// March 8th, 2010 // No Comments » // Economics, Music
I love this chart, which shows the sovereign debt of countries (proportional to their size). Basically corruption and misspending is rampant with the countries in trouble. notice on the bottom left, how responsibility is highest in the socialist countries
// January 3rd, 2010 // No Comments » // Economics, Uncategorized
For anyone who read my post on why wine was a good investment - June 5, 2009:
http://www.alwinian.net/2009/06/05/wine-better-than-bonds/
The Star has posted some pretty similar findings in their investments over the decade review.
Ughemm.Ughemm..
http://www.thestar.com/business/investing/article/743128–it-was-a-decade-of-volatility-for-investors
// September 25th, 2009 // No Comments » // Economics, Uncategorized
That i’ve been holding onto for a long time. It would be simple to implement, with two usb mice. The problem is in the software, as the O/S needs to be reconfigured to either accept 2 input streams or to have the mice logically mapped from a single stream. Many applications would seem to be more intuitive with such an interaction. Click on the image for a larger version. So here it is. yup.
// July 9th, 2009 // No Comments » // Economics, Uncategorized
Almost done moving… 3 moves in 3 months. This will be my new room in August.
My friend Peemo (at PeterMohideen.com) put these up from his new shiny Ipod3GS.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hkP7-RlOR0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_AA44bMkYE
Enjoy 
// June 19th, 2009 // No Comments » // BrainStorms, Economics, Four Stars, Meta, Three Stars
Why are some organizations efficient and others not?
It occurred that possibly the best way of analyzing and finding inefficiencies in an organization is to use vectors. Like electricity, macro-economics and swimming, aggregate/net action is really the most important thing. Measurement of energy versus application is easily seen with vector relationships. If bureacracy brings you in a circle, your net vector will be zero, but energy applied, will be much higher. The organizations with the greatest absolute vector magnitude divided by energy applied will be the strongest most efficient organization. This ratio, M/E call it should be as important as P/E for finance. It seems that this is the easiest way to create metrics, for bureacracies and to eliminate ‘circles’.
// June 6th, 2009 // No Comments » // Economics
Interesting to note Paul Krugman’s point on recent Chinese central bank figures (if you follow this sort of stuff). Excerpted verbatim from here his blog at the New York Times online.
May 29, 2009
What you don’t know …
The focus these days is on the mismatch between China’s electricity consumption and a key measure of industrial output.
For most of the past decade, China’s industrial value-added growth (IVA) –industry output less input costs – has moved broadly in step with movements in electricity consumption. But the relationship’s broken down recently: electricity use is still seeing negative growth, while IVA is growing at a decent positive rate again.
Some China analysts are crying foul: If IVA growth figures are being cooked, surely that means China’s recent GDP data have been overstated too. China’s statisticians use IVA output to estimate what accounts for nearly half of China’s GDP.
China’s association of electricity generators has a solution: it’s stopped publishing consumption data.
// June 5th, 2009 // No Comments » // Economics, Three Stars
More polemnical investing advice here.
…Because of the zero rate interest policy of ‘the modern world’, if you are looking for the security of bonds, but not in this economic climate. I would highly recommend purchasing rare and expensive wines. (seriously). The reasons are several fold.
A. Wines are commodities which hedge against inflation, hyperinflation etc.
B. The cost of carry is very low, and furthermore you have the joy of keeping something which brings aesthetic joy while you hold it for the future; this probably beats keeping porkbellies or wheat bushels in the basement which take up more room.
C. The cost of other resources, like gold are probably overbought, for the same reasons the streets are jammed at 8am m-f, because that is where everyone else is.
D. Vintage wines are a diminshing quanitity over time.
E. Wine has been around for thousands of years in human history. Unlike a 2002 Ipod, it is a product that appreciates as it gets older. Older wines are invariably more expensive than younger ones. Though I don’ t have stats, from what I’ve seen with a 1 year bottle versus a 5 year bottle, the yield curve is a very good one.
In sum, it is a secure investment and not nearly as crazy as it seems.
Oh yeah, and if you decide to open an expensive bottle, call me.
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Here is the best comment out of about 30:
“solution: it’s stopped publishing consumption data” Well, it seems many government share the same play book. You can stop providing information to the public (for their own good) or, just change to rules. Ahh …. could we think of another governing body that might have used these tactics? Let’s think real hard. — Miffed
Alwin’s thought bubble: … Fed M3 is not published.. just too scary for our eyes.
Related: here is Deloitte’s Asia Pacfic outlook for June 2009