Blog

Last week it only took about four hours to send US iPhone users on an emotional roller coaster from which they may never recover.  Early Friday morning, BGR (among others) reported that Google’s turn-by-turn navigation system – which is currently only available to Android users – would come to other platforms, including the iPhone.  The report was based on an article from UK site MacUser which stated that “Google confirmed at a London press conference that it plans to bring free satnav to other smartphone platforms, including the iPhone, although it wouldn’t say when.”

Later in the afternoon, however, a different story was being told.  According to BGR (who later posted a follow up story), in an article from PCWorld, a Google spokesperson makes it quite clear that iPhone users should not expect to see Google Navigation any time soon.  The spokesperson clarified, “We did not say we would bring it to iPhone, we said to date we’ve had it on Android and that in the future it may come to other platforms but did not confirm this will be coming to iPhone at all.”

This was likely disappointing news for iPhone users.  However, Google did point out an interesting feature that their navigation app will have which was previously unknown.  According to PCWorld, while using Google Navigation, you won’t need to use as much data as you may think.  The app uses the data connection to calculate your directions, but saves and uses that route unless you take an unexpected turn, at which point the connection is re-initiated in order to reroute.  This is good to know considering in the coming months/years all-you-can-eat data plans may become a thing of the past.

Right now Google Navigation is only available to Android users, any readers have alternative phone-based navigation systems (paid or free) they’d recommend?  Please leave your nav-of-choice in the comments!

Via BGR, PCWorld, MacUser

ArtInfo (Interview by Anthony Haden-Guest)

According to Hawass, who worked with National Geographic to engineer both displays, the twin Tuts have already pulled in a hundred million dollars — much of which is destined for the construction of a new Tut museum in Cairo. I met with Hawass in the darkened Times Square venue to talk about the exhibition, the scientific discoveries since the Met appearance, and his spectacle-seeking brand of Egyptology.

Egyptology News Blog, Andie Byrnes

Unless you’re a big publisher, you probably haven’t heard of YouTube Direct, a tool which enables websites to embed YouTube upload functionality. But you might have spotted it in the wild, in places like The Huffington Post, The Washington Post and so on. The platform is now getting a major revamp and a bunch of new features.

read more)

This is a guest post by Ian Bailey, Managing Partner of Capital C Partners, a strategic communications firm.

What do mattress maker Sealy Corp., discount retailer Dollar General and consumer guides publisher PRIMEDIA all have in common? They’re all private equity-owned and have adopted new, environmentally sound business practices delivering millions of dollars in annual savings.

Given the turbulent ride the financial services sector has endured over the past few years it seems counter-intuitive that anyone in the sector would be devoting special attention to environmental matters. The private equity industry has been beset with multiple issues, including constrained access to capital, overleveraged portfolio companies, a paucity of public market exits, the tax treatment of carried interest under scrutiny and growing calls by LPs for greater transparency. So it would seem the industry is a particularly unlikely candidate for embracing new thinking on environmental matters. However, that’s precisely what has happened.

When we here at Capital C Partners first started working with Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) on its Green Returns program over six months ago, we reached out to a cross section of our contacts in the PE world to get a sanity check on just how receptive investment professionals might be to the concept that environmental measurement and management practices could deliver tangible bottom line value. The feedback was consistently equal parts of interest, skepticism, a need to see supporting data and ‘this just isn’t a priority when I’m worrying about potential covenant breaches…’ The final kicker from several of our PE friends was ‘my institutional investors really don’t care about this stuff, whatever they publicly say – it’s all about the returns.’

Fast forward to today: Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR) and The Carlyle Group (Carlyle), the world’s two largest private equity firms by assets under management, now both have dedicated programs specifically designed to ensure that environmental best practices are hard-wired into their processes. KKR’s Green Portfolio investment management program now extends across 20 percent of its global portfolio and Carlyle’s EcoValuScreen due diligence tool will be applied to all new investments in its U.S. and European buyout funds.

EDF is now in conversation with many of the world’s leading PE firms about Green Returns and the conversations have moved from “why should I do this” to “how do I do this?”

This change has not happened overnight, and there’s undoubtedly still much to be done. But private equity leaders such as KKR and Carlyle, through their collaborations with EDF, are providing the pathway and proof that many in the industry needed to see in order to take that first important step towards incorporating environmental management practices into their business processes and those of their portfolio companies.

