Eurozone Crisis: In the Eye of the Storm The Eurozone crisis has been in retreat since the introduction of the European Central Bank’s (ECB) three-year long-term refinancing operations (LTROs) in late December 2011. At the European Council Meeting in early March, journalists who cover the crisis fretted that boredom loomed. The current lull does not indicate that the Eurozone is in the clear, but rather it is simply in the eye of the storm, and more drama inevitably awaits. Extend and pretend So far, there are three key mechanisms the troika — the European Commission, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and ECB — has employed to buy time for the Eurozone’s weaker countries to regain competitiveness and return to growth. Each of these could fail over the next few years, prompting a renewed intensification of the crisis. The first of the Eurozone’s time-buying mechanisms is the bailout programs that have been provided to Greece, Portugal and Ireland.
Beyond Brics China: first global “megatrader” since the British empire China’s weak March trade numbers today rattled markets and raised new questions about both the extent of the economy’s slowdown and just how reliable any trade data ex Beijing is in itself these days, given the huge distortions seen last year due to over-invoicing. But then all of that is testament to the fact that China’s monthly trade data are, for good reason, the most closely watched of their kind in the world today. Why? Standard Chartered offers a good reason in a new report, also out today: China is the first “megatrader” the world has seen since the fall of the British empire.
The Great American Bubble Machine : Rolling Stone The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it's everywhere. The world's most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money. In fact, the history of the recent financial crisis, which doubles as a history of the rapid decline and fall of the suddenly swindled dry American empire, reads like a Who's Who of Goldman Sachs graduates. Invasion of the Home Snatchers By now, most of us know the major players. As George Bush's last Treasury secretary, former Goldman CEO Henry Paulson was the architect of the bailout, a suspiciously self-serving plan to funnel trillions of Your Dollars to a handful of his old friends on Wall Street.
The Internet map The map of the Internet Like any other map, The Internet map is a scheme displaying objects’ relative position; but unlike real maps (e.g. the map of the Earth) or virtual maps (e.g. the map of Mordor), the objects shown on it are not aligned on a surface. Mathematically speaking, The Internet map is a bi-dimensional presentation of links between websites on the Internet. Every site is a circle on the map, and its size is determined by website traffic, the larger the amount of traffic, the bigger the circle. Users’ switching between websites forms links, and the stronger the link, the closer the websites tend to arrange themselves to each other. Charges and springs
Alphaville Elsewhere on Wednesday, - The real problem with HFT. - Summers’ inverse Say’s Law. - The impolitic wisdom of Simon Kuznets. - Buying the future. Read more UPDATED: The Apple App Store Economy – GigaOM Update: Thanks to everyone for weighing in about the infographic. The data used was given to us on an exclusive basis from analytics firm Flurry. Indeed, three-quarters of the apps in the App Store are “paid apps,” which was used to calculate the average app price and the subsequent revenue figures in the previous version. However, only one-quarter of the apps actually downloaded are “paid apps,” so the average price per transaction (paid + free downloads) is actually much lower than the average app price in the store. Mapping The Future Of Education Technology Add this massive infographic to the recent discussion of futuristic dorms and what education will look like in 2020--and beyond. Designed by Michell Zappa’s Envisioning Technology (which also created that fantastic interactive infographic mapping the future of technology), this chart maps innovations in education technology for the next few decades. Click to enlarge.
The Diplomat Magazine China has made dramatic economic progress during the last five years, weathering the global financial crisis and becoming the world’s largest exporter and second largest economy, surpassing Japan. By James A. Dorn for The Diplomat