Category: finance
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Pro Poker as a Startup
As a former professional poker player, Matt Maroon got a lot of enquiries from people asking him if they should ‘go pro’. Now an entrepreneur, he gets similar enquiries from people asking him whether they should start their own company. He discusses the similarities between pro poker and start-ups in A Little Better Advice. My goal…
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Workforce Cuts vs. Wage Cuts
As part of the excellent Lectures on Macroeconomics series, Arnold Kling discusses why companies tend to cuts jobs rather than wages in times of hardship. The core arguments: Cutting wages is not standard practice, therefore: The best workers will leave and seek better opportunities: it’s better to choose which workers to lose. Wage cuts demoralise, harming…
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Trends in Counterfeit Currency
Bruce Schneier comments on the growing prevalence of low-tech currency counterfeiting: “Counterfeits are becoming easier to detect while people are becoming less skilled in detecting it”. Part of the problem, Green said, is that the government has changed the money so much to foil counterfeiting. With all the new bills out there, citizens and even…
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For-Profit Charities
Charities should embrace for-profit business models in order to drive fundraising, or so says Dan Pallotta, author of Uncharitable and founder of the now-defunct Pallotta TeamWorks company; a for-profit organisation that produced many successful fundraising events for nonprofits. In his column The Sin of Doing Good Deeds, The New York Times op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof…
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Recession’s Influence on Working Habits
During times of recession the way business is conducted changes drastically. Given the current economic climate, Lynda Grattonâa professor from the London Business Schoolâwonders what working habits will emerge now? The 1981-82 recession heralded the end of the notion of a “job for life”. Jobs and careers would never be the same. The mantra following…
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Success During the Great Depression
From Google Answers: “What industries fared relatively better and worse in terms of pricing and demand during the Great Depression of 1929? Do the industries reflect a hierarchy of demand from essential consumables to deferrable purchases to capital goods? What specific companies did well in any industry and what distinguishes those companies.” The answer provides…
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Moving Past Conspicuous Consumption
Rob WalkerâNew York Times columnist (Consumed) and author of Buying Inâcalls for an end to conspicuous consumption, the purchasing of lavish goods purely to project wealth, and a move towards the invisible badge: Thorstein Veblen introduced the idea of “conspicuous consumption” in The Theory of the Leisure Class, in 1899. And it’s still being recycled…
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Seven Tactics for Selling a Home
Redfin, a U.S.âbased real estate brokerage, recommends seven tactics for selling a home: Don’t overprice your property Set your price to show up in web searches Debut on Friday Stay engaged Market the property online When selling your home, stay put If you can, wait to list your property until neighbouring foreclosures are off the…
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Making Donations Easy
Each year, in late December, I make a charity donation. Over the years I’ve chosen a charity in many different ways, but one thing has always been constant: I always choose projects that aim to improve science education. However, one thing has been constantly improving: the ease of actually choosing, and this year it couldn’t…
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The Inefficiency of Christmas Gifts
A letter to Tim Harford (The Undercover Economist) asks, What’s the best Christmas present? Your letter obliges me to disinter the influential research of the economist Joel Waldfogel on the “deadweight loss of Christmas”. Fifteen years ago, Waldfogel published an academic article demonstrating that the recipients of gifts would not generally have been willing to…