This video from The Deal.com – featuring conversations with EDF, Carlyle, KKR and Sealy – makes it clear that Green Returns now has all the hallmarks of an emerging industry trend – one with the potential to live up to EDF’s ambition that it become a new best practice for the entire private equity industry.

For more information about EDF’s Green Returns initiatives, look for them at the Private Equity Insight Forum 2010 in London in May and SuperReturn US in Boston in June, or contact Tom Murray, managing director of corporate partnerships at EDF.

This content is cross-posted on Greenbiz.com

The latest entry to the Wisconsin senate race asked us to meet him Sunday at a neighborhood bar called Spanky’s in a blue collar section of Kenosha (near the Illinois border).

The tavern is owned by a friend of Dick Leinenkugel. This morning, Leinenkugel will announce what’s been rumored for weeks, that the former Wisconsin Commerce Secretary for Democratic Governor Jim Doyle will enter the Republican primary for the US Senate seat held for the last 17-years by Russ Feingold.

Leinenkugel is well-known statewide largely because of the family business…beer. Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Company out of Chippewa Falls may not be as big as Milwaukee brewing behemoth Miller-Coors…but it’s a popular line of beers. Dick Leinenkugel left the company when he joined the Doyle administration in 2007.

When Leinenkugel officially joins the GOP contest…he will enter a race where two candidates have been at work for months getting ready for the September primary. They are Terrence Wall, a real estate entreprenuer  from Madison and Dave Westlake, a West Point grad and Army vet turned small businessman from Watertown.

Just last week, former Governor Tommy Thompson said no to a bid for the Senate seat even though polls suggested a Feingold-Thompson race was a deadheat. So…why did Leinenkugel decide to jump into the Senate battle?

That’s the question we started with when we sat down at Spanky’s for Leinenkugel’s first campaign interview. The bar was busy and a Brewers/Cubs game was on…so there were some interruptions. And yes, “Leinies” were in the hands of more than a few patrons.

(Click on the attached video to see and hear the Leinenkugel interview.)

Bryn Mawr Classical Review (Reviewed by Sara Saba)

Andrew Erskine is not new to the task of editing a Companion,1 but the aims of the volume under review are somewhat different from those of his earlier achievement. In this preface, he states that this work “aims to provide a series of accessible introductions to key topics in the study of Ancient History …”, which it certainly accomplishes, while its second purpose, namely to “reflect the vitality and the excitement of scholarship at the front line” is only partially fulfilled.

The volume is arranged into eight thematic sections to which 49 authors contributed. These are for the most part well-known scholars who can write comfortably about both the Greek and Roman aspects of specific themes, which is indeed no easy task. Examples are E. Meyer with her introductory but rock solid chapter on law or Lisa Nevett on housing, although her pages read as if they had been too often revised. Other specialists in more technical fields, in particular Walter Scheidel on demography, contribute by sharing their unmatched expertise.

Forewords by five international scholars precede these sections and among them figures that of the late Peter Derow, one of the dedicatees of the volume, together with George Forrest. The editor asked them to offer their personal perspectives on ancient history, in other words to answer the question that we have all been asked at some point: why it matters.

Egyptology News Blog, Andie Byrnes

Pampers new brand of Dry Max diapers causes rashes, burns, sores, and boils on their babies, some parents are alleging in a growing online backlash. But is it really Dry Max, or just typical diaper rash that the parents are incorrectly correlating with the new diaper?

One parent posts, “We were using Pampers diapers with the dry max and at 2 weeks old she developed a diaper rash that turned into horrible open sores.”

Another, “my 2.5 year old experienced an inflamed reddness on his legs, bottom and genitals. I couldn’t explain where it came from. I doused him with desitin for two days and it bled instead of clearing up. It didn’t hit me til I read a post on facebook. Now I will switch him to another diaper.”

And another, “I was in the store the other day and didnt pay any attention and picked up a box of Pampers just thinking they changed the packaging. My youngest will be 2 next week and has NEVER had a diaper rash. Night before last he woke up with a leaking diaper (no surprise, we go thru it every night) and when I went to change him, his bottom was blistered and bleeding.”

To fix the rashes, parents say they have had success with using frequent rinsing, oatmeal baths, and Aveeno.

Reached for comment, P&G said:

At Pampers, nothing is more important to us than the health and well being of babies. That’s been our reason for being for over 40 years.

