This is from Bloomberg…..
Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co. and Morgan Stanley, which earned a record $24.5 billion in 2006, suddenly have become so speculative that their own traders are valuing the three biggest securities firms as barely more creditworthy than junk bonds.
I don’t know why people aren’t making a bigger deal out Click Here to continue reading.
Here is an excellent post by Brad Setser on the yen carry trade. Here is an Economist article wondering how much longer it can last….
Consumers like I once was think that a shipment is a box with an address. You have a product, you put it in the box, you put the address on it, and you put it on the truck. If things were that simple at Acme, I would not be working twelve hour days to try Click Here to continue reading.
I am a skeptic when it comes to peak oil. I am a skeptic when it comes to scare talk of Saudi Arabia running out of oil. But today, I must confess that the facts do not seem to be on the side of the skeptic.
I think that everyone who is interested in the Click Here to continue reading.
In 1856, the Xhosa had a serious problem. They had been defeated in many wars and had lost a lot of their ancestral lands. They faced the complete extinction of their culture and way of life at the hands of European colonists. So how did they deal with this serious and seemingly insurmountable problem?
They listened Click Here to continue reading.
Read in today’s Wall Street Journal on P. A14 under Energy Use Puts Oil Squeeze on Iran…
Already, the Middle East and North Africa’s population of some 300 million consumers consumes almost as much oil as 1.2 billion Chinese.
Now I know enough not believe something just because I read it in a newspaper. But I Click Here to continue reading.
If an action generates no paperwork, did it happen?
There are many actions taken every day in Acme that do not generate paperwork, but they are the illegal immigrants, the crucial illigitimate pillars of our factory. Anything which does not result in some numeric aggregate does not officially happen.
I am supposed to work 7 am to Click Here to continue reading.
Why don’t European tradesmen use pickup trucks? As best as I can tell from what I read, European tradesmen use a mixture of small vans and one ton (and up) trucks. The half ton and three quarter ton pickup trucks that are widely used in America are almost unheard of in Europe. Why is this?
This Click Here to continue reading.
This morning at Acme we had some parts that were run wrong on the machine and needed to be fixed up. This already is a disgrace according to the standards of Lean manufacturing. But it was worse because K. D. wasn’t at the meeting to promise that he could fix them, and nobody else knew Click Here to continue reading.
Now let me say right off that I don’t really think that the government should do absolutely nothing to protect shareholders. It is one of the proper functions of the government to protect property after all. But it is not proper for the government to mow your lawn, clean your house, or supervise your employees. Click Here to continue reading.