Sunday, July 31, 2011

How Big Are We?

In recent noise about the financial world, much has been made of the relative weakness of the U.S. dollar. A lot of seemingly knowledgeable commentators like to predict that international investors either are already or will soon start to run away from the dollar into some other (not yet existing) international monetary unit.

This graph shows one reason why a move away from the dollar is almost impossible unless we're talking in decades instead of years.





Here's the original link at the Atlantic if you want more detail. One quick takeaway is that the metropolitan New York area has an economy larger than that of Canada. The Los Angeles area economy is almost as large as that of the Netherlands.

When American cities have economies as large as major nations this means that the dollar cannot be replaced as an international monetary exchange in the near term. The entire world simply cannot replace the dollar with Swiss Francs when Chicago, all by itself, is bigger than Switzerland. It's a question of liquidity.

Sunday, April 24, 2011

An Interesting - and Stubborn - Fact

Facts are stubborn things. With the recent rise in gasoline prices, it will be the natural tendency of the political class to blame oil companies and seek to demonize them in the public eye. (And based on my conversations on the topic with fellow citizens, they are easy to demonize.)

However ... I ran across this very interesting chart. If you believe that he who controls oil production also influences the price of oil then check out this chart. Who profits the most of increased oil prices? Well, it would appear that the top 13 producers of oil are, in fact, governments and these governments produce 94 percent of the world's oil.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

More to Go

Okay, I just sold my house in Kansas City and took a six percent loss from the purchase price two years ago. From what I can tell, I got off easy. It appears that prices still need to fall further to get back to their historic trend lines (reversion to the mean). It seems to me to be inevitable.

Those who know me know that I'm an optimistic type of fellow. (In fact, most of my personal money is in the market in long positions.) However, real estate seems like a good place to stay away from for a while.



Friday, June 11, 2010

Interviews Again

I thought it was time to repeat a couple of oldies but goodies. Here are two interviews I did in 2009 regarding IT and staffing. Take a look.

Investing in the IT Staff - with Gino Macarroni

So You Think You Know What a Recruiter Thinks? - with Diane Plymale

Thursday, June 10, 2010

The Road to Serfdom - The Comic Book

I had the great pleasure of reading and re-reading Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" many, many years ago. I may be the only person I know who's actually read he philosophical foundation of Capitalism and free markets.

I continue to run into references to the greatness of Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom". Someday I'll have to read it. In the meantime, for us with short attention spans, here's the comic.

Sunday, June 6, 2010

Best Drummer Since Ginger Baker?

Maybe not ... but he certainly wins on style points.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

More Stubborn Facts

Here are the results of last year's Cash for Clunkers program. I haven't watched it closely but it seems that the federal tax credits for a home purchase expired at the end of May. I know there was a flurry of buying
as that credit expired. Then I read an article that home sales will plummet. I suspect the federal tax credit did the same thing in the housing market as it did in the used car market, just pulled sales from the future.


I suspect the housing market will recover to normal levels soon.