Question recently posed on Twitter spurred a few thoughts: “Georgia start-ups need to grow outside of Georgia to build great companies and big valuations. Thoughts?” It’s not whether they need to grow, but whether Georgia-based start-ups are able to grow outside of Georgia. But where does this begin? Certainly not in local government, as the… [Read more…]
May 19, 2011
The Economist.com gets this one wrong. The education bubble isn’t about a student “selling” their degree in the open market. Here’s why there’s an education bubble: Student loans are securitized and resold in the same way as residential mortgages. And the numbers are staggering. Know that whole Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac thing going on right now… [Read more…]
January 10, 2011
Interesting analysis on TechCrunch yesterday – “Can Google Get Its Mojo Back?“ It wasn’t too long ago that the world feared global domination from Microsoft, followed by the red hot years of Google, and now all the talk is about Facebook’s $50 billion valuation. That’s the beauty of it all – market players with innovation… [Read more…]
January 4, 2011
Big news early in 2011 with Goldman Sachs raising and investing up to $1.5 billion in Facebook. To do so, Goldman is setting up a “Special Purpose Vehicle” (SPV). Because Facebook is a privately-held company, it can have no more than 499 individual investors due to SEC regulations. This SPV enables Goldman to make highly… [Read more…]
December 16, 2010
All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis (Joe Nocera, Bethany McLean) – 30 year history about the run-up to the mortgage and financial crisis. Fooling Some of the People All of the Time: A Long Short Story (David Einhorn) – Hedge fund manager explains how he saw taking the short… [Read more…]
November 21, 2010
Spent the last two mornings catching up on the Charlie Rose show from this week. He did a nice job of bringing in all sides to provide perspective and opinion on the US Budget Deficit Commission appointed by President Obama. Bottom line – our standard of living and entitlements are too expensive for the tax… [Read more…]
October 28, 2010
From BusinessInsider today: http://www.businessinsider.com/19-countries-most-likely-to-default-2010-10#19-croatia-1 Over 50% of the top 19 are in Europe, many of which are former Soviet-bloc/Soviet Republics.
October 27, 2010
Pragmatic Capitalism asked the question – “Is this 1937-38 all over again?” 1937 is important because after experiencing economic growth for a couple of years, the US economy fell sharply into a great recession. (It’s a topic of debate as to whether the 1937 slowdown was a new recession or an extension of the Great… [Read more…]
October 26, 2010
A Bloomberg article today reports the view that Greece will assuredly default on their sovereign debt within three years. Serendipitously, from my reading of “This Time is Different” by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff: In the modern era, however, the idea of using gunboat diplomacy to collect debts seems far-fetched (in most cases). The cost-benefit… [Read more…]
October 24, 2010
Who knew my Sunday morning coffee with the week’s recordings of The Charlie Rose Show would include culinary genius Robert Reich, former Labor Secretary under Bill Clinton? Reich just published his book “After Shock.” While I typically don’t agree with Reich on policy, he made several excellent arguments and one-liners about economic decisions ahead: The… [Read more…]
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November 19, 2011
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