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The Economics of Abundance #Thanksgiving
Here is a diagram/summary/cheat sheet: While it sounds New Age and hippy-ish, some areas of economics are moving away from the traditional scarcity model of the world (a world of limited resources and unlimited wants). And I dare say that it’s a movement toward a more human view of life, with the kind of thinking that sounds […]
read moreValue Investing…
I’m just going to leave this here: Because here is my historical observation/reflection: In the 1990s, all the big stock exchanges had finally gone electronic, and we discovered algorithmic trading. Until the crashes in the late 90s, where we realised that bad algorithms are bad. And then we invented high frequency trading (HFT), and the HFT […]
read moreFinancial Literacy: Here’s A Test
Here’s an article that is making my day: People flunked this money test because the questions were dumb. But let’s backtrack a second to McGraw Hill, the World Bank and Standard & Poors, who posed five questions in a financial literacy survey to 150,000 people in more than 140 countries. You had to get three of the […]
read moreAll the bad commodity news #2015
In June, we had this: Then, after June, China happened, so September: And now, this week, Macquarie: Ain’t it amazing how quickly it can change? But sherbet – the world really hates commodities. Seems like a good time to start watching for that contrarian wave… Rolling Alpha posts about finance, economics, and sometimes stuff that is […]
read moreShould You Cash In An Investment To Buy Your House?
There’s a new article on moneyweb this morning. Here is the question: How much of your savings should you liquidate to use as a deposit when you decide to buy a house? Let’s say you are in your late-twenties and have about R500 000 invested in various domestic high-equity unit trusts, and are now interested […]
read moreBill Gates and the Climate Change Interview
There’s a new Common Sense podcast episode out (#298), and the main subject (apart from an interlude to talk about the Paris terrorist attacks), was focused on the Atlantic’s interview with Bill Gates: “We Need A Climate Change Miracle“. It is worth your time. Unfortunately, as Dan points out, the reason this interview is getting attention […]
read moreWhere Does Global Growth Come From?
Rolling Alpha posts about finance, economics, and sometimes stuff that is only quite loosely related. Follow me on Twitter @RollingAlpha, or like my page on Facebook at www.facebook.com/rollingalpha. Or both.
read moreTwo Thirds of the Wealthiest People are Self-Made
So here’s something that I came across this morning: If you’d like to fact check, have a look at the Bloomberg Billionaires page. Things I learned interactively this morning: As of yesterday, the Total Net Wealth of the 200 richest people (according to Bloomberg) is about $3 trillion. Of those 200 people, 135 of them are “self-made”, […]
read morePeak Water
Given all the water restrictions that are rolling out from City Water here in Johannesburg, I thought it would be worth sharing this: Also, this: For more, check out this post. Rolling Alpha posts about finance, economics, and sometimes stuff that is only quite loosely related. Follow me on Twitter @RollingAlpha, or like my page on Facebook […]
read moreThe Real Cost of South Africa’s Payday Loans
FYI: I first wrote this post back in 2013 – so you’ll see references to exchange rates that have moved a fair amount since. Wonga.com has arrived in South Africa. I have seen the adverts on M-net. Welcome welcome. Your adverts are so Madam-&-Eve-style cute. So you know how I’m such a fan of microcredit? And how […]
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