Google Reader Feed: My Shared Items
This weekend’s Financial Times featured a great interview with economist, and ‘prophet’ of the recent economic metldown, Nouriel Roubini. At a time when many economists and financial commentators where underplaying, if not downright ignoring, the looming credit crunch, Roubini was warning of the impending chaos of the markets. Some may claim that he was simply [...]
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I wrote my senior honors thesis back in 2000 on the interplay between transnational organized crime, corruption, and privatization in the former Soviet Union. At the time I thought is was pretty good, impressive in fact. Well, I’ve learned through the years that, in the words of Nero in Mel Brooks’ History of the World, [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Economics, finance, Recession | Leave a Comment »
The story of “The Great Recession”, as many are calling the current economic crash, is in the process of being told. There are so many angles and players that it is difficult to tell the story in one single work. Each article and book that comes out focuses on one aspect of the crisis (e.g. [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Economics, Recession, Wall Street | 1 Comment »
I just started reading Andrew Ross Sorkin’s highly acclaimed history of the recent financial meltdown. I am only three chapters in, but I can already recommend the book to all. This book is not written in a highly technical style. Instead, Sorkin discusses complex financial instruments and concepts with ease in a highly accessible manner. [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Economics, LinkedIn, Recession | Leave a Comment »
James Pethokoukis echoes my concerns over last week’s November jobs report via a quote from David Rosenberg: While it is abundantly clear that companies are near the end of the job downsizing phase, there is scant evidence of any renewal in the pace of new hiring. In fact, it is quite the contrary. This assertion [...]
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Two data visualizations caught my eye over the past few days; one related to consumer spending and the other focused on the unemployment rate. The first comes via Nathan Yao over at FlowingData, who has put together an interactive data visualization that depicts spending patterns by U.S. consumers over the past 25 years (data courtesty [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: data visualization, Economics, Recession | Leave a Comment »
This week, the government of Dubai decided to delay payment on the tens of billions of dollars that it’s Dubai World holding owes to various creditors (UBS speculates as much as $80B). Dubai World is the vehicle through which the state has invested heavily in various real estate projects around the world. In order to [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Dubai, Economics, LinkedIn, political risk, Recession | Leave a Comment »
Noah Brier points to a piece by Felix Salmon where he argues that the recent financial crash was a result of an excess of caution rather than speculation and risk-taking. Salmon writes: One of the themes of my talk was that it wasn’t an excess of greed and speculation which led to the financial crisis, [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Economics, Recession, Risk Acceptant, Risk Averse | Leave a Comment »
Dan Ariely, author of Predictably Irrational and a blog of the same name, explores NYC Mayor Bloomberg’s plan to make bus fare free. Bloomberg’s plan is to eliminate fares on a few of the fares in the hopes of speeding up the famously slow buses. How would this help? The plan assumes that there are [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: background checks, incentives, Recession | Leave a Comment »
In another sign that companies and storied brands are being brought down to earth by the current recession, Proctor & Gamble has rolled out a less potent and cheaper version of its flagship Tide product called Tide Basic. The new product costs about 20% less than the premium brand. The discount-brand is seemingly a reaction [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Brands, Proctor & Gamble, Recession | 1 Comment »
Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory
Codes of the Underworld: How Criminals Communicate
The Lords of Strategy
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
Alpha Dogs: The Americans Who Turned Political Spin into a Global Business
The Bottom Billon
