I don’t know enough about book publishing and distribution to evaluate this properly, but it doesn’t seem right. Freakonomics reports that according to the US Authors’ Guild, authors will be worse off while publishers will be better off comparing ebooks to hard covers. When I say “doesn’t seem right” I’m referring mostly to the fairness…
I’ve had a couple of readers and one ex-student challenge my thinking that deflation was more of a risk than hyper-inflation over the last couple of years and that loose monetary policy and “printing money” (more on that later) is not likely going to lead to massive inflation of everything and the debasement of hard…
Paul Krugman compares Egypt’s economic performance prior to its political crisis to that of Indonesia and the Philippines. He makes a compelling point that the comparison fails. Egypt’s economic performance has been stable and much better than, say, South Africa’s for example. Â Krugman suggests: Egypt had decent growth — but the gains weren’t trickling down,…
I heard someone talking on Classic Business tonight. Pity I didn’t catch his name so I can avoid his advice in future. He was saying that he doesn’t see the point in investing in debt instruments. Â He explained that the return is low and the risk high since if the company gets into trouble, you’ll…
The economist magazine compares Big Mac inflation to officially reported country inflation over the last ten years. The aim of their article is to suggest that perhaps China and Argentina have been fudging their inflation figures. However, my attention was drawn to South Africa right near the top of the chart. This suggests that our…
I really enjoyed Paul Krugman’s analysis of differences between French and US GDP per capita. (It’s very short and very readable.) In short, the French are less productive than the Americans, they just work less (for good and bad reasons). Â This highlights the dangers of using measures and analytics lightly without understanding/allowing for other differences.
Different size, different growth prospects, different issues and decidedly different league. South Africa, in its current state with current policies and current trajectory is in no danger of making BRIC become BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). This recent article shows some relevant and credible people agree. Goldman Sachs Asset Management chairperson Jim…
