Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed
Musing about technology, finance, venture capital, & the money culture with Paul Kedrosky
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China Leaps to Second Spot in Global Science
The latest Thomson ISI science data shows that China has leaped to second-spot worldwide in academic science, as measured by papers produced. The U.S. still leads the way, at 340,000 publications per year (not shown), but China could surpass U.S. production within five years at current rates of rela …
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Weekend Readings: Chess, Rhodes Scholars, Trade, etc.
Zipf law in the popularity distribution of chess openings (arXiv) Losing Rhodes scholars to Wall Street's siren call (WashPost) China and the U.S. lecturing each other on trade (Pettis) Staking out the middle ground on energy supply (Peak Watch) Animated county-by-county map of U.S. …
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Readings: Lawyers, Wealth, and Rare Earths
How Much Is Enough? (Skidelsky) Rare earth: The New Great Game (BBC) Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be...Lawyers (SSRN)
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Isildur1 and the Week That Changed Online Poker
This has been an epochal week in online poker. A new playing force has emerged, someone named Isildur1, and his arrival has shaken up this world of massive cash pots in an unprecedented way. …we have just witnessed a monumental event in the history of online poker – the entrance of Isildur into …
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The Rise and Fall of Empires
Visualizing empires decline from Pedro M Cruz on Vimeo
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Everything is Viral -- Even the Things That Aren’t
With virality continuing to be all the rage, whether it’s swine flu, happiness, or Internet services, it’s worth considering whether many things that seem viral actually are. Here is a 2008 BMJ paper on the subject that deserves wider attention: Detecting implausible social network effects in ac …
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Readings: Zero, Forgeries, Yeast, and Climate Change
Coxe on the power of zero (ZeroHedge) Vermeer forgeries and AD shocks (Money Illusion) The Fate of the Yeast People (Kunstler) Climate change catastrophe took just months (Times)
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Research Roundup: Debt and Innovation, Short-selling, Creativity, & Subways
A debtor-friendly bankruptcy system is better for innovation (Review of Financial Studies) Short-selling bans around the world in 2007-09: All bad (CEPR) How Creative Should Creators Be To Optimize the Evolution of Ideas? A Computational Model (arXiv) On the Efficiency of Underground Syste …
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Readings: Chocolate, Trends, Trade, and Roger Federer
U.S. Import Trends for chocolate (Panjiva) The World in 2010: forecasting the year ahead (Economist) South African gold on final deathwatch as top grade scientist finds residual gold is more than 90% less than claimed (Mineweb) Roger Feder on loving winning vs. hating losing (Times)Tear down th …
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The Best F**king Book About the Financial Crisis?
I get asked all the time what the best fucking book is about the financial crisis. Well, here it is: A list of books about the past year’s financial crisis, sorted in decreasing order by the number of times the word “fuck” appears. In the spirit of rigorous scientific inquiry, I have also provided t …
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QOTD: Poker and Capitalism
Poker exemplifies the worst aspects of capitalism that have made our country so great. -- Walter Matthau (cited in NYT 11/15/09)
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Detroit vs. Rest of U.S. in Unemployed Per Job Posting
Unemployed per job posting in the top 50 U.S. metros. Click for a larger version. [via Indeed]
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The Price of Gold in Gold
From price, the price of gold in gold. This is awfully suspicious. Where is the outrage?
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Surprise (Not): Madoff’s Results Were Generated Via a Randomizer
I’m so clever. Back in December I wrote here that Bernie Madoff’s results, far from being pulled from his hat, showed every sign of having been generated by a randomizing algorithm. My analysis suggested that – based on Benford’s Law fit – his results would have passed muster in terms of looking suf …
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Where the Jobs Aren’t: Everywhere Except Education
While U.S. jobs are few and far between in many sectors, this year-over-year data shows that if you really want to be sure your applications get no response you need be sure to avoid education. [via Indeed]
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Superstar CEOs Suck
From a new Quarterly Journal of Economics paper: Superstar CEOs Compensation, status, and press coverage of managers in the United States follow a highly skewed distribution: a small number of “superstars” enjoy the bulk of the rewards. We evaluate the impact of CEOs achieving superstar statu …
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Readings: Fox Biz, Bill Gross, Real Estate, etc.
Fox Business News, Where Green Arrows Turn Brown Eyes Blue (Vanity Fair) Is Fox Business a lost cause? (Vanity Fair) Bill Gross Says Value Diminishing in Credit Markets (Bloomberg) Commercial Real Estate ‘Crisis’ Looming for U.S.: Chart of Day (Bloomberg) I Want More Information, Not …
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Diversions: Powers of Ten
Fantastically cool powers of ten visualization. Click to try: [via judell]
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Readings: Dollar, Dinosaurs, Deficits, etc.
Dollar knocked by China renminbi hints (FT) Google launches searchable access to WorldBank data (Google) Spanish Wind Power Tops 50% of Electricity Demand (Source) Interesting new complexity events at Santa Fe Institute (SFI) A New Geopolitical Jevons Paradox? A Look at Non-OECD Oil …
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The Dow in Gold: Pricing Yo-yos in Meerkats?
I’m always uneasy about these “Let’s price Thing X in Commodity Y” exercises (hey, let’s price yo-yos in meerkats!) – if thing X was supposed to be priced in commodity Y, it would be priced in commodity Y – but this one is at least semi-useful. Here is the Dow index in gold since 1900: [via Rolfe]
Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed
