The death of equity growth
Future returns on investments in shares will come less from growth in the underlying businesses and more from income. This means that ratings should be lower, and, in particular, we should expect higher yields.
Blog
Insider trading IS harmful, but legalise it anyway
The usual argument in favour of legalising insider trading is that it is not actually harmful (or even beneficial) to investors. I think that insider trading is extremely harmful and in-ethical, but it should be legalised anyway. My reasons are the difficulties in enforcing the law, and the probable effects on markets of legalisation.
How to eat healthily in one blog post
There is a whole industry telling people what to eat, and frequently selling the dubious benefits (from diet books, to health food). It seems to me that most of it boils down to some simple rules that are easy to follow, and some points of controversy (on which it may not be possible to decide what is best). I follow a simple rules that work very well.
Time to end a 400+ year old private monopoly
Is it right that a tremendously important literary work, also a work of religious importance to many, should be public domain throughout the world, except in the country whose people’s taxes paid for it? Is a 400 year old private monopoly, granted as part in order to further censorship something that should be maintained? This is exactly what has happened to the Authorised Version of the Bible (the King James Version), which, in the UK is still under a perpetual crown copyright, with a small number of private companies profiting from the letter patent or licences they have inherited to print it.
List of Django IDEs
I have a more detailed review of Python IDEs that is probably a lot more useful.
As requests for IDE recommendations on the django-users mailing list/Google Group, and as I assume that anyone developing with Django knows they should search for answers on the net before asking, here is a summary of the most often recommended options.
Twitter the productivity killer
Nothing can destroy my productivity the way Twitter can. There are a lot of potential distractions, especially the multitude available over the internet, but Twitter’s nature makes it far more distracting than web browsing, email or even other social networks.
The innovation slowdown IS a serious crisis
Rick’s latest post on the creativity crisis raises the possibility that the current slowdown in technological advance is merely a period of adjustment rather than a permanent slowdown. I have three reasons for remaining pessimistic.
- The slowdown is historically unprecedented, not just part of a cycle.
- The reasons for the slowdown are built into our economy and politics, so it cannot easily be reversed.
- Even if this is just a temporary phenomenon, the results could still be catastrophic.
The greater fool effect outside bubbles
The greater fool effect is well established as a key mechanism that allows bubbles to inflate to ludicrous valuations: investors who know prices are too high keep buying. Prices can stay too high in a similar way outside a bubble: not necessarily massively over-valued or in the context of a broader market bubble.
An alternative to pharmaceutical patents
I have thought about this before, but a question my nine year old daughter asked me crystallised the idea. The (already existing) regulatory process can be tweaked to provide an alternative to patents that would make the market more competitive, reduce over-head costs of research, and reduce litigation costs and uncertainties.
God, suffering and science fiction
The old, and much debated, question of why a benevolent and omnipotent God would allow suffering has many answers, but there is a more intuitive grasp of one answer to be found in works of fiction (at least one by an atheist).
How big is the UK's internet economy?
I am entirely unable to understand Boston Consulting Group’s much publicised claim that the “internet economy” contributes 8.3% of UK GDP. They do not define what they mean and I cannot reconcile it with the numbers. Most of the discussion in their document is of online retail so that is clearly important, but lets start with a key question.
Five plausible nightmare hypotheses
This is a list of various possibilities that could be true, and which would be very frightening if they are. They are varied in scale an effect, but are all unpleasant. I have left out nuclear war and natural disasters (such as super volcanoes) as we know they are possible. I am interested in things that have a reasonable likelihood of being try, but are not known.
The unnoticed megatrend
Investors, and others who try to predict the future, are often fond of thinking in terms of megatrends. Changes in demographics, climate, technology and culture are often discussed. One that I believe to be the most significant of all is rarely mentioned, and I have never seen the implications discussed. It is also hard to accept, because it appears to be disproved by experience.
Alcohol deaths public health and fuzzy thinking
This article arguing (yet again) for the government to introduce minimum prices and other strict controls on alcohol consumption. As usual, it contains fallacies, fails to provide important information, and is generally rather vague.
What is wrong with price/book value
As so often, Richard Beddard tweeted something interesting that I had to respond to.
The linked PDF argues that price to book value is the most useful valuation measure, more so that earnigs, for two reasons:
Free, media experiment - final week
The last week of my experiment in consuming only free media for a month came to an end yesterday. It has been a huge success as far as books are concerned, and reasonable with regard to video. Music was harder to find (apart from classical).
The build a platform and squeeze business model
A business model that excludes competition, reduces consumer choice, and creates monopolies is the anti-thesis for free markets, but this is exactly what threatens both software and the distribution of media (ebooks, video, and music) over the internet, and much more.
Free books and media - days 22 to 25
Less than a week to go, and I broke my rules for the first time. A tweet with a link to an extremely funny Catherine Tate video on Youtube was too much for me, but, other than that, things continue to go well.
Free books and media - days 18 to 22
Longer than I realised since the last post. I have not done a lot of reading, nor watched much video, but I have realised, once again, that there is more out there than I thought, especially in terms of films.
Free books and media - days 14 to 17
More than half way through and I have had no difficulty sticking to the rules, except with regard to music, and I have resisted temptation there — although I may have not-so-accidentally heard quite a lot of non-free music put on by other people. Video is not that important to me, and the free books have actually been better than what I would otherwise have read.