Sunday, November 18, 2012

Oddly Relevant Nov-18-2012


The Fed’s primary purpose: The Fed a stabilizing force for the US banking system—The 1800’s saw repeated scenarios like 2008 due to this fragmented arrangement (in fact, there were 6 depressions in the 1800s). Instead of relying the money supply by privatized oligopolies, the US introduced the Fed to allow the money supply to be elastic and based almost entirely on a market based demand structure. It allows a nationalized banking system that helps create oversight and order in a market that would otherwise be fragmented. [Note: The real question is, is the Fed doing too much?]…Source: http://pragcap.com/understanding-the-feds-primary-purpose

The underappreciated case of US energy propensity: The fact that US could become a net energy exporter of natural gas by 2020 and self-sufficient in energy by 2035 feels overlooked. Yes, it requires trillions of investments infrastructure and favorable regulatory policies, but it has a promising bull case of addition 100 additional years of energy with reduced energy bills and emissions, manufacturing renaissance, enhanced national security, new jobs, economic growth, and elimination of economic deficit. [Note: Long the monopoly when it’s established!]…Source: http://dynamichedge.com/2012/11/16/undiscountable-trends-energy-prosperity/

Crowdfunding, much work to be done after JOBS: two structural problems persist—adverse selection (perhaps only bad firms need crowd-funding) and information asymmetry (confidential information conflicted in disclosure and hard to research). But the involvement of successful and credible lead investors through credibility boost and performance fee can solve this problem. [Note: perhaps to jump-start the platform, but I view these concerns as non-issues]…Source: http://davemoon.me/post/35717807235/crowdfunding-adverse-selection-the-information-problem

The bureaucratic bloat of college costs: US universities employed > 230,000 administrators in 2009, up 60% from 1993 and 10x the growth of tenured faculty, and such spending growth in admin could be sole cause of overall ever-increasing cost of education. For instance, a administrator is paid 212,000 a year to “make sure these seven or eight committees are aware of what’s going on in the other committees” in Purdue University. [Note: disgusting, a better model will eat this dinosaur alive]…Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-14/bureaucrats-paid-250-000-feed-outcry-over-college-costs.html

Taleb: Learning to love volatility: To deal with black swans, we instead need things that gain from volatility, variability, stress and disorder.5 policy rules to do this: (1) Think or the economy as being more like a cat than a washing machine—the government should be there only for emergency events and bail our individuals, (2) favor businesses that benefit from their own mistakes, (3) decentralize the government, (4) embrace learn through trial and error over academic knowledge, and (5) make regulators have skin in the game. Stability leads to fragility, and we must learn to gain from disorder. [Note: Yes, but it is only human nature to seek stability]…Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324735104578120953311383448.html

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