He Was Right – They Were Wrong

Posted on September 4, 2010 by Mark

I’ve just finished reading Peter Schiff’s book How an Economy Grows and Why it Crashes. He presents a pretty interesting account of the history of the US (more broadly, western) economy in the form of kind of a parable. By general inclination I’m fairly sympathetic to many of the ideas he articulates, particularly because he really tries to relate large scale economic outcomes to fundamental principles (and being a good system theorist from way back, I’m all about first principles :) ).

Having said that, I have a way to go before I can say I’m completely ready to buy into his entire school of thought (essentially the ‘Austrian’ view of economics). I’ve just started reading Nouriel Roubini’s book Crisis Economics, which I think presents a rather more rigorous and nuanced view of some of the same issues. In an early chapter he writes –

In short, the Austrian approach is misguided when it comes to short-term policies…. But when it comes to the medium term and long term, the Austrians have something to teach us.

I’m looking forward to understanding his perspective more deeply.

Nonetheless, regardless of the overall validity of Schiff’s views, what I don’t think can be denied is that he was remarkably prescient in predicting the financial crisis. Here is an excellent collage of video clips in which Schiff stands up to absolute ridicule from a range of commentators who thought his views were complete nonsense prior to the economic crisis. Well, he was right and they were wrong.

Of course the interesting question is whether Schiff is right now – he is currently predicting the impending collapse of the US dollar.

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NZ Venture Investment Fund

Posted on September 2, 2010 by Mark

The New Zealand Herald reports that the Government has made an additional NZ$40 million available for investment in new venture capital funds.

It seems pretty sad to me that there isn’t enough private sector capital available to support new enterprise development in NZ. A quick look at the NZVIF website reveals that they currently have NZ$109M invested in six venture funds supported by an additional NZ$151M of private capital. So the total government funding amounts to something like $100 per family. New Zealanders are so incapable of investing on their own that they have to rely on the government to take their own money away from them in the form of taxes to support the development of new businesses.

It would be interesting to know how $100 compares with the total investment capital needed to fund retirement income for the average couple.

And it would be interesting to know how the total goverment investment of $149M ($109M currently invested and an extra $40M available) compares with the amount of investment capital that has been added to the NZ property market over each of the last five years.

Posted in New Zealand, Venture Capital | Leave a comment

Kindle – Good News, Bad News

Posted on September 2, 2010 by Mark

So far I’m really happy with my Kindle. Early impressions are that it is going to cause me to read a lot more books than I otherwise would, which I’m sure makes Amazon happy. Part of the reason is the convenience of being able to purchase and have immediate access to the books. Part of it is the lower cost of the books. And part is just the convenience of being able to easily take multiple books with me wherever I go. The Kindle is so thin and light and robust (inside its case – more on that in a moment) that it is more easily portable than even a single paper book.

Ok, a little bad news… I have sent several pdf files to the device and it is great being able to read them on it. However one that I sent – an IMF report on long term trends in public finances – didn’t render properly on my Kindle screen. Most of the text had been converted to a different font and had very, very low contrast.

I have exchanged a couple of emails with Amazon support about it, and they say they are looking into the issue, though it may take a week for them to figure it out – longer than I’d like for sure, but at least they responded promptly and are willing to investigate.

Oh and about the case… I bought one from Best Buy on Tuesday. More than I wanted to pay at $35, but I needed it in a hurry for a trip. It was labeled as fitting the latest generation Kindle, but unfortunately it doesn’t. It is clearly designed for the earlier device which was a little larger. It is too big for mine and doesn’t allow the device to be securely held in by the corner loops when the case is open. Although it is useful in the immediate short term to have somewhere safe to keep the device, I will have to return the case when I get a chance to get back to Best Buy.

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Feds Sue Arizona College Administration

Posted on September 2, 2010 by Mark

A number (frankly a small number) of news sources reported a couple of days ago that the Justice Department is suing the Maricopa Community College District in Arizona, supposedly for discriminating against non-citizens in its hiring practices (Washington Post, politico.com, The Examiner, Fox News).

