital from somewhere to float a balloon.
My experience in the entrepreneurial environment is that those start-ups most likely to succeed are those capable of self-funding.
Run out of cash, run out of chance. Many have to have the resources to retool more than once.
Oracle for example was rewritten multiple times before it hit the big-time.
Cisco? Ask Galvin and Motorola. Deep pockets. IMHO, Cisco was Bob Galvin’s revenge against AT&T. He won.