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Saturday, December 1

1st Dec - Weekender: Econ, Market, O-T, Fin



Last 'Weekender' post is here: Economics, Markets, Off-Topic and Finnish.  - I will make some changes to my regular post format on Sunday to make things a bit lighter for myself. Hope you understand, or if not, make yourself heard.


Previously on MoreLiver’s:

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 ECONOMICS
Twenties TalesKrugman / NYT
Britain was a model of orthodoxy, returning to the gold standard and running huge primary surpluses to pay its debts; France, with a weaker political system, ended up inflating away much of its debt and accepting a big devaluation of the franc. So how did the two economies fare?

Heavy technology: The process of technological diffusion over time and spacevoxeu.org
Geographical distance is a fundamental impediment to virtually all economic transactions. This column, using data on technology adoption in 161 countries over 140 years, argues that it also inhibits the spatial diffusion of technology. Moreover, it shows that technology spreads like an epidemic. As more people adopt a technology, the importance of distance to the technological leader diminishes until it eventually becomes irrelevant.

The coming big inequality. Was Marx just early?Fabius Maximus
Slowly more people see, slowly emerging, one of the great challenge for developed nations’ societies: increased productivity creates wealth unimaginable to earlier generations, but its benefits go to those who own the machines. Inequality of wealth creates inequality of income.   Marx might have just been right, but early. Today we have a note from Jeremy Grantham describing this future.  At the end see links to other posts about this engine of inequality.

Hayek, Friedman, and the Illusions of Conservative EconomicsTNR

Keynes Hayek, by Nicholas Wapshottnoahpinion

Is it a sin for the central bank to help reduce debt?mainly macro

Bob Lucas on macronoahpinion

Chart of the week: updated monthly real effective exchange rates for 153 countries and the euro areabruegel

Would it have paid to be in the eurozone?National Bank of Poland (pdf)

Consequences of the euro adoption by Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries for their trade flowsNational Bank of Poland (pdf)


MARKETS
(audio) BizDaily: Winning - and losingBBC (mp3)
Today Business Daily has an interview with most successful investor of all time - Warren Buffett. We'll be discovering how to build a 46 billion dollar fortune - so have your pen and paper ready. And just in case that doesn't work out for you we speak to another leader in his field - one of the world's most successful casino designers.

Weekend Reading for Equity InvestorsCFA Institute
Dividends, Buybacks, and an Ill-Fated Acquisition

High-Frequency Trading and High ReturnsThe Baseline Scenario

A Fresh Look at Track Records and Risk – All About Alpha
Jack D. Schwager, the man behind the successful “wizards” books, has given us a volume without “wizard” anywhere in the title: Market Sense and Nonsense. The subtitle amplifies the contrast already present in that title: How the Markets Really Work (and How They Don’t).

Goldilocks DiversificationAbove The Market
How much diversification is enough and how much is too much?  We all want Goldilocks (“just right”) diversification even though it can be very difficult to achieve.

Is stock-picking just another hobby for men?Felix Salmon / Reuters

Managing Expectations & Expected ReturnsThe Capital Spectator

Equity and bond markets: Burying the "Fed model"Free exchange / The Economist
If you invested in equities in the 1990s, you were bound to hear, sooner or later, about the "Fed model". This, I should hasten to add, was not the official position of the Federal Reserve but the name given to a relationship found by three economists between Treasury bond yields and stockmarket valuations.

Fed Must Watch Markets Closely, Official SaysWSJ

Head Of The Fed's Trading Desk Speaks On Role Of Fed's "Interactions With Financial Markets"ZH

Deutsche Bank: Universal Banks are a Benefit to Society. Really?The Big Picture

Quiz time: How many of these 12 charts can you identify?BI

Everything You Know About Investing is Wrong . . .The Big Picture

Financial Repression Updatevic duggan
This means that at the same time that the banks are shrinking their super-sized balance sheets (i.e. lending less overall), they are incentivized to lend scarce funds to the government rather than to firms and families.

An ode to the short-term traderzenpenny

Good luck with thatThe Reformed Broker

Popular Delusions: The bull case for safe havensJohn Mauldin / The Big Picture
SocGen’s Dylan Grice’s note.

A Critique of Grantham and Gordon: The Prospects for Long-term Growthdshort

Knight Capital Sets the Record Straight on Algo TestingAdvanced Trading
With more attention on how trading algorithms are tested following the August software mishap, Knight Capital's Brendan McCarthy opens up about the firm's vetting procedures.

