Tom SpencerBailouts: a band-aid solution for continuing sovereign debt crises BAILOUTS were the band-aid solution prescribed for the Greek sovereign debt crisis. And every indication suggests that Greece will require another band-aid early next year. In this context, Clarke and Dawe raise an interesting and often carefully overlooked question. Where does the money come from to bail out basket […]
“I would like to live in a world where it’s all rainbows and unicorns, and we could make Krugman the President … And then reality sets in” ~ Kyle Bass KYLE BASS founded and runs Hayman Capital Management, a Dallas-based hedge fund. He is a successful investor who is well known for predicting and profiting […]
Stable growth is often more important than fast money SINGAPORE is on the rise as a wealth management hub with funds under management growing by 22% in 2012 compared with around 5% for Western Europe as a whole. The disparity in growth rates is large, and the FT has attempted to narrate a story that fast […]
Scale improves productivity but also increases bureaucracy Scale can help a company to produce more output at lower average costs. However, production at scale also leads to unhelpful bureaucracy. As production rises, more employees are needed and executives implement more rules to keep things under control. Increasing production tends to lead to higher cash flows, and managers […]
TODAY is the four year anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers. At the time of its bankruptcy, Lehman Brothers was the fourth largest investment bank in the world. How could it run out of money? And, why did this disrupt the global economy? Lehman Brothers and other investment banks went down in part due […]
Your circumstances may matter less than how you perceive them
Applying Philosophy to Business (and vice-versa) This guest post is by a PhD student in philosophy from the Australian National University. DEATH AND TAXES, the adage goes, are life’s two certainties. One might add commerce and philosophy to this list, for the trade of goods and services and the trade of ideas also seem to […]
An explanation of Basel III for non-specialists BNP Paribas Fortis provides a short 10 minute animated presentation on Basel III. For normal people like you and I, this is a nice, accessible and informative summary of how the Basel III framework actually works.
Society has lost its trust in the financial sector. Should we overhaul LIBOR? IN A RECENT article by Bloomberg Businessweek, assistant managing editor Brian Bremmer reports that investigators in America, Canada, Japan, the UK, and the EU are trying to determine whether a handful of brokers and traders have manipulated LIBOR. At this stage, it is […]
The unemployment rate tends to understate how many people are actually out of work A PREVIOUS POST looked at the reasons why the reported unemployment rate in the USA tends to understate the “real” unemployment rate. To understand why this happens, here are a few equations which show how the formula for the unemployment rate […]
THIS is a very humorous and instructive (albeit PG rated) overview of economics. Here are the super-summary notes: 1. Microeconomics: The price of sh*t is determined by supply and demand. 2. Macroeconomics: Oh, sh*t! 3. Keynesian economics: Sh*t happens because of animal spirits. 4. Neo-keynesian economics: This sh*t is sticky. 5. Neo-classical synthesis: Sh*t happens in the […]
A picture says a thousand words BACK IN 1995, which country had the second highest 10 year government bond yield? As Europe’s third largest economy, Italy is too big to bail out. Past performance is not a predictor or future performance. However, if historical bond yields provide us with any insight about the Europe’s future, […]
Recent improvements in the unemployment rate have come from people dropping out of labour force THE unemployment rate in the US has dipped to its lowest level in more than 2 years (source: NYT). Is this good news? Before answering this question, it would help to understand exactly how the US Bureau of Labor Statistics […]
Monkeys learn to use money – what can we learn? ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR of Economics Keith Chen taught a bunch of monkeys to use money. What he discovered was that not only could the monkeys learn to understand the value of money and how to use it, they were also very good at changing their consumption behaviour […]
RECENT falls in the officially reported US unemployment rate are an optimistic sign. That said, it is worth remembering that the official US unemployment rate (currently around 9.1%) systematically understates the “real” unemployment rate. This is not a new phenomenon, and occurs because of the particular way in which the US Bureau of Labor Statistics chooses […]
Inflation erodes the value of real currency ECONOMISTS tend to favour a small positive rate of inflation, and there are 4 reasons why this makes sense: Labour market flexibility: inflation allows relative real wages to adjust even if nominal wages do not move. A company that tries to pay workers less money is likely to meet […]
Europe may not go to rehab before it is too late THE US Federal Reserve took steps yesterday to make it easier for European banks to borrow and lend dollars. The Fed is now providing such cheap money to Europe that the European Central Bank can borrow from the Fed at lower interest rates than American banks. The […]
EUROPEAN leaders have tried to characterise the October writedown of Greek debt as “private-sector involvement”. While the writedown would appear to be a default in all but name, efforts to maintain investor confidence have so far been surprisingly successful. Yesterday, US stocks and Asian stocks rallied amid optimism that European leaders are taking steps to […]
THE MARKETS have been temporarily buoyed amid optimism that European leaders will find a solution to the debt crisis. Unfortunately, the optimism is likely to be short lived because the problem with Greece is not just that they owe everyone a lot of money. Greek debt is a symptom of a more endemic problem rooted in the […]
WITH the Occupy Wall Street movement still in full swing, we have to stop and think for a moment about the distribution of wealth in the world. One of the slogans of the Occupy Wall Street movement is “we are the 99%”, which is a reference to the fact that the top 1% of households […]
Whatever you say it is, it isn’t ~ Alfred Korzybski IN OCTOBER 2011, private banks accepted a 50% writedown on Greek debt. European leaders negotiated the writedown to avoid a technical default. It is surprising that ratings agencies did not classify the writedown as a default when you consider that S&P defines sovereign default as […]
