About the wage productivity gap
t r u t h o u t | Dr. Ravi Batra: New Thinking on the Economy
The wage-productivity gap is the gap between the real wage and labor productivity. The real wage is the purchasing power of the average salary. If productivity rises fast and the real wage rises slowly, then a wage-productivity gap develops and grows.
Expertise is overrated
Op-Ed Columnist - Learning How to Think - NYTimes.com
One explanation is that so-called experts turn out to be, in many situations, a stunningly poor source of expertise. There’s evidence that what matters in making a sound forecast or decision isn’t so much knowledge or experience as good judgment — or, to be more precise, the way a person’s mind works.
AIG and how the US got here
The Big Takeover : Rolling Stone
The latest bailout came as AIG admitted to having just posted the largest quarterly loss in American corporate history — some $61.7 billion. In the final three months of last year, the company lost more than $27 million every hour. That’s $465,000 a minute, a yearly income for a median American household every six seconds, roughly $7,750 a second. And all this happened at the end of eight straight years that America devoted to frantically chasing the shadow of a terrorist threat to no avail, eight years spent stopping every citizen at every airport to search every purse, bag, crotch and briefcase for juice boxes and explosive tubes of toothpaste. Yet in the end, our government had no mechanism for searching the balance sheets of companies that held life-or-death power over our society and was unable to spot holes in the national economy the size of Libya (whose entire GDP last year was smaller than AIG’s 2008 losses).
Good business opportunity in public auctions
Cash-hungry U.S. states turn to Web to auction goods | Technology | Reuters
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. municipalities, strapped for cash as the recession decimates revenues, are stepping up sales of everything from old police cars, helicopters and bicycles to confiscated jewelry and slot machines in an effort to reduce swollen deficits.
The situation we are going towards reminds me a lot of the collapse of the USSR. There will be great opportunities ahead. In some countries bodies like the customs & excise (at international borders), port authority and the police also do interesting auctions of confiscated property.
Things are changing fast as more competition mean lower selling prices at the time that supply of goods for sale increases.
Perfect buyers’ market.
50% Of Americans 2 Paychecks Away From Having Big Financial Problems
Emergency Funds: 50% Of Americans 2 Paychecks Away From Having Big Financial Problemos
US News reports that half of Americans are two paychecks away from hardship.
They quote this from a recent MetLife study to highlight the problem:”Without a steady paycheck, 50% of Americans say they could not meet their financial obligations for more than a month - and, of that, a disturbing 28% couldn’t support themselves for more than two weeks of unemployment.”
Money is debt documentary
What businesses did well in The Great Depression? | Trusted.MD Network
What businesses did well in The Great Depression? | Trusted.MD Network
According to statistics published some 20 years ago by Dr.Ravi Batra, the safest businesses and industries during the worst years of the Great Depression (1929-1933) were:Repair shops
Educational services (A lot of young men that couldn’t find work borrowed money to go to trade schools and college.)
Healthcare services
Bicycle shops
Bus transportation
Gasoline service stations
Second hand stores
Legal services
Drug or proprietary stores
Spain: who is responsible for the property bubble? - Credit Writedowns
Spain: who is responsible for the property bubble? - Credit Writedowns
As recession takes hold, European citizens are starting to ask questions about how they were led into this, the deepest downturn in three-quarters of a century. The leading Spanish daily El Pais published a very thoughtful article today asking how things had unravelled so quickly and so spectacularly in Spain, previously one of the fastest growing economies in Europe.
The Crisis of Credit Visualized
Harvard Narcissists With MBAs Killed Wall Street: Kevin Hassett
The same is true of the financial sector. Back when Wall Street was run by individuals without fancy degrees, they had a proper skepticism toward fancy models and managed their risks with a great deal more humility and caution. Only when failed models became canon did catastrophe strike.Wall Street didn’t die in spite of being run by our best and brightest. It died because of that fact.
-
About Javier Marti
As an independent strategy consultant, futurist, speaker and founder of Trendirama.com Consulting, Javier is dedicated to help organizations, small businesses and individuals to optimize systems, increase profits and make better choices in business and in life. He is the author of the book "Mobile, Domains & The Future"
When not consulting for clients, Javier shares his knowledge and experience through information-packed, yet entertaining presentations in a wide range of subjects in English and Spanish.
Founder:
Trendirama.com
Trendinews.com
> More about Javier
> DOWNLOAD JAVIER'S BOOK
