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VC Investment: Then and Now

by ATinNM Sat Apr 27th, 2013 at 02:43:33 PM EST

Been shown fifty ways from Sunday, one of the necessaries for a vibrant economy is the creation of new businesses.  Venture Capital and Angel investors have become the primary way new business ventures are funded.  

I was watching a YouTube talk last night on the early history of Silicon Valley and the lecturer mentioned in passing the top investment for a start-up in the Valley in 1955 was $300,000.

Which piqued my interest and I decided to delve into it a wee bit using wage rates and VC investment as the analytical tool.  (Without a great deal of thought, granted.)

Notice: all data is from US sources.

Read more... (5 comments, 604 words in story)

Boston Marathon Picture

by ATinNM Sat Apr 20th, 2013 at 03:08:48 PM EST

The cover of Sport's Illustrated has this:

image on the front cover.

I got interested and dug a little deeper.

Read more... (10 comments, 329 words in story)

LQD: We Aren't the World

by ATinNM Sat Mar 23rd, 2013 at 03:50:06 PM EST

We Aren’t the World.

Joe Henrich and his colleagues are shaking the foundations of psychology and economics--and hoping to change the way social scientists think about human behavior and culture.

Read more... (10 comments, 127 words in story)

LQD: Social Media Changing Business Organization

by ATinNM Tue Jan 29th, 2013 at 12:19:36 PM EST

Here's an interesting article from Gartner:

Gartner Says Capitalism Going Social Will Require Organizations to Build Two-Way Relationships with the "99 Percent":

While capitalism won't collapse, there are fundamental changes under way as it morphs to a new form that is more in tune with the technology and attitudes of the 21st century," said Nigel Rayner, research vice president at Gartner. "The coming capitalist era is that of the Facebook generation, in which the values and behaviors that pervade the Internet and social media will also be adopted by innovative and disruptive businesses. With half the world's population under the age of 25, this may happen sooner than many think.

These changes won't impact all industries and businesses in the same way. Some will use them to create incremental business opportunities, but others may find their business model directly threatened, because they are seen by the 99 percent as the worst cases of exploitative business practices," said Mr. Rayner. "However, some innovative organizations will use capitalism going social to create new business models and disrupt their industries."

Comments >> (6 comments)

Made For Each Other

by ATinNM Sat Jun 23rd, 2012 at 04:09:35 AM EST

A friend brought this to my attention:  Made For Each Other: The Conservative Love Affair with Communism and How It Is Destroying Us by a Canadian blogger Phil Paine.

Usually a LQD includes a 'teaser-quote' to induce people, like a movie trailer, to go read it.  I'm not going to add one.  The constituent parts of the article need to be read in context and with the flow of thought.

front-paged by afew

Comments >> (83 comments)

LQD - Locking down an American workforce

by ATinNM Sat Apr 28th, 2012 at 03:16:00 PM EST

Locking down an American workforce

Sweatshop labor is back with a vengeance. It can be found across broad stretches of the American economy and around the world. Penitentiaries have become a niche market for such work. The privatization of prisons in recent years has meant the creation of a small army of workers too coerced and right-less to complain.

Prisoners, whose ranks increasingly consist of those for whom the legitimate economy has found no use, now make up a virtual brigade within the reserve army of the unemployed whose ranks have ballooned along with the U.S. incarceration rate. The Corrections Corporation of America and GEO, two prison privatizers, along with a third smaller operator, G4S (formerly Wackenhut), sell inmate labor at subminimum wages to Fortune 500 corporations like Chevron, Bank of America, AT&T, and IBM.

Read more... (15 comments, 148 words in story)

Super Tuesday

by ATinNM Tue Mar 6th, 2012 at 02:39:02 AM EST

It's the biggie.

328 pledged delegates are up for grabs and a total of 153 unpledged delegates (66 in Ohio alone) will be selected.  

The overall situation has shifted slightly to Romney with Gallup giving national support at:

Romney 38
Santorum 22
Gingrich 15
Paul 12

Romney has clawed back to match his previous high.  Such as it is.

But Romeny still has the largest plurality of support and the Not-Romney vote is split between Santorum and Gingrich.  

Read more... (96 comments, 545 words in story)

Iowa Caucus Attractor

by ATinNM Tue Jan 3rd, 2012 at 01:00:06 PM EST

To keep the GOP Iowa Caucus discussion in one place.

Read more... (72 comments, 274 words in story)

Where We Is: Austerity Edition

by ATinNM Tue Sep 20th, 2011 at 12:26:50 PM EST

As clear as I can make it.

The world is in a classic Positive Feedback Loop in the Negative Direction causing cascade failure across the global economy.   Increasing a causal factor comprising the Feedback Loop will only drive the economy further in the Negative Direction.

So says Theory.

Read more... (27 comments, 312 words in story)

LQD - "Black Thursday"

by ATinNM Fri Aug 5th, 2011 at 03:11:26 PM EST

Credit for the find goes to ceebs!  

Black Thursday.