Whenever we make an improvement to our diaper – whether it was the introduction of adhesive tape followed by stretch many years ago up to the new Dry Max technology today – our overriding concern is that the product is safe. We have an entire division that is devoted to product safety, and we conducted extensive safety assessments including clinical tests before we introduced our new diaper.

Pampers with Dry Max is the most mom- and baby-tested diapers in our history. More than 20,000 babies from around the world involving more than 300,000 diaper changes were part of the development of Dry Max. This is one of Pampers’ most thoroughly researched and tested new products ever.

According to Dr. David Schonfeld, a member of the Pampers Parenting Network and Thelma and Jack Rubinstein Professor of Pediatrics, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, “I’ve reviewed the consumer and clinical data and feel comfortable that Pampers with Dry Max underwent rigorous safety testing and is a safe product. As a pediatrician, this is exactly the kind of testing I would hope to see in a diaper. Diaper rashes are usually caused by irritation from feces and urine – it’s called a diaper rash because it appears in the area that diapers are worn. Although a good diaper helps to protect the baby’s sensitive skin, some diaper rashes are still going to occur no matter how good the diaper is. The testing that Pampers conducted before the diapers were sold and the monitoring of complaints since it has been on the market do not show any evidence that Dry Max causes more diaper rashes than the product it replaced.”

Diaper rash is one of the most common ailments affecting babies and toddlers with many causes and symptoms of varying severity. In general, a healthy baby is expected to get a diaper rash roughly 3-4 times a year with some percent deemed severe – meaning the rash is deep red, with possible blisters and/or breaks in the skin. Some of these rashes can have appearance characteristics typically associated with burns. When you consider that there are about 10,000,000 babies in diapers in the US alone combined with the frequency of the rash, it makes sense that as hundreds of thousands of parents switch to Dry Max diapers, some many have children that coincidentally develop diaper rashes at the same time.

As background, our Dry Max diaper uses the same type of ingredients as our other diaper and in fact, many other disposable diapers on the market. The improvement is in the design and manufacture of the diaper, which allowed us to create a diaper that is 20% thinner than before and is our driest diaper ever as it helps lock in wetness.

Moms are voting for Pampers with Dry Max in a big way with their purchases. Millions of bags of Pampers Swaddlers and Cruisers have been purchased in the last several weeks alone. We’re also proud that Pampers Cruisers with Dry Max has received product awards from Parenting Magazine, iParenting Media, Mom’s Choice Awards and Parent Tested/Parent Approved.

And in a recent survey of parents requesting samples of Pampers with Dry Max, 70% preferred our new diaper over their usual brand – the highest score of this kind we’ve seen. This is consistent with the overall positive feedback we’re seeing from parents.

Still, we know that every product change can be a source of stress for some parents who have grown to love their current products and don’t always understand why we made a change. We are always concerned to hear from any parent who has a bad experience with our diapers and take reports of rash or skin health concerns seriously. Babies’ well-being has always been and continues to be our top priority.

Pampers also addresses the concerns in an FAQ on their website. They encourage anyone with questions or concerns to call1-800-PAMPERS. Commenters say that got refunds from the company after calling up and making complaints.

Pampers bring back the OLD CRUISERS/SWADDLERS [Facebook]
Pampers Swaddlers & Cruisers with Dry Max FAQs [Pampers]
Pampers Dry Max causing rashes and burns, parents allege [WalletPop] (Thanks to Sierra!)

Interestingly enough, I did some 1080P PC gaming last weekend for the first time in a while, and all I could think was, this would look so much better on my 50-inch plasma than this 24-inch monitor. [xkcd] More »

The actual cleavage that causes earthquakes.

If you are a geek, a skeptic, or a man, then you’ve probably heard that today is Boobquake: a day for women around the world to show off their cleavage in an attempt to debunk a fundamentalist Iranian cleric who blames natural seismic events on women dressing immodestly.

In other words, all that shaking and jiggling in the ground is caused by… well, I don’t need to belabor the point.

To be clear, I happily endorse both of these things (the cleavage and the debunking). But I do have one niggling doubt. Bear with me here…

First, last week an Islamic cleric in Iran said that all the earthquakes occurring in that country are caused by women dressing “immodestly”. Yes, this same screwed-up thinking that brought us the Taliban and the idea that burning, throwing acid upon, and beheading women is all their own fault for being, y’know, women, gives us this:

“Many women who do not dress modestly … lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes… What can we do to avoid being buried under the rubble?” Sedighi [the cleric] asked during a prayer sermon Friday. “There is no other solution but to take refuge in religion and to adapt our lives to Islam’s moral codes.”

