Virtualization, again…

By , May 27, 2009 06:22

Virtualization.info did start a series of blog entries about the hidden costs and challenges of virtualization. Worth a reading, start here.

Matthias

Bert Rürup (5)

By , May 27, 2009 04:44

Again, I did start this week with a visit to Bert Rürump’s lecture. This week he did talk about further factors for influencing growth in an economy: The “amount of money in circulation” and the “key interest rate” (or for our american friends: “prime rate”), and how these do influence the economy. For more details, it is again a good idea to check Wikipedia, I always found their descriptions very useful: Money Supply. Sadly, the ones on the other factor are a bit terse, still, here’re the links: Interest Rate and Prime Rate

Matthias

P.S.: An addition to last week’s lecture: We do have to differentiate between taxes and insurances, when looking at all the dues we have to pay. Some are dues with no right on payback (for example: income tax, et.al.), some are dues with an entitlement for payback (for example: unimployment insurance). Sadly, many people always do the sum, and never differentiate between these two. When comparing the dues you have to pay in different countries, you have to look at those precisely, because there are countries, where for example the unimployment insurance is NOT done by goverment, but needs to be done privately. Therefore you can NOT compare the dues that are deducted from your income across countries.

Virtualization revisited

By , May 20, 2009 07:34

My colleague Mike Ramchand did post some thoughts about virtualization, and did ask us to provide feedback. Click here to read his article, and here for our thoughts.

Matthias

Bert Rürup (4)

By , May 18, 2009 05:00

This week’s lecture was on how to grow the GDP (gross domestic product) by two of the seven possible factors. “Human capital” as well as “growth in population”.

He started by discussing the “ideal state” and the need for growth, and with interceptions on the latest OECD studies, and their discussions on the state of Germany, as well as discussions on the influence of longer life expectancy…

Sorry for being a bit brief this week, to much to do… ;-)

I again did enjoy it immensly, again a beautiful start of the week!

Matthias

P.S.: Last week, he also did discuss the hysteresis, a phenomenon to be seen in economies. The number of “re-employments” after a downturn never does reach the number of “un-employment”… ;-( So un-employment grows and grows…

Bert Rürup (3)

By , May 11, 2009 01:30

This week’s lecture was on “labor market policy” vs. “economic policy” and how to handle “employment politic”. It’s been about Keynes and his economic ideas as well as neoclassical economics. He’s been talking about supply and demand as drivers or basis for thinking on how to influence the market. He’s been talking about the definitions of unemployment rates, and the different types of unemployment and social security systems, and the effect of employment protection legislation on the “unemployment rate.

As usual: great to start the week with his lecture!

Matthias

Bert Rürup (2)

By , May 4, 2009 02:27

Today was the second lecture, last week Bert was not able to do it, as he had to be at a meeting with the chancellor and China government. He did excuse himself.

Today he did cover the differences between “economic policy” and “trade cycle policy”, did explain the drivers and the need for drivers for change or market demand. He did cover the Lorenz curve, the Kuznets curve, he did talk about why Germans are more afraid of inflation, whereas Americans are more afraid of depression.

He did talk about the differences of managing need or stimulating need (US: Trains were build privately, but need was territory, so union pacific and western pacific did have an interest in building the train, Europe: Trains were build by governments to regulate need and build an “useful” infrastructure). (also see: Allmende)

He did start the day with the question, when ecology started to become important in financial politics. Answer is: 1962, with the book Silent Spring

As always, I can not cover or retell everything he mentioned or covered, but these are the things I remember (besides the talks about all Western being based on the Trains (he did ask about the main topic of the movie Once Upon A Time In The West) and the Exit Game (if you were promised money, based on the requirement to give a part of that money to someone else, and the second requirement that that someone else needs to accept that part, how much would you give away)).

As always, very refreshing, it’s a real good start for each week.

Matthias

Twitter

By , May 4, 2009 01:50

I’m now also twittering, see http://twitter.com/pfuetz

Matthias

Panorama Theme by Themocracy