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cr6196

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Everything posted by cr6196

  1. Whilst this should do nothing to detract from Lemann's achievements after Harvard it is worth being slightly more critical of this particular piece. When he was entering Harvard, Brazil was an extremely poor country and one of the most (if not the most) unequal, in economic terms, country in the world (slavery was only abolished 30 years or so before Lemann was born). It seems very unlikely that he got into Harvard on anything else other than money (not unusual at the time, remember this guy is old). Given this point, it is pretty futiile to try and read back his later success into this period. More generally, I think people who have gone onto be successful have rather selective memories when it comes to recalling how they got to where they are now.
  2. [amazonsearch]End of the Line: Rise and Fall of AT&T[/amazonsearch] Surprised this hasn't been mentioned here as this is a John Malone recommendation. Really good book about a really interesting topic. As with most business books, depth is a bit lacking and you have to be willing to draw your own conclusions. The writing is also fairly poor and confusing in parts. Despite this, the book is worth reading because the subject is so interesting and, whilst the execution is poor in places, the writer clearly benefited from interviews with those involved.
  3. This is true but sanctions would have to be limited. If you apply extreme sanctions and turn off Gazprom pipelines in winter time, people all over central Europe would freeze to death. Right, that is party true (although coal is used as well) but those wouldn't be the sanctions. Capital flight from Russia is $70bn/year so something can be done with that, travel restrictions, stuff with the G8/UN, other trade sanctions, etc.
  4. The voice of sanity. Any response has to be coordinated. The British, and EU countries are more than capable of responding to Russia when they are ready. This is another wholesale mess bought to us by the geopolitics and greed of fossil fuels. Putin is trying to stay in power and using the well worn strategy of attacking a non-existent threat to gain traction at home. Right out of the George W./Dick Cheney playbook. I agree with the above sentiments...without trying to start any controversy, there appears to be a deep sense of insecurity/paranoia in some of the answers. This has definitely been a feature of US society/FP for a long time but is fairly surprising how strong it still is. Either way, this event really won't trigger anything. The latest stuff about the future size of the armed forces was significantly more important. Also, and this is something I have noticed in Europe too, people seem to think Putin is unpopular, he isn't. Granted there are other factors to consider but he is generally as or more popular than other world leaders in their own countries. This misinterpretation of Putin's position seems to be borne out of the assumption that everyone should believe the same thing. For example, the "anti-gay" legislation caused a huge furoe in my country. Not only was the legislation rather tame in comparison to similar legislation in other "friendly" countries but it was also hugely popular because Russian people are homophobic. That isn't particularly nice but Russian people are entitled to that view. The way to change that probably isn't to tell them that they have 19th century views and generally berate everything they do. Moreover, not taking a hard line, in this case, wouldn't assumed elsewhere to be a sign of weakness esp. when the US wouldn't be fighting for anything, it would be a sign of deep insecurity that would terrify much of the world. On top of this, Russia is fairly vulnerable to economic sanctions.
  5. So why did Crimea vote for a referendum? Why did Ukraine abolish the second language law? Coincidences? At this moment , It seems that pro Russian military forces occupied Crimea , Took over parliament of Crimea and admin buildings ( made the head of Crimea parliament to resigned) and proclaimed the referendum in 28 days. How legal this call for referendum ? As legal as everything that was done in Kiev...at best. In terms of the effect on markets, it is hard to tell...I think most of the time this kind of thing would have no effect but given what has happened the past six months destabilising capital flows are more likely. This would be from people who had money in Ukraine selling other stuff because they can't get currency out or people in neighbouring countries selling their own currency. Georgia triggered large outflows from Russia but that was in 2008 so other trends were present. I don't see any other way this event could be relevant?
  6. So why did Crimea vote for a referendum? Why did Ukraine abolish the second language law? Coincidences? Regardless, as the current govt gained power by force and through the actions of a minority (whatever anyone might suspect about what the population might think "in general") they are to some degree illegitimate (the irony of politicians in Kiev denouncing Crimean "separatists" is too much). I doubt anything major will happen but this is the point of maximum risk, esp. when you have politicians that are so notoriously venal and citizens that have been screwed before. Will be interesting to see who gives money and how though. I doubt the EU will do anything major soon.
  7. Bah, I have been looking for something like this for ages (like Investegate for US companies), this goes 95% of the way but the stream just stops after a few filings with no logic...discernible to a human. I don't understand why you would go the trouble of building everything up and then not think about this...whatever. Any suggestions on something but actually complete?
  8. There is a chapter on this in the Pendergrast book too.
  9. I looked at them two years ago or so as I thought they had been bailed out by the turnaround in Euroarea. My view was that there was something unsound going on and the aggregate CA deficit suggests that a lot of hot money has made it into the system. My guess is that it is, in accordance with my views above, largely European subsidiaries (although it is hard to pick up these flows from BoP) that have put money in and it will all come apart quickly when this stops. The IMF also has an interesting study this issue, obviously aimed at countries like Turkey, in the latest WEO. Finally, the politics are awful. There are a lot of nice businesses there in the non-bank sector but the macro situation looks poor.