I got news for you, Sedighi: if I were God, I’d be throwing more earthquakes your way for the way you treat women. In fact, I’d send a few thousand mini ones that open the Earth and just swallow up the twinkie clerics who say such profoundly horrid things.

Serious note: I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating: not all cultures are created equal. Any culture that sweepingly and maniacally oppresses half their population is what I would call evil. Moral relativism be damned: that kind of crap is wrong, plain and simple.

Now, the response on the skeptical and science blogs was pretty good; mockery, for the most part, which is what this kind of insanity deserves (Maria at Skepchick, for example, took this opportunity to debunk myths about breasts). But Blag Hag, a female blogger, came up with an interesting idea: Boobquake. The idea is for women around the world to show off their assets today, Monday, April 26, in an attempt to debunk the cleric. When there is no earthquake today, it will show the cleric for what he is: a sexist jerk^* mired in an ancient and ridiculous mode of thinking.

I like the idea of Boobquake for many reasons. It’s an excellent display of physical mockery, which is a great way to raise awareness. It also resonates in American culture because we have so many people who are so twisted up about such things morally; I support poking them in the eye with this kind of thing as well. Also, I’m unapologetically a heterosexual man, so c’mon.

But I have a major reservation with this idea as well, and it has to do with the number of earthquakes around the world. Here is a table from the USGS giving the number of earthquakes per year listed by magnitude:

As you’d expect, there are very few huge quakes, and a lot of little ones. We expect to rack up maybe one quake more powerful than magnitude 8 in a year, but on average we get one in the magnitude 6 – 6.9 range every couple of days somewhere in the world, and one in the 5 – 5.9 range something like three to five times every day. That’s every few hours!

And there’s the weakness in the Boobquake plan. The idea of Boobquake is to debunk the cleric by saying that women can reveal their boobs and not start a seismic event (ignoring perhaps the tremors caused by geek guys habitually running to their computers every few minutes and checking for updates). But without defining the time period, the earthquake size, and the region in advance, this can actually reinforce the cleric’s claims! Given the huge tracts of land involved, no matter when women of the world unveil their decolletage, there is bound to be a magnitude 5 quake within an hour or so of the event, and a mag 6 quake within a day.

We also know that supernatural thinking makes people see correlations where none exist, and to also retroactively assign credit after an event to something that happened before it. They cling desperately to such measures like a drowning man to a life preserver. And when the parameters (like time and size) aren’t defined in advance, that makes uncritical thinking easier. If there is even a modest earthquake today, then that cleric can declare victory. If there’s a big quake, then it’s more like sending that drowning man a motorboat!

Still and all, this is perhaps a minor complaint given the positive nature of the cause itself. I really like the idea of web-based activism, especially when it comes to rallying a lot of people to make a clear statement… and in this case, the more people who see that cleric for the fool he is, the better.

So I stand with my XX-oriented friends against the neolithic thinking of gender-oppressing religions. As Ben Franklin would say were he here today:

We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang lifted and separated.

British bookies Paddy Power has announced that they’re opening their books to include individual videogame tournaments. First up, a Super Street Fighter IV match between Ryan Hart and Femi Adeboye.

Charles Smith of Fort Pitt Capital Group points out that an enormous number of Americans are no longer paying for the properties they live in:

Seeking Alpha:

The above table from the FDIC and Foresight Analytics reveals the steady climb in the number of people living in their homes but not paying for them. The data, which go back 9 quarters (and include an estimate for the first quarter of 2010), show that 14% of the approximately 52 million residential mortgages outstanding in the U.S. were delinquent in the first quarter. This amounts to 7.3 million mortgages. Only 5.5% were on nonaccrual status, however. This amounts to 2.9 million mortgages.

…

Assuming that all loans on nonaccrual status represent vacant properties, it means at least 4.4 million (7.3 – 2.9 = 4.4) are occupied by people who are not paying for them, for whatever reason. This number has increased by 3 million since the end of 2007.

Mr. Smith equates this group with ‘squatters’ and believes their number has yet to peak. Most of these households are probably experiencing extreme financial duress. So it’s not as if most of these people are exactly cruising even if they don’t need to pay for their living space (though of course, there are likely to be a few gaming the system).

What we’d like to add is that 4.4 million households means that more than 4.4 million Americans might actually be in this situation, given that the average household has more than one person. So we think it’s fair to imagine that at least 4.4 million Americans are ‘squatters’ right now.