Apparently the issue is that the school system is requiring non-citizen job applicants to produce their green card to prove their right to work in the US and fill in some additional “immigration paperwork” beyond what is required by law. The Justice Department objects despite the fact that it is illegal for the school to hire people who are not legally authorized to work in the US. The suit was filed on behalf of an individual who claimed he is a permanent resident but wasn’t able to find his green card.

Unfortunately, most of the news sources I was able to find fail to really deal with the core issue in a meaningful way. It seems to me that the key issue is whether the documents that the law mandates an applicant provide are sufficient to establish authorization to work. The Examiner claims that they don’t. If this is true then I would have thought the College District would be entitled to ask for more even if that exceeds what the law explicitly requires them to ask for. In my own experience, I have certainly always been required to provide proof of my eligibility to work in the US. The College District isn’t commenting given that the issue is pending litigation.

What I find most disappointing is that the news media seem unwilling to give us enough information to really assess the case on its merits. And depending on exactly what the facts of the situation turn out to be, on the surface it also seems disappointing that between the Justice Department and the Maricopa Community College District there apparently aren’t enough adults who are capable of working out this issue in a fair and legal way without having to resort to litigation in federal court.

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The New Kindle

Posted on August 31, 2010 by Mark

I pre-ordered the new Kindle from Amazon about a month ago and they were finally shipped on Friday and I got mine on Saturday. So far I’m pretty impressed. It is super thin – less than a centimeter (8.5mm according to the specs), and also very light. I’m finding it pretty easy to use and very easy to read. I had looked at a Nook at Barnes and Noble a few weeks back and my very subjective impression is that the Kindle display changes pages more quickly.

I have noticed a couple of small user experience challenges. If I am holding the device with both hands, the location of the keyboard doesn’t make it easy to type with my thumbs. Not really a criticism – I don’t know that there’s a better solution. It’s also taking me a little while to get used to the operation of the page turn buttons. What I find a little counter-intuitive is that both forward and backward buttons are located on both sides of the device.

A bigger disappointment was that the very first two books I decided I wanted to read are actually not yet available on the Kindle! The two in question were Saving Globalization by Mike Moore (No, not that one! This is former NZ Prime Minister Mike Moore) and Thinking Like Your Editor by Susan Rabiner and Alfred Fortunato. So I guess I’m going to have to wait for those. But I have since purchased several books and it’s pretty cool how they just turn up on the Kindle within a minute or two. I’m currently reading Peter Schiff’s How an Economy Grows and Why It Crashes.

I’ve also had opportunity to use another feature, which is the ability to email documents to the your Kindle account so you can read them on the device. Sweet! Worked out well today as I had some pdf documents I needed to read while I was on a flight to Atlanta this afternoon.

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The Blog is Back

Posted on August 31, 2010 by Mark

Well, after more than two years of silence, I am taking a tentative step back into the world of blogging.

Part of what made me lose interest before was the hassle of dealing with the Mambo content management system I had been using. So I have done away with that and moved to WordPress. So far I am pretty impressed. WordPress is designed specifically for blogging and its back end is noticeably easier to use than Mambo’s (I’ve also used its close relative, Joomla, and the same opinion applies there).

Creating a custom page design was also not too difficult – just a little CSS and modifications to some PHP code (eek!). This one is based on the standard WordPress Twenty Ten theme, with a few tweaks – margins, fonts, drop shadow effect etc. The current banner image is a Pohutukawa flower – the iconic symbol of summer in my native New Zealand.

I have also changed my hosting service. I was previously using aplus.net and, although I’ve had no real complaints about them, in the meantime I had also been using slicehost.com for some other projects that required full access to a bare linux server. So it made sense to move the blog there as well. I’m running on a virtual Ubuntu 8.04LTS platform (yes, due for an upgrade sometime) with nginx 0.5.33 as my web server.

I have moved the old blog content over to WordPress as well. It is accessible at http://markmthomson.net/old/. This was accomplished using Azeem Khan’s very helpful Joomla2Wordpress script, which I modified to support importing of images as well as text.

Let the blogging begin!

http://www.aplus.net/
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