I returned to the states in March, and as I walked through an airport that seemed to have suffered a neutron bomb strike, I knew life would be different for a while. I wondered what distractions would appeal to people locked in their apartments for weeks on end. One that did not occur to me“Who Shot the Sherriff?”
Category: Blog
The Fed: Love Minus Zero/No Limit
In the dime stores and bus stations People talk of situations Read books, repeat quotations Draw conclusions on the wall Some speak of the future My love she speaks softly She knows there’s no success like failure And that failure’s no success at all – Bob Dylan 1965 How much does the Fed love us?“The Fed: Love Minus Zero/No Limit”
The Incorporeal Economy
In October 2006, Netflix launched a contest. They offered a $1 million prize to any team that could improve their movie-recommendation software engine by 10%. Netflix’s global hackathon eventually engaged 30,000 engineers loosely organized and endlessly re-organized into hundreds of self-selected teams attempting to optimize their competitive profile. The winners took almost three years to“The Incorporeal Economy”
Social Capital and Social Distancing
Most of us have worked in high performance teams at some time. Those were the teams that took pride in doing what others said was impossible, where debate was open and energized and sometimes at high volume, where decisions were supported 100% and mistakes were recognized and corrected without recriminations. In short, those teams operated“Social Capital and Social Distancing”
The Central Planners and the Virus
“Only a crisis – actual or perceived – produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around.” – Milton Friedman When the COVID–19 virus began traveling the earth, the ideas that were lying around dated from the Spanish Flu epidemic in 1918 and the depression“The Central Planners and the Virus”
Crossing the Political-Economic Divide
How do entrepreneurs assess political risk? Other than Mark Zuckerberg, do they even think about it? Are technology companies and social networks on the side of the populists? Division is in the air. Everything I read and everything I hear is about the great global divide. The populists are rising up against the elites. The“Crossing the Political-Economic Divide”
The Labor Constraint
A few years ago I managed an NGO that served 20,000 subsistence farmers in Mali. I was surprised when I first arrived to find many of our farmers planting less than half their land. They might have 10 hectares but were planting only 2 or 3. The reason? Not enough labor to get it done“The Labor Constraint”
Surveillance Economics or Why Does My Barber Have an App?
Does my barber need an app? Contemplating that question opened up an intriguing can of worms… One of the more difficult aspects of economic analysis is the unfortunate fact that economies involve humans making decisions. The math works, but the results don’t follow the math because the humans don’t pay attention to the equations. Interest“Surveillance Economics or Why Does My Barber Have an App?”
Are You an Accountable Capitalist?
You may get this question in some future due diligence session from an investor, an investment banker working on your IPO or a potential acquirer. If the Accountable Capitalism Act proposed by Senator Warren becomes law, it will become a basic compliance checkpoint for all of us. As proposed, the law only affects companies with“Are You an Accountable Capitalist?”
Next Steps for this Fed?
Watching Fed Chairman Jerome Powell testify to our esteemed but largely innumerate members of Congress, I was reminded that once government begins a massive intervention in a market two things happen. First, the bureaucrats are reluctant to give up their new found power and will endeavor to keep the intervention going long past its usefulness.“Next Steps for this Fed?”