Join the conversation about this story »

By numerous accounts, this spring has been the most brutal in years for seasonal allergy sufferers. (Do I see some nodding heads out there?) As much as everyone looks forward to spring, some folks grit their teeth for several weeks or live on a steady dose of allergy pills. I always get questions this time of year from folks who are looking for ways to get through spring a little happier and maybe less medicated. Here’s one such email from reader Joyce….

Dear Mark,

I’m from the Upper Midwest where spring came early this year. No complaining about that, mind you – we earn our warm season! I’ve always had problems in spring, but this year I’ve been in really bad shape (like everybody what I hear). I’m relatively new to your site, and I’m slowly adopting elements of the Primal Blueprint. So far, it’s been going great! It’s got me thinking though about diet and whether what I eat/don’t eat can make any difference. What’s your take on this? I’d love any recommendations that could get me in the garden earlier!

Although the extent of people’s allergies (as well their sources) span a wide spectrum, anyone who spends whole months blowing through Kleenexes can likely benefit from a few adjustments – especially those new to the PB.

First, what to avoid… One of the best strategies to alleviate those miserable symptoms is to steer clear of alcohol and other histamine containing foods. As far as alcohol goes, wine (both red and white) seem to be the worst instigators. Sulfites are part of the issue with these drinks, but histamines that result during the fermentation process also wreak havoc. If you have allergy issues, consider avoiding other foods subject to aging and fermentation like aged cheese, pickles, and sauerkraut. And as for yeast, it’s one more reason to ditch bread. Grapes and ciders can be culprits as well.

Also, if you know the source of your particular allergy, you can further pinpoint foods that tend to trigger what’s called “oral allergy syndrome,” a reaction to allergen-related foods that affects primarily the lips and mouth. Check out the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia information on cross-reactive foods for those with seasonal allergies.

As for what to eat, think anti-inflammatory. It just so happens that the PB delivers just that. Research supports the particular benefits of fresh produce, fish and nuts for reducing both the symptoms of existing allergies as well as the development of allergies later in life. Research on the pregnancy and childhood diets of Spanish children found that a higher intake of certain vegetables (like tomatoes and eggplant) and fish offered protective benefit from allergies and asthma. Another study with Greek children linked high intake of nuts, fruits and vegetables with a lower risk for respiratory allergy. The EPA and DHA in fish and fish oils has been shown to be among the best preventative options for allergic disorders.

Want more? Tea, particularly green or white, offers a big flavonoid boost that reduces inflammation and supports general immune function. For raw dairy enthusiasts out there, farm milk consumption was shown to provide similar protective advantage against allergy and asthma whether or not the children drinking it lived on the farm or not.

Although antioxidants and flavonoids in general offer therapeutic benefit, certain nutrients like vitamin C and quercetin are potent natural antihistamines. An extra dose of magnesium can help alleviate wheezing symptoms. Some folks report success with spirulina as well. As for herbal remedies, butterbur shows good promise, but isn’t for women who are pregnant or nursing.

Another recommendation? Buy some wild – and local – honey. Because bees pick up the pollen of their environment, the resulting honey can offer something of a therapeutic dose for gradual desensitization – much like an allergy shot. It’s important to start small (1/4 teaspoon daily – max) and work your way up to gradually build tolerance.

Last, my own nearly debilitating seasonal allergies literally disappeared when I got rid of grains (and cut the chronic cardio). It may have been related to the autoimmune connection between anti-nutrients/leaky-gut and hypersensitivity to proteins in grass seeds and pollen (grains are grass seeds). Many MDA readers report a dramatic reduction in hay fever or allergy symptoms when cutting grains.

Good luck to Joyce and everyone else who’s laying low for another couple weeks. Let me know your thoughts, and do share any other anti-allergy strategies that have worked for you! As always, thanks for the great questions and comments, and keep ‘em coming. Have a great Monday everybody!

Get Free Health Tips, Recipes and Workouts Delivered to Your Inbox

Related posts:

1. Dear Mark: Omega-3s and Fish Allergies
2. Dear Mark: Flu Shots
3. Dear Mark: Gluten

Porsche 918 Spyder Concept

Porsche says that it has almost 900 potential buyers for its new 918 Spyder, a plug-in hybrid open-top supercar with a mid-mounted V8. Porsche will probably decide to build the model once 1,000 potential customers have pledged interest, Porsche’s development chief, Wolfgang Duerheimer, said in an interview at the 2010 Beijing Motor Show.

