Polymath's Guide to News and Ideas
Did Goldman Goose Oil?
FORBES : When oil prices spiked last summer to $147 a barrel, the biggest corporate casualty was oil pipeline giant Semgroup Holdings... READ MORE
China Slowdown Stunts Entrepreneurs
WALL STREET JOURNAL : Over a decade, his small firm outfitted more than a thousand assembly lines with specialized equipment: pumps and pipes to sluice chemicals through high-tech plants... READ MORE
Is the Bail Out Breeding a Bigger Crisis?
WWW.COUNTERPUNCH.ORG : At his March 24 press conference President Obama demonstrated that he is capable of understanding issues as presented to him by his advisers and able to pass on the explanations to the press... READ MORE
Does exporting improve firm performance?
VOXEU : Many emphasise the importance of export growth in economic development, but does exporting increase economic growth or does growth increase exports... READ MORE
'A Hell on Earth'
THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS : "The situation inside Tibet is almost like a military occupation," I heard the Dalai Lama tell an interviewer last November, when I spent a week traveling with him across Japan... READ MORE
Fiscal stimulus and German unification
MARGINAL REVOLUTION : For all the talk about the Great Depression, we are missing one historical analogy for a program of large fiscal stimulus... READ MORE
Do nations go to war over water?
NATURE : The United Nations warned as recently as last week that climate change harbours the potential for serious conflicts over water. In its World Water Development Report1 of March 2009... READ MORE
Regional Banks Are the Future
WSJ.COM: REAL TIME ECONOMICS : The big-bank model isn’t going to last much longer, banking industry analyst Meredith Whitney said at the Journal’s Future of Finance Initiative... READ MORE
Eastern Europe's Economic Crash
SPIEGEL ONLINE : The global downturn has hit Eastern Europe with particular vengeance. Countries that profited more than many others from globalization and were previously capitalism's rising stars are now seeing demand for exports collapse, along with their currencies... READ MORE
Do men and women read books differently?
MARGINAL REVOLUTION : A study of reading habits showed almost half of women are 'page turners' who finish a book soon after starting it compared to only 26 per cent of men... READ MORE