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Author Archives: sdiamond
In Piracy Debate, Is the Sky Falling?
Heck, even Amnesty International is critical of Hollywood’s stance on piracy.
Clueless in Davos
Facebook IPO in Morning Take-Out – NYTimes.com
Facebook IPO is the talk of Silicon Valley
This is the week that Facebook is actually expected to file its S-1 for an IPO. I was interviewed by Market Watch for this story. The key to the Facebook valuation is whether it can convince investors that it is creating a new media environment that can sustain its business. Stay tuned.
Facebook IPO is the talk of Silicon Valley – Therese Polettis Tech Tales – MarketWatch.
HP makes board changes, CEO next?
Finally, the HP board is getting serious as this story in the Mercury News today suggests. I was interviewed for the story but not all my comments made it in (which is normal).
Holdovers from the “Spygate” days are now disappearing. The real challenge now is to find a serious CEO who understands how to manage what remains a serious engineering and science workforce. Meg Whitman is a placeholder who cannot hold that kind of culture together.
HP lost a big step when it missed the importance of social and mobile. The “user” revolution that companies like Facebook and Apple recognize makes HP look like a Cold War behemoth.
HP trims board in wake of controversies – San Jose Mercury News.
Hedge Funds and Insider Trading
A serious empirical study suggests that Wall Street insiders do indeed engage in inside trading.
3 Monks’ Deaths Show Rise of Self-Immolation Among Tibetans
A grim and powerful reminder that the long awaited democratization of China – which so many liberals claim would follow with WTO membership and globalization – remains far away.
3 Monks’ Deaths Show Rise of Self-Immolation Among Tibetans – NYTimes.com.
The Myth of Japan’s Failure by Eamonn Fingleton
As long term followers of my blog may recall I am a big fan of the work of economics writer Eamonn Fingleton, whom I count as well as a personal friend. Eamonn has been a keen follower of economic development in Asia. He has written several very important books that deserve even a larger readership than they have already achieved. The opinion essay he has in tomorrow’s New York Times, link below, may help.
Eamonn succinctly makes the case that the Asian economies get something right – that there is an alternative to the Washington consensus and as of yet American liberals have yet to really grasp this. Japan and now China are engaged in capital intensive investment that also pays attention to the risks of unemployment. Both countries, particularly China, achieve this in part by authoritarian forms of politics. But they do not shy away from the link between manufacturing and global economic competitiveness.
In the wake of a devastating economic crisis and the response of movements like Occupy Wall Street it is high time that the American left articulate a new approach. These days it seems that only Sarah Palin and Rick Santorum know that there is a working class in this country.
Financial Times: $6.3tn wiped off markets in 2011
If one wanted further confirmation that we now live in the era of “fictitious capital” this end of the year headline in today’s FT was a stunning reminder.
I am working on an article that applies the theory of fictitious capital to our understanding of corporate law. One way to begin to understand the issue is to ask: what was the real value of your investments or assets a year ago and what are they worth now. It is hard to think that they are really worth some ten percent less in any fundamental way.
But in retrospect they were clearly over valued. There was more fiction than fact than we had understood.