“I’m confident that we will soon reach the threshold of 1,000,” he said in an interview with Bloomberg. “We need 1,000 seriously interested people to make a sound business case.”

“We’re very optimistic that we’ll be able to further expand our leading position in the sports-car segment,” he said.

Click here for more news on the Porsche 918 Spyder Concept.

Refresher: Power for the Porsche 918 Spyder Concept comes from a 3.4L mid-mounted V8 making 500-hp. The engine is mated to two electric-motors sitting on the front and rear axle with an additional output of 218-hp. Power is driven to the wheels by Porsche’s 7-speed Doppelkupplungsgetriebe PDK transmission, allowing the 918 Spyder Concept to go from 0-62 mph in 3.2 seconds with a top speed of 198 mph. Drivers are allowed to choose from four different driving modes including E-Drive, Hybrid, Sport Hybrid and Race Hybrid. The E-Drive mode lets the 918 Spyder concept run on pure electricity with a range of 16 miles.

Porsche 918 Spyder Concept:

– By: Omar Rana

Source: Bloomberg

You see the pictures of tornado damage on TV, but it doesn’t do them
justice. Yazoo City was one of the areas hardest hit by the deadly
tornado that tore through the region Saturday. We were able to drive down one street with some of the worst damage. It is severe and extensive. House after house is missing a roof, windows or walls. Crunched cars are scattered along the road, lifted and moved several feet from where they were parked by their owners. Huge old trees are uprooted or snapped.
And it goes on like this. We turned around after about a mile.

We met Joe Martin just as he was coming back to his childhood home.
Martin wasn’t in the home at the time of the storm and was seeing the
damage for the first time. The home is a total loss. Martin’s father
has built it just after he returned from World War Two. Martin was ten
at the time and remembers helping him build the house. Martin’s mother
planted azaleas out front- all gone now from the storm. So are the
trees that stood there for decades. Martin says they won’t rebuild.
There’s no replacement for that house.

They say there are hundreds of people without homes today in
Mississippi. Take one look at one street in Yazoo City and it’s easy
to understand why.

There’s a great interview with the eccentric hedge fund manager Hugh Hendry of Eclectica Capital in Investment Week.

Here’s the short version of what he said:

On the China “bubble”: “China has not demonstrated an ability to create wealth. It has demonstrated an ability to create GDP growth, which is a function of spending money…Infrastructure projects and steel plants that are publicly commissioned…If you build a high-speed rail link and anticipate it improving the productivity of the economy over the next 10 years, but actually it does not, it means you will have to raise Government borrowing or tax the population to sustain the negative cashflow.” More on China from Hendry.

On what’s wrong with the investment world: “We have created a hunger just to make money, speculative money and damn the consequences almost – we are either all investing in houses or stocks, soon to be Chinese stocks with Anthony Bolton. But, it has also created a Pavlovian response where every crisis was an opportunity to buy more. I think time is receding, it is passing, it is leaving us behind. My difficulty is that I do not sell dreams. I live in the real world.”

On his investment strategy: “We are concerned about the world being profoundly deflationary and therefore are reluctant to take a lot of economic risk. So the businesses we select to buy today are large-cap names, so I can sell them and not be trapped in them. They are businesses that have a lack of economic sensitivity. I have a tremendous amount invested in the tobacco industry. I think it could survive a consumer depression.”

On inflation: It could reside in the future [especially if you ban short-selling]. “If you want to create inflation, what you will see is that we will have a ban on short selling. We will have a ban on naked credit default swaps.” Watch Hendry vigorously defend short selling.

The full interview is on Investment Week.

And for more from Hendry, read an article he penned in the Telegraph.

Join the conversation about this story »

Starbucks implements LED lighting conversion in stores.  …

We did this by reaching out to GE, who developed a highly energy-efficient LED bulb that complements Starbucks store design approach and fits existing fixtures.

Via Starbucks: Energy-efficient LED Lighting coming to a Starbucks near You

Lynne Kiesling

I was intrigued last week to read Bruce Yandle’s short piece in Regulation discussing Pigou and his ideas about taxation in the context of modern “Pigouvian” policy proposals. I recommend his essay highly; it communicates eloquently how Pigou’s ideas are currently being used as a justification for a variety of forms of taxation. Many of these tax proposals (bank taxes, gasoline taxes, salt taxes, sugary soda taxes) may be motivated by some political elite’s notion of what is “good for society”, but Yandle also makes clear that such proposals may instead be motivated by raising revenue.