  10. A few things...first, there isn't any proof (quantitatively) that democracies are more peaceful. There is proof that democracies are less likely to fight each other but that is, in my view, not true either. second, you make a lot of very strange assumptions about dictatorships...one, that they are corrupt. two, that "rationality" is the aim (ironically, rationality is a concept often used to pursue violence against other less "rational" people, read orientalism...this criticism applies as much to the idea that the Chinese are "rational" btw). three, that dictatorships are less subject to popular opinion (one well-known example is Harry Byrd being elected to the Senate in the 1960s on 16% of the electorate, the related point of the US before the 1960s is also legitimate for obvious reasons). third, you criticize dictatorships but consider the extraterritorial authority of NSA/CIA as legitimate...seems odd. fourth, the prototypical example of warlike democracies in international relations is Athens killing all the men, women, and children of Melos in the Pelopennsian War. I don't really say this with a point but you will find that whenever someone argues that democracies are more peaceful, this comes up. fifth, this isn't as much a criticism as an observation that the leaders the US installed in Japan were war criminals...picture Goebbels leading Germany after WW2. More generally, Japan was a democracy but not much of one as the LDP has been in power pretty much continuously since 1955 with the help of CIA dollars...democracy indeed. sixth, there are lots of examples of dictatorships overseeing huge economic growth...most impressive is obviously Korea which was poorer than a lot of sub-Saharan countries in the 60s and Park Chung-hee is typically credited with doing a lot there. seventh, recent Iranian elections were pretty much fair...the famous US attitude of "democracy...as long as you vote for who we say" springs to mind. I don't really have any point here...real life unfortunately isn't as simple as democracy = good/peaceful, dictatorship bad/warlike. The doctrine of perpetual war embraced by the US cabinet about ten years ago is a case in point (the concept of an unelected cabinet could seem strange to an outsider too). It is also worth bearing in mind that there is often a whole lot of context with these situations...Mao wasn't a particularly good leader but it is worth considering that China had been in a state of perpetual war, internally and against Japan, since the fall of the Qing in the early twentieth century. Likewise, India embraced democracy early but hasn't been successful economically, has a history of frosty relations with surrounding countries, and ethnic tension which, some would say, can be related to the government. All these are a function, I think, of the wider context that democracy operates in. It is generally accepted that in theory democracy is better...proving this is quite different from saying it should be applied everywhere tomorrow or that one version of "better" applies in all cases. Even more worrying is the idea that a certain government is illegitimate or wrong because they don't have the same political structure as you (more often than not, other governments, the US included, don't care what type of government other countries have. ideological arguments are often a pretext for something else). Just a thought though.
  11. Well this thread makes the answer obvious, the perception of corruption. I don't see any actual appraisal of the risk though, the situation in Russia is certainly more complicated than "bad government"...go back fifteen years and the government was the victim, not the perpetrator, of theft. Russian billionaires have pulled off quite a PR coup in this regard...after stealing state assets using state money they convince everyone that the state is the problem. Either way, to find out if Russian stocks really are cheap (not why they are cheap) I think you have to understand the situation on its own terms. To me this suggests, at least, that the current situation isn't black and white. The current government has done far better than the "business-friendly" ones of the 1990s. Also there are obviously some well-run businesses outside of O&G, Magnit being perhaps the best known.
  12. I am not precisely sure what "unconventional" means but to get the ball rolling again... To start, Melrose Industries, a bit like Danaher but they sell after they have turned something around and give back to shareholders. They listed in early 2003 on AIM and are now worth ~£3.5bn and have returned around £1bn since their listing (so they have created about £2bn). The key guys (David Roper, Simon Peckham, and Christopher Miller) were all at smaller UK company called Wassall in the 90s, they did something similar although the scale was (I believe) much smaller, they compounded earnings at 18%/year for twelve years there though. The FD at Melrose Industries has a good turnaround background too (Royal Doulton) but wasn't at Walsall. A much more off-the-wall pick...Henry Engelhardt and David Stevens of Admiral (a car insurer listed in London). These two are CEO and COO at the moment, they own about 37% of the company still. It was founded in 1992 (I think) and was bought back by management in 1999 (again, roughly). The business was started from nothing and is now worth £3.5bn and their average combined ratio for the twenty years is 84%. The record is a bit more cloudy though as the company was private for a while. Either way, both groups have outperformed over multi-decade periods.
  13. There is also maritime economics by stopord and elements of shipping by branch. The former is perhaps slightly better than the latter, stopford mixes academic and practical insight and he was until recently on the board of clarkson so he is a pretty prominent industry figure as well as academic.
  14. Thanks for this, it was great. There is also this: http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Skies-History-Cable-Television/dp/1592132871/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1377541169&sr=1-8&keywords=history+of+cable Not sure if it is as good as the above but so far so good.
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