Non Olet

Nov 22

“The structural logic is rather compelling. A company can discharge people—and turn around and “hire” them back under other arrangements, as contractors, say. In this process the employer (1) eliminates overhead (space, furniture), (2) no longer needs to pay half of the Social Security tax it pays to full-timers, (3) avoids health insurance contributions, and (4) no longer contributes to retirement plans. It takes a certain amount of finesse to accomplish this. Straight rehiring under contract is prohibited by law, but there are ways. And in this manner the furloughed or the terminated gain compensation once again—but, mind you, at a much lower rate than they enjoyed before.” The Self-Employment Army « LaMarotte

Nov 20

“If your company seems evil, the best programmers won’t work for you. That hurt Microsoft a lot starting in the 90s. Programmers started to feel sheepish about working there. It seemed like selling out. When people from Microsoft were talking to other programmers and they mentioned where they worked, there were a lot of self-deprecating jokes about having gone over to the dark side. But the real problem for Microsoft wasn’t the embarrassment of the people they hired. It was the people they never got. And you know who got them? Google and Apple. If Microsoft was the Empire, they were the Rebel Alliance. And it’s largely because they got more of the best people that Google and Apple are doing so much better than Microsoft today.” Apple’s Mistake

“They treat iPhone apps the way they treat the music they sell through iTunes. Apple is the channel; they own the user; if you want to reach users, you do it on their terms. The record labels agreed, reluctantly. But this model doesn’t work for software. It doesn’t work for an intermediary to own the user. The software business learned that in the early 1980s, when companies like VisiCorp showed that although the words “software” and “publisher” fit together, the underlying concepts don’t. Software isn’t like music or books. It’s too complicated for a third party to act as an intermediary between developer and user. And yet that’s what Apple is trying to be with the App Store: a software publisher. And a particularly overreaching one at that, with fussy tastes and a rigidly enforced house style.” Apple’s Mistake

Nov 19

“The smaller HFT protagonists, meanwhile, tend to orientate towards forex strategies, she says, because the ability to leverage up between 40-100 per cent means even someone with a small capital base can make substantial revenues using high frequency or algorithmic techniques.” FT Alphaville » Blog Archive » ‘A gold rush moment’ for HFT

“Right now what we used to consider a super computer can cost as little as $300. And the reason costs have fallen so substantially is largely because of the gaming industry - it’s the same technology. Both computer games and HFT require fast processing speed, a lot of innovation has therefore stemmed from the gaming company producers.” FT Alphaville » Blog Archive » ‘A gold rush moment’ for HFT

“Foreign exchange derivatives — essentially private contracts to buy or sell currencies in the future — make up about eight percent of the largely opaque derivatives market. U.S. firms with extensive sales overseas like Coca-Cola and General Electric use them as insurance against currency fluctuations. Virtually the entire market is traded in the shadows by the biggest banks.” EXCLUSIVE: Two Leading House Dems Will Close $50 Trillion Loophole In Derivatives Reform Bills

Investing Fads and Themes by Year, 1996 to Present « The Reformed Broker

“Finally, Mr. Dimon’s statement that the problem of interconnectedness of finiancial institutions is best handled by a resolution authority would be funny if it weren’t so dangerous and disingenuous. How can a resolution authority cure the interconnectedness problems of a failed institution that has billions of dollars of unhedged and unbacked credit default swaps or other derivatives outstanding? Interconnectedness problems must be identified and addressed before an institution fails. They can best be identified and measured if the underlying transactions that give rise to interconnectedness are known and understood by markets and regulators before the institution fails. The best means for accomplishing this is by establishing transparent clearing mechanisms and disclosure regimes. The banking industry is currently spending millions of dollars on lobbyists in an attempt to weaken such measures.” James Coffman in Note to Jamie Dimon: Repeating Something Doesn’t Make It True « The Baseline Scenario (via quotingthecrisis)

Nov 17

“Ultimately, Chinese growth is the result of a great skyhook: an artificially cheap currency. That skyhook says: Chinese prosperity is in many ways simply an economic fiction. That currency manipulation can’t last forever — and without it, China will have to confront the same problems every industrialized society does: the tremendous costs of a model of growth that places “product” over people.”

What’s Your Strategy for the Next Decade? - Umair Haque - HarvardBusiness.org (via financegeek)

[This just doesn’t ring true.]

Inventing Green « The New Food System in Three 1940s Infographics

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