Irving Fisher, the First Celebrity Finance ProfessorView / BB

  HEDGE FUNDS
Investing in, Not Gambling Within, the CasinoAll About Alpha
Ineichen’s effort to steer investors away from some myths. From the point of view of the hedge fund industry, some of the myths are negative (such as the idea that hedge fund investing is just gambling) some are positive (such as the notion that hedge funds generate strong returns in all market conditions.)

Why have Global Macro Hedge Funds underperformed?Macronomics

Do confidential hedge fund portfolio holdings generate superior performance?Greenbackd

Impact of Size and Age on Hedge Fund Performance: PerTrac Studymarket folly

Hedge Fund November PerformanceZH


OFF-TOPIC
  OIL
The Great Oil FallacyNational Interest
On the right, the need for oil is seen as justifying an expanded and assertive military posture, as well as the removal of restrictions on domestic drilling. On the left, U.S. foreign-policy is seen through the prism of “War for Oil,” while the specter of Peak Oil threatens to bring the whole system down in ruins.

BizDaily: The future of world energyBBC (mp3)
Is the world about to run out of oil and natural gas? Are fears that the world is approaching 'peak oil', the moment we begin to run out of supplies, misplaced?

  PEOPLE
When Babbage and Dickens Waged a War on Noisebrain pickings
How the father of the computer enlisted the greatest Victorian novelist in ridding the streets of sound.

Ayn Rand Was NOT a LibertarianZH
Many people assume that Ayn Rand was a champion of libertarian thought. But Rand herself pilloried libertarians, condemning libertarianism as being a greater threat to freedom and capitalism than both modern liberalism and conservativism.

Human Evolution Enters an Exciting New PhaseWired

Motivational speaker Zig Ziglar, author of “See You at the Top,” dies in Texas at age 86WP

The Science of Your Brain on Alcohol, Animatedbrain pickings

  SOCIETY
The Truce On Drugs: What happens now that the war has failed?The New York Magazine

The New War on Drugs: ASEAN StyleThe Diplomat
ASEAN nations are stepping up their fight against illegal drugs as other parts of the world are taking a much different approach.

The Suicide of the East?: 1989 and the Fall of CommunismForeign Affairs
Twenty years after the revolutions of 1989 brought down communism in Eastern Europe, a fresh crop of books attempts to unpack this epic story. The story these books tell is more of a civil war within the elite than of a revolt from below.

Are foreigners perpetual outsiders in Japan?noahpinion

Offshore secrets revealed: the shadowy side of a booming industryThe Guardian
A worldwide research effort in collaboration with BBC Panorama and the ICIJ reveals the people behind these anonymous companies

CO2 Hits New High; World Could Warm 7°F by 2060Climate Central


Enemies at the Gates: Security Lessons from a Foiled Embassy AttackForeign Affairs
In 2001, Washington and Singapore prevented a major terrorist attack on the U.S. embassy in Singapore. Here's how they did it.


The statisticians at Fox News use classic and novel graphical techniques to lead with dataSimply Statistics

Zurich to open drive-in sex boxesThe Telegraph
The Swiss city of Zurich is to open drive-in sex boxes in an attempt to rid the town of street prostitution.
  
  TECH
Moral MachinesThe New Yorker
Google’s driverless cars – the era in which it will no longer be optional for machines to have ethical systems.

The Big Data Fallacy And Why We Need To Collect Even Bigger DataTech Crunch

How NASA might build its very first warp driveio9

The ColdscapeCabinet Mag
Our entire way of life depends upon the “cold chain,” the network of artificially refrigerated spaces that have reshaped the modern world.

  BOOKS
My favorite non-fiction books of 2012Marginal Revolution

100 Notable Books of 2012NYT
The year’s notable fiction, poetry and nonfiction, selected by the editors of The New York Times Book Review.

Book BitsThe Capital Spectator


IN FINNISH
(audio) Onko taloustiede ideologiaa?YLE
Taloustieteen ideologiasta ja eurokriisin ideologisuudesta ja ratkaisuvaihtoehdoista väittelevät maailmanpolitiikan professori Heikki Patomäki Helsingin yliopistosta ja tutkija Niku Määttänen ETLAsta. Sakari Sirkkanen toimittajana. (38 min.)

EKP:lle oikeus valehdella ja maksattaa omat virheensä veronmaksajilla – oikeuden päätöstyhmyri

NigerialaiskirjeTimo Soimi

Euro ei ole tuonut hintavakautta – euroaikana hintavakaus vähäisempää kuin aikaisemmintyhmyri

Pekka Lundmark osoittaa makrotaloudellisen ymmärtämättömyytensä vaikka puhuu myös asiaatyhmyri

RahoitusmarkkinaveroHannu Visti