Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Stuff I Have Found Interesting Today

Is the Stock Market an "Efficient" Market?
Long but very informative of how/why bubbles exist. Some gems "...Federal Reserve should have lanced the housing bubble no later than 2006..." and ended with "Even if the Federal Reserve could not have spotted the housing or credit or stock market bubbles before they burst, it knew or should have known that these booms could be bubbles and that if so they would burst and when they burst they could bring down the economy. This made the expected cost of the booms high, even though that cost could not be quantified...high enough to justify intervention, or, at the very least, the formulation of contingency plans to deal with worst-case scenarios." We don't need more regulation/government but we need action by the organizations we already have.
 
Let’s Avoid Other New Deal Policy Blunders
Good read on the past, present and future of Government spending in the name of recovery. Some gems:
  • "Based on budget deficits as a share of G.D.P., Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush were the most Keynesian presidents with budget deficits exceeding 4 percent of G.D.P. in seven out of their 12 years in office."
  • "The largest Bush deficit was 3.2 percent of G.D.P. in 2008. ...President Obama and the Democratic Congress agreed on a fiscal stimulus package of nearly $800 billion in mid-February. This appears to be a true Keynesian push. ...budget deficit of nearly 10 percent of G.D.P. for 2009."
 
A good post with this gem at the top "...one of our Kaizen experts asked me, “I’m in favor of a clean fulfillment center, but why are you cleaning? Why don’t you eliminate the source of dirt?” I felt like the Karate Kid."
 
Good story that I have experienced..this was preaching to my choir!

 

REST – Good, Bad and Ugly
Best one pager on REST that I have read.
 
A good story on defect prevention and root cause analysis.
 
We have a Knol for Dummies.com winner!

The winner"How to Talk to Your Doctor" is good advice.

  
The guy goes through his design of a new website blow by blow over 4 days. I see some flaws, but I think it is a good design. You can see the final version @ http://stackoverflow.carsonified.com/.

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