Is the Financial Crisis a Male Syndrome?

The protracted global financial crisis has led to a wide-ranging search for culprits, including blind regulators, greedy speculators, Chinese dumping, and a global market economy that lacks both a social and time horizon. But could it be that deeply rooted misbehavior in trading and board rooms can be explained by “animal spirits,” or what Keynes called a spontaneous urge to action—albeit in the wrong direction? Could it be that male domination of market finance results in excessive speculation and risk-taking at the expense of global stability? Testosterone, rather than neurons, may push male egos into ever-more-complex speculative bets, a gambling binge made possible by advanced technology, mathematical techniques, and globalization.

Why Steven Levitt of Freakonomics researches drug dealers, prostitutes & suicide bombers

What can you say about a 44 year old economist who is afraid of making predictions? That he is different from the usual, to say the least.

His wife Jeanette in one of the first profiles written on him way back in 2003 said "I wish he would get more than three haircuts a year, and that he wasn't still wearing the same glasses he got 15 years ago, which weren't even in fashion then."

How a Chinese cave got listed on the US stock market

YISHUI, CHINA: A Chinese tourism company listed in the United States wants investors to pour their money down a dark hole. Literally.

The Akula lesson for entrepreneurs: A guide to when you should and shouldn't avoid Dalal Street

By: Alok Kejriwal




Some boys were never meant to leave their Mama's apron strings. Like some companies were never meant to do an initial public offer (IPO).
Consider SKS Microfinance, the company in the news for the wrong reasons, whose founder Vikram Akula has just left.
Let me ask you. How would you react if you read that the Mother Teresa Foundation had appointed Armani suited Dalals...er....Dalal Street bankers to infiltrate their sacred sanctums, sit with angelic nuns and calculate the 'profitability' of saving the ailing or the 'positive cash flow' earned by every poor man who was helped?

Google maps - now for indoors! - incredible.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/29/google-maps-6-0-hits-android-adds-indoor-navigation-for-retail/

Google Maps 6.0 hits Android, adds indoor navigation for retail and transit

By Joseph Volpe posted Nov 29th 2011 12:37PM

Google's already put its stamp on the great outdoors, what with its Street View fleet chronicling the well-trodden ways of our world for Maps. Which is precisely why Mountain View's turning its attention inward for that next, great navigation innovation, as it attempts to chart a course through the wilds of indoor spaces. Hitting the Android Market in the U.S. and Japan today, the company's ever-popular app gets a full version bump to 6.0, bringing with it the inclusion of retail and airport floor plans.

Siri: Why Apple will build, buy, or partner on a search engine

Siri: Why Apple will build, buy, or partner on a search engine

By Jason Hiner
Summary: Siri is emerging as Apple’s game-changer that could put serious pressure on Google. But, first Apple needs to figure out web search integration.
Apple’s iPhone 4S was a disappointment to all of those who were expecting a redesigned iPhone 5, but in the grand scheme of the things the launch of the iPhone 4S may turn out to be Apple’s Chamber of Secrets.
Forgive the Harry Potter reference, but Chamber of Secrets is the second book in the seven-book Harry Potter series, and while it’s generally the least favorite of the books among Potter fans, by the time you get to the final book you realize that Chamber contained critical plot information that foretold important future events.

Myth of Steve Jobs

In the age of push-button publishing and social networking, people


seem to have become de-humanised, not knowing what their true

emotions are. This became very clear recently in the wake of Apple

co-founder Steve Jobs’ demise. Tributes ranged from “hagiographic”

to “outright lame.” Nobody seemed to have put an effort. There was

no honesty nor any genuine feeling.

How is income inequality bad if US poor are obese, have cable TV, a car, and access to free education?

Income inequality isn't necessarily bad, but substantial income inequality can be. Growing income inequality can be problematical, depending on how and why it is growing. Worse yet, sustained acceleration of income inequality, which is what is happening in the United States, can be extremely problematic because it signifies a chronic flaw in the economic system.

Startups: 10 Things MBA Schools Won't Teach You

http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/9928/startups-10-things-mba-schools-won-t-teach-you.aspx

Now that 3 years have passed since I got my graduate degree (and the founding of my current startup), I think I can make fun of it a bit. [Note: Only a moderate amount of harm was inflicted on MBAs — and investment bankers, in the making of this article].


10 Things Most MBA Schools Won’t Teach You About Startups

14 Reasons Why You Need To Start A Startup

http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/24525/14-reasons-why-you-need-to-start-a-startup.aspx

14 Reasons Why You Need To Start A Startup

This post has been ruminating with me for a while. It's not a sudden "a-ha" moment that made it form, but a collective group of "a-has!" over the past few months. Consider this the uplifting post to counter last week's "The 11 Harsh Realities Of Entrepreneurship". Just because it's a harsh reality, doesn't mean you shouldn't be an entrepreneur. The best time to start a startup is not tomorrow, not next week, and certainly not next year. The time is right now, at this very second. Here's why:

Daniel Kahneman: Beware the ‘inside view’

In an excerpt from his new book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, the Nobel laureate recalls how an inwardly focused forecasting approach once led him astray, and why an external perspective can help executives do better.

NOVEMBER 2011 • Daniel Kahneman

In This Article

• About the author
• Comments

In the 1970s, I convinced some officials in the Israeli Ministry of Education of the need for a curriculum to teach judgment and decision making in high schools. The team that I assembled to design the curriculum and write a textbook for it included several experienced teachers, some of my psychology students, and Seymour Fox, then dean of the Hebrew University’s School of Education and an expert in curriculum development.

The Great Bank Robbery

The Great Bank Robbery

NEW YORK – For the American economy – and for many other developed economies – the elephant in the room is the amount of money paid to bankers over the last five years. For banks that have filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the sum stands at an astounding $2.2 trillion. Extrapolating over the coming decade, the numbers would approach $5 trillion

3 Misconceptions That Need to Die

At a conference in Philadelphia earlier this month, a Wharton professor noted that one of the country's biggest economic problems is a tsunami of misinformation. You can't have a rational debate when facts are so easily supplanted by overreaching statements, broad generalizations, and misconceptions. And if you can't have a rational debate, how does anything important get done? As author William Feather once advised, "Beware of the person who can't be bothered by details." There seems to be no shortage of those people lately.
Here are three misconceptions that need to be put to rest.
Misconception: Most of what Americans spend their money on is made in China.
Fact: Just 2.7% of personal consumption expenditures

Interesting!

Understanding the Second Great Contraction: An interview with Kenneth Rogoff
The economist and coauthor of This Time Is Different explains what history can teach us about the global downturn and why climbing out of it is still rife with risks.
OCTOBER 2011 • Bill Javetski and Tim Koller

Strategy under uncertainty

Credits - McKinsey Quarterly

At the heart of the traditional approach to strategy lies the assumption that executives, by applying a set of powerful analytic tools, can predict the future of any business accurately enough to choose a clear strategic direction for it. The process often involves underestimating uncertainty in order to lay out a vision of future events sufficiently precise to be captured in a discounted-cash-flow (DCF) analysis. When the future is truly uncertain, this approach is at best marginally helpful and at worst downright dangerous: underestimating uncertainty can lead to strategies that neither defend a company against the threats nor take advantage of the opportunities that higher levels of uncertainty provide. Another danger lies at the other extreme: if managers can't find a strategy that works under traditional analysis, they may abandon the analytical rigor of their planning process altogether and base their decisions on gut instinct.