ON WEDNESDAY November 23rd, an auction of German government bonds (known as “Bunds”) managed to sell only €3.6 billion out of a total €6 billion worth of Bunds on offer (source: Economist). Germany is one of the most financially stable countries in the Euro-zone, so its failure to sell all of its Bunds is worth […]
IN THE WAKE of the global financial crisis, there has been a backlash against the mainstream school of economic thought, of which Greg Mankiw is a proponent. Mainstream economists did not predict the global financial crisis and notable commentators, including Steve Keen, single out the narrow minded and simplistic ideas put forward by mainstream economists as the […]
Economics is about decision making in situations of scarcity ECONOMICS is the study of how individuals, firms and government make decisions to manage scarce resources. What does this mean exactly? Professor Greg Mankiw teaches economics at Harvard University and is the author of a popular economics text book called Principles of Economics which is used at many Ivy League […]
Economies of scope exist where a firm can produce two products at a lower per unit cost than would be possible if it produced only the one ECONOMIES OF SCOPE is an idea that was first explored by John Panzar and Robert Willig in an article published in 1977 in the Quarterly Journal of Economics […]
TOMORROW, SEPTEMBER 15th, at various public locations worldwide, people will hand out their own money to complete strangers, two coins or notes at a time, asking the recipients to pass one of these coins or notes on to someone else. The aim is to raise awareness and start conversations about the benefits of economies based […]
When the economy slows, you’re likely to get RAPED, SHAFTED or SCREWED Due to the current financial situation caused by the slowdown in the US economy, Congress has decided to implement a scheme to put workers of 50 years of age and above on early, mandatory retirement, thus creating jobs and reducing unemployment. This scheme […]
Printing money is the last refuge of failed economic empires and banana republics QUANTITATIVE EASING is a monetary policy tool sometimes employed by central banks to stimulate the economy when conventional monetary policy becomes ineffective. To stimulate the economy, the central bank normally carries out expansionary monetary policy by lowering short-term interest rates through the […]
Subtitle: The battle between John Maynard Keynes and F.A. Hayek DURING THE global financial crisis, we were told by governments that the best way to fix the world economy was to increase spending. This sounds simple enough given that increased government spending and lower interest rates can be used to boost output, but it is […]
NOTHING exists which is permanent. Your current success is the result of your past efforts and good fortune, and how well you have responded to changing circumstances along the way by seizing new opportunities and avoiding threats. An interesting example of a company that failed to respond to changing times is General Motors. GM was […]
MAINSTREAM economics would have you believe that the purpose of business is to maximise profits. If a business loses money it will soon go bust, this much is clear. Profit is necessary for any ongoing business operation, however the fact that a business makes a profit does not explain the purpose or raison d’être of […]
In the previous post on Moral Hazard, we learnt that Moral Hazard refers to any situation where a person is not fully responsible for the consequences of their actions. As a result, they may take greater risks than they would have otherwise. Here are 6 examples of situations where Moral Hazards arise in practice. 1. Insurance […]
Moral hazard is when they take your money and then are not responsible for what they do with it. ~ Gordon Gekko 1. Relevance of Moral Hazard THE unemployment rate in the United States is now around 9%. Over 13% of all US mortgages are either delinquent or in foreclosure (Mortgage Bankers Association). Total loses […]
You may want to launch a new product, start a new business or enter a new market. What’s stopping you? BARRIERS to entry are costs that must be paid by a new entrant but not by firms already in the industry. Barriers to entry have the effect of making a market less contestable and allow […]
SEEMS fairly straight forward doesn’t it. The purpose of life is the pursuit of pleasure, and the quest for those objects and experiences that will make our life more enjoyable. As I recently discovered while reading “The Consolations of Philosophy” by Alain de Botton, this was exactly the philosophy held by Epicurus, an ancient Greek […]
An economic indicator is any statistic (e.g. the unemployment rate or GDP) which indicates the past, current or future strength of the economy THERE is talk about town and in the media of an economic upturn in the final quarter of 2009 – “banks are lending, consumers are buying, and companies are hiring.” While it […]
FOLLOWING on from the theme of my last post, which highlighted Alain de Botton’s kinder and gentler philosophy of success, I think it would be valuable to consider why we do what we do. In an attempt to become “successful” many of us work long hours and sacrifice time that could be spent with friends and […]
1. Importance of economies of scale IN THE early 20th century, by using assembly lines to mass produce the Model T Ford, Henry Ford became one of the richest and best-known men in the entire world. Economies of scale provide a company with two main benefits: Increased market share: Lower per unit costs allow a […]
IN MAY 2008 the McKinsey Quarterly spoke to Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman, notable for his work on behavioural finance and hedonic psychology, about quality control and improving the decision making process. 1. The decision factory Kahneman says that you can think of an organisation as a factory for producing decisions. The organisation might produce other […]
THIS article is intended to be pretty light-hearted. It provides an insight into the strengths of the current Australian economy after talking with two aspiring amateur economist taxi drivers. Taxi driver 1 I was chatting with the taxi driver on the way home from work last week, and he was complaining to me that, despite […]
It’s the economy, stupid “IT’S THE economy, stupid” is a well known phrase that was widely used during Bill Clinton‘s 1992 presidential campaign against George Bush senior. The phrase was coined by Clinton campaign strategist James Carville and refers to the notion that Clinton was a better choice because Bush had not adequately addressed the […]