The first afternoon at the World Business Forum, our after-lunch speaker was David Rubenstein, billionaire investor and founder of the Carlyle Group, former Carter advisor and generally very bright guy. His rapidly delivered speech was like a ticker-tape coming almost too fast to read, fact and stat, fact and stat, stat stat stat stat. Recession is way worse than most people think. Taxes will increase substantially following recovery. Government will continue too involved with business for a long time. NYC will no longer be the world's financial capital. The dollar will cease to be the world's primary reserve currency. On the other hand, he says, a downturn like this creates great investment opportunities, and lots of room for innovation. His was a rapid, bleak, but fairly balanced presentation. Sobering, disturbing, worrisome, and factual.

Jeffrey Sachs, on the other hand, gave what can only be described as a disappointingly shallow and politicized analysis of the world's problems in his "Economics for a Crowded Planet" talk.

Continue reading "Hellfire and Brimstone on a Tuesday Afternoon" »

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New academic research explodes the myth that green technology is economically stimulative.

It's no doubt true that if we introduce legislation to encourage green technology, we will not only improve our environment, but we will stimulate some economic activity. But it doesn't logically follow that this activity will amount to NET new activity for the economy as a whole. In fact, green technology, encouraged by regulatory or tax policy, will impose an economic cost on our society. If a cleaner environment or less global warming is the goal, then we should be willing to pay for this, but green technology does not create net new jobs, so that's not a reason to embrace it.

Continue reading "Green Jobs Do Not Stimulate the Economy" »

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A psychological study of American football players once revealed an interesting difference between defensive and offensive players:

Offensive players' lockers were neater and more orderly than defensive players' lockers. The most obvious inference is probably right: Offensive players get ahead by following well-crafted plans, executed flawlessly. Timing, position, and order are everything to them. But defensive players succeed by wreaking havoc with others' plans. They are more at home with disorder, chaos, and unpredictability.

Continue reading "The Conflict Between Innovation and Efficiency" »

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