Economics ← A Little Ludwig Goes A Long Way

Why I don’t care about economics issues this election

Oct

2012

I recently posted “my thoughts on the upcoming presidential election”:http://theludwigs.com/2012/10/why-i-will-vote-for-obama-in-the-presidential-election/, and a couple people mentioned how concerned they were about economic issues. Hey, me too! They aren’t the most important issues for me this election, but I worry about deficits, taxes, government expenditures, economic growth. The only viable path out of our economic problems is ...

MSFT and the decline of the PC hardware ecosystem

Feb

2012

In the late 80s, IBM attempted to reassert control over the PC hardware platform with the introduction of the PS/2 and its proprietary “MicroChannel”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_Channel_architecture architecture. The cloners fought back, customers voted with their feet, the PS/2 initiative failed, and the era of open PC hardware continued and flourished. This was hugely beneficial for MSFT as ...

Feeling a little contrary today — Taxes, IP, Apple

Jan

2012

“Mitt pays $3M+ in taxes a year”:http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-romney-tax-20120125,0,7825338.story — that is a s%^tload of money, whatever the rate. And people want another $3M a year out of him? When I see numbers this size, I wonder more about where it is all going — shouldn’t we spend more time on what the heck the government is ...

I’m in the 1% and I support the 99%

Oct

2011

I’ve been fortunate. I had great access to education due to support from my parents, and I was lucky to be at Microsoft during a very heady period for the company. I am clearly a 1%er. And I understand that my good fortune is part luck, part due to the support of others, part due ...

Today’s NCAA FB roundup — reactions to Buckeyes andUSC; required NCAA FB reading

Sep

2011

I watched bits of LSU/WVU (LSU is my #1), Toledo/Syracuse, ND/Pitt, UW/Cal. But key games I watched yesterday were OSU and USC. * OSU is in for a tough year. Yes they tackled better yesterday, but it was Colorado. If we give up 17 to Colorado, we will give up 24+ to MSU/Nebraska/Wisconsin, and the ...

Business Models and Evil

Aug

2011

Some interesting commentary on “Google’s business model by Gruber”:http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/08/23/swartz-google-evil — a total Apple fan, doesn’t view ads as inherently evil, but says you need to be very respectful of your users. And referring to “an original article by Aaron Swartz”:http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/googevil who says you can’t make things worse for users just to make money. I don’t ...

Link cleanup

Aug

2011

A bag of stuff I’ve read recently that was compelling: * “Coffee as economic health indicator”:http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2010/05/coffee_as_city.html. Yay Seattle! Contrast with… * “World Class Orchestras”:http://reason.com/archives/2010/05/24/how-to-save-cleveland * “McKean’s Inversion”:http://whatever.scalzi.com/2011/08/11/mckeans-inversion/. Whatever you publicly espouse to be — you probably aren’t. * “Wicked Problems”:http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/07/wicked-1.html. * “A one page explanation of the Higgs boson”:http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2011/07/26/the-higgs-boson-a-one-page-explanation/ * On the lighter side, “Bacon ...

Amazon vs Macmillan vs You

Feb

2010

OK so Amazon’s “move against Macmillan”:http://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/02/01/all-the-many-ways-amazon-so-very-failed-the-weekend/ was seriously ham-handed and Amazon is “still caught up in their own undershorts”:http://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/02/01/seriously-now-theyre-just-being-dicks/. Some Amazonians deserve some serious reprimands, this is just not the way these things are handled. Now Amazon has created even more problems for itself. That said — we are talking about 4-5 days of inconvenience ...

Grabbag of interesting articles on math, econ, science, design, web

Nov

2009

No theme here other than “stuff I happened across recently” Terry Tao math blog. Brain stretching. How Goldman profited on housing crash. Don’t know how reliable this source is but disturbing. Controversy about whether there is or is not a giant magma chamber under the state of Washington. Probably not but a great disaster movie ...

Interesting reads

Aug

2009

* World’s busiest ports * Fractal Nature of Legal Systems. Human systems/societies/cultures are capable of pretty much unbounded complexity. It is not just legal systems. * Kid solves rubik’s cube while playing guitar hero. Ah, youth. * Why are cheap airlines so cheap. Love the “passengers per employee” stat.

The big picture — VC Math, Life Threats, Rhythms

Apr

2009

Random posts that have caught my eye recently: * The VC Math Problem — excellent discussion of the “macroeconomics” of the VC asset class. * What to fear. The truth about what is going to kill you. The sensationalist news stories every night on random acts of violence and tragedy are scary, but they aren’t ...

Buying Risky Assets | The Big Picture

Mar

2009

Buying Risky Assets | The Big Picture. — cogent picture explaining the program.

Bernanke Pushes the Button | The Big Picture

Mar

2009

Bernanke Pushes the Button | The Big Picture. “The prospect of hundreds of billions of newly minted dollars coursing through the global financial system caused currency traders to thrash the greenback by almost 3%.” ” The Fed is “now bringing out all the ammo in its arsenal”, according to Rosenberg.” “And, for those who think ...

Scott Loftesness: The AIG Firestorm Spreads

Mar

2009

“It’s time to let the sun shine in on this mess.” via Scott Loftesness: The AIG Firestorm Spreads. Hear hear.

Captain Asphalt

Mar

2009

Quotation of the Day: “I’m Captain Asphalt.” TIMOTHY J. GILCHRIST, newly appointed stimulus czar for New York State. via Today’s Paper – New York Times. Love this. Is civil engineering going to become cool again?

Interesting econ data via Ritzholtz

Jan

2009

Force Structure FY09 Beyond. — the armed forces wrestling with massive budget cuts. And the global manufacturing collapse — not a pretty picture. It is hard to see how we are not going to have significant unemployment issues for years.

Marginal Revolution: GM fact of the day

Dec

2008

Marginal Revolution: GM fact of the day. Wow. Market cap 1/3 of bed bath and beyond. Worth 10% of apple’s cash. 96K employees but paying benefits for 1M people. Some of the numbers are a little misleading but still.

Madoff Story Smells Funny | The Big Picture

Dec

2008

Madoff Story Smells Funny | The Big Picture. The WSJ and NYTimes seem to be hinting at this today too, investigators seem to feel that the sheer amount of work required more than one person working on the fraud. Fascinating.

A SWOT Analysis On America

Oct

2008

A SWOT Analysis On America. Don’t agree with many of the detailed points but the core idea of looking at our situation with a SWOT analysis is a good idea. Too often as I read the papers these days, I don’t really understand the goals and strategies of some of our government actions. A reasoned ...

Damn the economic meltdown

Oct

2008