Going Global

The case for Small Software, A paradigm shift (or a structural change) in software business models brought on by Apple's App Store..

Playstation 3 cuts prices Purely of interest from a business perspective. Its largely irrelevant to us Sri Lankans from a consumers persepective cos of the lack of opportunity for cough*piracy*cough and other various reasons.

More international discourse on Sri Lanka, devolution and reconciliation

Happy Sri Lankans; polls show we are a happy nation, so stop worrying. Thanks to DeaneJ for the pointer

End of America; Pick you apocalypse Pick and choose how you think Amercia will end. Heads up to Freakonomics for the pointer. Im going for obesity myself.

Five Thirty Eight; Ambiguous Afghan Elections and we wonder why no one on twitter is screaming 'free Afghanistan'? it may have something to do with who's winning.

Mervyn Silva talks (mostly crap) on hotseat, really, do you need to me to add anything else to this? go watch the video.

The Economist; Tigers not for nothing; And no not the human variety for a change. A review on why the Asian economies are leaping (relatively) like tigers; post crisis.

First we begged for money, now we're gloating a bit. How Sri Lanka ended up with way mopre foreign reserves than expected.

Brazil is rising and asserting itself; a great lesson on the importance of leadership for a successful economy. We can also see the Economist try its hand at giving some self-righteous (and slightly vomit inducing) advocacy at the end.

Council of Foreign Relations - Crisis guide to the economy. (Also check out the other crisis guides)

Bill Clinton to the Rescue! by Oliver Wills

Adamsmith. org; The Recession pdf

Beetroot Juice Futewuh! Boosts stamina better than excercise

Chuck Palahniuk - Guts; Read this if you can stomach it; 25 people fainted on the book tour!

Cos it wouldn't be complete without a story on KP

Economist: When the smiles die, the SL government and promises of devolution

Wall St Journal Asia; When twitter died

When Islamophobia Isn’t Funny - Loonwatch on rising right wing extremism and violence against Muslims in the West

Cannibis and mental health; correlation vs causation - ElectEcon The post links to a study (unfortunately not free). Apparently the 'main finding is that using cannabis increases the likelihood of mental health problems, with current use having a larger effect than past use'. Like that ever stopped anybody :)

The USA/China Relationship: Obama’s Conflict of Interest - Chicagoboyz The US needs more money, unfortunately printing it will scare off their creditors and spark inflation. So they're left with one more option; more debt. But convincing the likes of China to take more risk on US bonds is another issue altogether.

How Wars, Plagues, and Urban Disease Propelled Europe’s Rise to Riches - Economist's View Discussion on how the Europeans got rich and broke out of the cycle of diminishing returns that theoretically overtakes most economies. The result is a take on the teachings of Malthus; who generally stated that the richer a society gets, the more its population will increase, its rate of increase eventually overtaking the rise in wealth, eventually resulting in said society falling back into some form of self destruction.

Personally, i think colonial rule and the exploitation of 'free' foreign resources should have had a more (or just as) important role to play in Europeans getting rich. But i can't be arsed to go look for concrete evidence right now.

What Scientology doesn't tell you - ever wondered about that light sheen sometimes apparent on Tom Cruise's face? Thanks to Brad DeLong for the pointer.

Will PowerPoint be blamed for the financial crisis? is what Freakonomics is asking now.

KPs new blog. and why he simply had to be abroad at the time... thanks ICT4peace.

Chinese worker commits suicide after iPhone prototype goes missing creeepy..
                                                                                                                                

Sri Lanka's Public Sector: Scamming the public. From LBO - Sunk tax revenues, corrupt and inefficient state organzations, who needs Sakvithi with a public sector like this?

Freakonomics, Why Skinny Stays in the Picture - Muscular men get more sex. I.e. they are more attactive to females. Therefore nature should favour muscular men, and scrawny men would vanish over the course of time. Right? not so right. find out why.

Real Struggle in Iran - What really went down, a fresh perspective. And why most of the big media and twitter warriors would consider hari kiri, if conjecture were a crime to be ashamed of, and if they were Japanese. Thanks to Aufidius for the heads up.

Karl Marx, The Future Results of British Rule in India - Marx's predictions of the outcomes of British rule in India. Well worth a read..Thanks to Brad De Long for the pointer.

Economix - Aaaargh-onomics - The economics of Pirates, nuff said.

Fortune, Dumbest Moments in Business, mid-year edition - And Its still just the middle of the year...

Here are some really great stories that i thought i'd share.

Inflation, a double edged sword? - The Mises Economics Blog explores the inflationary implications of the US's trillion dollar bailout of the banks. It talks of how although pushing the inflation button and increasing the money supply is easy to do, the hard part is reigning it back in. Although its presumtion that contrationary monetary policy after a 'recovery' 'would also reduce bank reserves, reduce credit availability and loans, and increase interest rates' is true, this does not have quite the ominous ring to it as is hoped by the writer. Once the economy is 'recovered' such a reigning in may be necessary to curb inflation and may be the only option available and may not be all that destructive. Their call back to the Gold standard at the end of it though, seems hardly viable. But a great read nonetheless.

Googlenomics - Ever wondered how google manages to make so much of money while giving away most of their products for free? Ads right? Ever wonder how their system of advertising actually works? Its an economy unto itself thats what it is. Google initialy went the traditional way by having salesmen solicit advertising but then they discovered Adwords (toted by some as the greatest business discovery ever). Adwords uses auction theory to have a cost efficient way of selling advertising to bidders. But theres way more to it than this. Google employs a Chief Economist and also has Macro and Micro elements to its operation. This article is a brilliant read. Thanks to Brad De Long for the pointer.

A good time to die - The Adam Smith Institute Blog. The Us has what they call an estate tax where they have this massiv tax imposed on estates over a certain value when the ownder dies. The estate tax has been largely reduced through Bush pressure and is set to come to zero by 2010. But will return in full force (fifty percent) by 2011. This read explores the possibility of more rich people dying in 2010. Its even a bit morbidly funny. If you'll forgive my insensitivity.

China, The US State Department - This account of China is not exactly some obscure study of sensational interest but gives you everything you need to know about the more recent (special emphasis on the last century) Socio-political and economic activity of what will probably become the the worlds biggest economy in ten years. Interesting learning point for me was the Taiwanese political connection and its origins.