1. The forthcoming bailout of Greece.
2. Via Chris F. Masse, thoughts on the iPad.
3. Leonardo da Vinci's resume: a study in personal marketing.
4. Virginia Postrel, presenting material on the Chinese freshwater pearl industry.
5. Which country showed the most spending restraint during the financial meltdown?
6. Interview with the still-underrated Laura Miller.
7. Via Rachel Strohm, good advice for rebuilding Haiti.
@#5 A classic example of bad graphics. A table would have been much more informative.
Regarding Greece, for some time you can expect the same accounting tricks that in the 1990s were allowed to conclude that all EU members complied with the Treaty conditions for becoming a member of the Euro club. All governments facing fiscal crises, including your government and several state governments starting with California, first rely on accounting tricks to persuade fools, including the IMF and all other governments that want to help, that the situation is not that bad. Of course, it’s illegal for a private corporation to use these tricks, but that’s the advantage of being the ruler. The question is whether the Greek government will take advantage of this window to change its policies. My bet is that they will not do it so they will have to do all kinds of financial tricks –a la Argentina– to finance the deficits. But this will not be enough because deficits most likely will continue increasing–financial tricks work only if you solve the flow problem of future deficits. Given the slow recovery of the world economy from the recession, we can anticipate that countries (and states like California) that today face both a huge stock problem (that is, a large accumulated public debt) and a serious flow problem (expectation of increasing deficits) will hardly recover at all in the next decade.
While on the iPad topic, I found the following article related to Apple’s direction very informative: http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mt/archives/2010/01/back_to_the_pas.php
RE: 6
Critics can never be underrated.
#6 “For once it’s someone I’m pretty sure is much smarter than I am, so I’d say, “What can I do to make your job easier?†”
If the current occupant of the white house is much smarter than Laura Miller, I doubt she is under-rated.
A better solution to the problem of Greece might be to expel her from the EU and the Eurozone.
RE: #7 If the choice is to leave them to the elements or risk undermining their government I think we should take the risk. It’s up to Haiti’s leaders to inspire their nation to unite regardless of who rebuilds it.
Comments on this entry are closed.