Economics

Golf needs to adapt to find more adoption….

September 28, 2008

Despite the advice of market pundits to spend this weekend relaxing we’ve been working on an update on open source software adoption.  At the same time we have been back at the links after a multi-year hiatus.  We started to think about why we got back into golf after the gap and the answer illustrates [...]

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The NYC Real Estate Market Lag

September 10, 2008

Everyone knows that NYC is a very expensive place.  It wasn’t long ago, 1989-1990, when people were desperate to sell in NY and prices were very reasonable.  We had the market crash of October 1987 and then a bit of a recession after that.  It took about three years for the market to bottom and [...]

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Tidbits from the recent GaveKal NYC briefing

May 26, 2008

During a recent client briefing by our friends at GaveKal there were a few comments and observations that struck us as interesting: 1. The US is the Saudi Arabia of food. Higher average prices are good for the country while hurting many others. 2. Emerging economies are feeling quite a bit of pain already.  Small [...]

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A tipping point for Obama

February 13, 2008

In the context of economic uncertainty, financial system turmoil and a major election year it’s not surprising the market has been all over the place. But as things begin to become more clear we expect investors to be more willing to make commitments.  The fact that Obama has rolled in the past several primaries and [...]

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We love you grandma!

December 18, 2007

The banks are scrambling to figure out how to write new business but not compound the errors of their ways by creating bad mortgages. One of the latest ideas is targeting grandma and grandpa who probably haven’t gone crazy leveraging their home which might even be paid for.  In order to get them to take [...]

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Greenspan credibility goes to zero.

December 13, 2007

It’s too bad when someone who should be emerging as a wise and learned man after seeing and being part of so much in the last couple of decades basically melts down into an incoherent set of denials and finger-pointing. Because papers like the WSJ and NYT feel honored to have famous people like Greenspan [...]

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Pain suggests a reversal in the Dollar/Euro tend.

December 5, 2007

Currencies may not be our bag but we read the output of just about everyone who makes it their own.  Most are quite smart and some are brilliant.  After digesting it all a few things come to the surface. 1. It’s true the consumer, real estate and financial segments will be poor for at least [...]

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A Demon of our own Design

November 16, 2007

The book by Bookstaber won’t provide much additional information if you are already familiar with most of the major leverage-driven derivative trading events in recent history.  However Bookstaber provides a very readable overview as someone who was there but one step removed from the inner circles. Towards the end of the book he makes an [...]

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The mortgage oasis mirage is real.

August 31, 2007

A few weeks ago we saw an obscure reference in a blog about a new mortgage type/home equity loan that actually allowed homeowners to borrow money against the *future appreciation* of their home.  At the time it seemed too wild to be true.  Since we didn’t find anymore confirming evidence of it we let it [...]

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Galbraith on meetings.

September 4, 2006

As an aside in his book The Great Crash, Galbraith writes a wonderful little riff on meetings before he discusses the tactics that President Hoover used to appear busy in the aftermath of the stock market crash of 1929. “Men meet together for many reasons in the course of business. They need to instruct or [...]

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