Even more interestingly, Yandle does something that few current economists do — he reads Pigou’s original arguments. In them he finds something that I find intriguing (and although I have read large portions of Pigou’s original works, I was not aware of this):

As strange as it may seem, Pigou did not believe that government could improve human well being by fine-tuning behavior with taxes, subsidies, and regulation. His concern was grounded in what we today call Public Choice. He did not accept the notion that politicians, given constitutional constraints, would be capable of implementing an efficient and effective set of taxes and subsidies. Put simply, he did not believe the politicians could get the calculations right. Instead of making things better, the chances were just as good that things would be made worse. Instead of keeping faith with implementing a well-designed tax, the politicians’ interest would be deflected to writing loopholes for favored interest groups and finding ways to generate ever more revenue.

Yandle quotes Pigou from his seminal 1932 work The Economics of Welfare, Chapter XX, “Intervention By Public Authorities” (1932). Pigou’s discussion in this chapter is striking in how it presages modern public choice arguments, as Yandle indicates. Pigou is also making a clear argument for analyzing the performance of different institutions and what are the correct comparisons to make. Take, for example, this quote from p. 332, which immediately precedes the quote Yandle used in his essay:

[The case for government intervention] cannot become more than a prima facie one, until we have considered the qualifications, which governmental agencies may be expected to possess for intervening advantageously. It is not sufficient to contrast the imperfect adjustments of unfettered private enterprise with the best adjustment that economists in their studies can imagine.

Not only is Pigou making a public choice argument in this chapter; in this quote he is also making a point that Harold Demsetz would later term the “Nirvana fallacy” in “Information and Efficiency: Another Viewpoint” (1969). In the remainder of the chapter Pigou goes on to argue that early-20th-century improvements in voting access, in bureaucratic administration, and in communications technology made government interventions more appropriate in more situations than had been the case previously, with less voter engagement and a less productive bureaucracy. To do a true Demsetz-style non-Nirvana comparison, though, Pigou would have had to compare the effects of those changes on the productivity of markets and other institutions for private ordering, relative to their effects in public administration.

Still, I find this chapter of Pigou incredibly striking. It indicates Pigou’s willingness to admit, and to analyze, the effects of institutions on economic outcomes. Here he’s essentially saying that institutions matter, a position that his colleague John Maynard Keynes did not hold. Pigou’s argument is even more striking to me in light of my recent reading of Buchanan and Wagner’s Democracy in Deficit, which I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. Pigou’s analysis of government intervention seems to me to have more in common with Buchanan and Wagner’s argument, and their criticism of Keynes’ approach as institutionally sterile.

Pigou, Buchanan and Wagner, and the Yandle essay all give some substantial food for thought as we think through the range of very interventionist policy proposals being put forward right now. I also recommend Thom Lambert’s post at Truth on the Market about the Yandle essay, which is what prompted my musings here; he goes into more detail in discussing the Pigou-Coase comparisons.

Michael Arrington of TechCrunch has a post up, The Age Of Facebook. Facebook having superseded Google having superseded Microsoft. Unstated that Microsoft superseded IBM as a firm which defines an age through reach, power and influence. Two thoughts that come to mind:

1) It seems that each “age” has been shorter than the previous. IBM was computing for decades. Microsoft probably ten years or so depending on how you define it (I put the second derivate maximum at 1995). Google’s real ascent seems to date to around 2000, but its monopolistic plateau of the mindshare didn’t seem to last for very long as Facebook was already generating a lot of buzz by 2007 (the same principle operates across human history, the civilization of Pharaonic Egypt spanned 2,000 years, the same length as from Augustus to our own time!)

2) It also seems that the extent of a definite age of ascendancy for a particular firm is more muddled now, as creative destruction and innovation allow for many domains of excellence and supremacy, as well as the resurrection of bygone brands. Consider the revival of Apple’s fortunes. And if we are on the verge of the Age of Facebook does anyone believe that Google’s brand will collapse? Arrington notes that Microsoft is perceived to be passed its peak, but it has many years left of its cash cow products, perhaps at least another decade. IBM has reemerged as a software services company. And so on. On a relative scale Arrington’s argument seems to have some merit, but secure domination doesn’t seem to be what it used to be (also, one might need to distinguish between buzz and influence, and concrete metrics).