Teaser Quote:

As I write, it is four in the morning and I am watching the Asian stock markets falling. Yesterday both the FTSE100 and the Dow Jones crashed, and further falls are expected today. No-one seems to have any real idea why stock markets are collapsing around the world. But on one thing everyone is agreed - we have a worldwide financial crisis.

Another sign a devastating systematic critique of Neo-Classical Economics, and policies based thereon, is forming.

Comments >> (50 comments)

Preparing for Depression

by ATinNM Thu Aug 4th, 2011 at 07:14:52 AM EST

A comment I decided to turn into a diary.

Spent some time looking at the probable course of events over the next ten years.  Keep coming back to the same barrier: cannot predict how the politicians are going to respond.  So far they've been doing all the wrong things, for all the wrong reasons; throwing their lot in with the banksters¹ against their citizens or subjects.  If that continues, and there's no evidence they won't, things are going to get grim.  How grim depends on how long and strong the politicians support the banksters.  

Isn't that a nice little feedback loop?

front-paged by afew

Read more... (199 comments, 838 words in story)

Lazy YouTube Diary

by ATinNM Mon Jul 11th, 2011 at 11:12:07 AM EST

(h/t to Progressive Liberal)

Read more... (2 comments, 41 words in story)

Libya

by ATinNM Thu Mar 17th, 2011 at 07:20:37 PM EST

I imagine things are going to heat-up in Libya so ...

A place to talk.

Read more... (322 comments, 16 words in story)

Civil War in Libya?

by ATinNM Sat Feb 19th, 2011 at 12:42:20 PM EST

Need a diary to keep up with situation in Libya.

Basis is a comment I wrote in today's Salon.

Read more... (234 comments, 213 words in story)

LQD - 5 Lessons

by ATinNM Mon Feb 14th, 2011 at 01:53:20 PM EST

Short and powerful:

5 Lessons Brands Can Learn from Hosni Mubarak:


  1. Social media is fueled by real people with real concerns.  

  2. You cannot turn off the conversation.

  3. Social media isn't a technology.  

  4. Your target market doesn't live in a vacuum.  

  5. The pace of change has changed.

At the link there are brief expositions of these five points.

Read more... (21 comments, 72 words in story)

Not So Lazy YouTube Diary

by ATinNM Sun Jan 16th, 2011 at 03:50:23 PM EST

Take your shoes off, relax, grab your favorite beverage of choice.

This is going to take two hours.

Read more... (37 comments, 147 words in story)

LQD - FAO Food Situation Graphs

by ATinNM Wed Jan 12th, 2011 at 05:16:00 PM EST

Food Price Indexes Report dated January, 2011

Read more... (13 comments, 10 words in story)

US Mid Term Election - Aftermath

by ATinNM Thu Nov 4th, 2010 at 02:54:56 PM EST

41.5% of the US electorate have spoken and the Democratic Party went down to a historic defeat.

E.J. Dionne sums up:

Voters under 30 dropped from 18 percent of the electorate to 11 percent; African Americans from 13 percent to 10 percent, and Hispanics from 9 percent to 8 percent. Meanwhile, voters over 65, the one age category carried by John McCain, increased from 16 percent of the electorate to 23 percent.

If the numbers for the 2010 Mid Term had held in '08 we'd be talking about President McCain.

Read more... (151 comments, 380 words in story)

US Mid Term Election

by ATinNM Tue Nov 2nd, 2010 at 12:04:36 PM EST

Election Day in the USA.

Professor George McDonald at George Mason University has his 2010 Turnout Rate and Early Voting Rate Forecasts.  Ed Gilgore perused the numbers and observed

69% of Republicans respond affirmatively. This comports with the general sense that Republicans are getting ready to joyfully snake dance to the polls in November to get rid of the socialist usurpers in Washington and restore the natural order of things. But as Nate Silver has pointed out, the same survey shows 57% of Democrats expressing unusual enthusiasm as well--a higher percentage than ever registered before a midterm by voters in either party, until now.

This election is predicted to have a ~43% turn-out with ~90 million Americans voting.  A horrible percentage but that is the way it goes.

What does it mean?

Read more... (303 comments, 1334 words in story)

LQD - The Creative Economy

by ATinNM Tue Jul 27th, 2010 at 09:00:16 PM EST

The Reykjavik Grapevine has a good article on the Creative Economy (the link will take you there.)

Read more... (26 comments, 434 words in story)
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News and Views

 20 May 2013

by afew - May 19, 54 comments

Your take on today's news media

 18-19 May 2013

by DoDo - May 17, 57 comments

Your take on today's news media

 Monday Open Thread

by afew - May 20, 5 comments

Here's a new one

 Weekend Open Thread

by afew - May 18, 37 comments

The thread for the weekend is open

Occasional Series
Click for full list

 The Curious Case of Crafty Keg

by Helen - May 20,

The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) is one of the most successful consumer organisations in the world.

 A Plague of Citrus Flavours

by Helen - Apr 18, 23 comments

Beer, like so many other consumer products, suffers from fashions. Somebody establishes a new idea that proves popular and then, before you know it, everybody is doing it, trying to cash in.