Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed

Citi’s Willem Buiter on Bloomberg TV today: Europe’s time is running out fast. [-]

Play along with the U.S. budget super-committee using this new Pew tool:

• So we've got that going for us: First Social Media ETF Goes Live http://t.co/RM6P6VoC #
• I've seen this on the I-5 near Encinitas: How a tram travelling at light speed gets distorted due to relativity http://t.co/VcIPQ2Hx #
• The nonsensical "government as household" budget metaphor, by Steven Landsburg in WSJ. He knows better. http://t.co/IHQUqwpq #
• Apple iPhone effect big enough to tweak latest U.S. retail sales data http://t.co/LaUJlKtc #
• Good analysis of Sony's design problems – http://t.co/dzxwMRaU #
• Good story: From paintball games to media entrepreneur, Hootsuite – http://t.co/fwSi0uFO /via @bholly #
• New @wnycradiolab: Patient zero — people and things that set events in motion. Good fun. http://t.co/B1AUQtzI #
• Where has this happened before … RT @globebusiness: Canadians putting homes at risk with lines of credit http://t.co/jeOls8G7 #
• [post] Buffett: Aged Companies ‘r’ Us http://t.co/cniYvzKN #
• Leaving for Spain, Portugal, and London tomorrow, so you lovely people are on your own for a spell. #
• Try not to break anything, etc. #
• Payments in "secret farm bill" would balloon if commodity prices fall. Good thing prices are low. Wait. http://t.co/BjIygTR6 #
• Microsoft shareholders grumble at annual meeting – http://t.co/k23bJS1W #
• Dell guiding tonight rev growth to "low end" of 1-5% range. Mortuaries more of a growth business than are PCs. #
• With his Paris weekend win, Roger Federer is on a twelve-match winning streak. Impressive for the old guy. #
• Oil approaches $100 a barrel http://t.co/eEW7rEU7 #
• Smil: The myth of the innovator hero – http://t.co/iIOwyFxA #
• Smil: Obama's indefensible pipeline punt /cc @GregorMacdonald #
• Somehow this Cloris Leachman moment came up in an email thread today – http://t.co/Ss24zkl2 #
• The angry comments at obvious idea that startups are over-funded are most telling thing about this post – http://t.co/QFOpZ1lm #
• While I'm on video clips that came up today, so did this classic one from Gumball Rally – http://t.co/dUESB9lh #
• Sat in Thai restaurant today at lunch with a friend using my Bloomberg terminal. That's really geeky, isn't it? Just realizing. #
• Kyle Bass is/was on BBC Hardtalk tonight talking Europeean debt. He was … being Kyle. http://t.co/tPcFpAYT #
• Today in strange non-Bloomberg headlines: Broker launches UK terror model – http://t.co/4SEZaUSy #
• Good analysis of winners and losers in the Keystone XL madness – http://t.co/fTl3g52x #
• QotD: The problem is the boring people online — they're incred diff to get rid of, because they're often really nice. http://t.co/bYMcJ53i #
• Good analysis: Saudi Oil Production Declining (Again) http://t.co/uP1n8ZuH #
• Geology meets architecture meets finance: Bedrock Depth and the Formation of the Manhattan Skyline, 1890-1915 – http://t.co/gcT6Xh9I #
• Today in copper prices: Would-be copper thief falls thru LA grocery market ceiling. Lands at cash register. http://t.co/lQBvFKEo #
• I can't decide which part of Gingrich's absurd, hypocritical and deranged Freddie Mac behavior I like most. http://t.co/1ViwMQRP #
• Bookstaber: Class Warfare and Revolution (Circa 1850) http://t.co/Hg5dEi4z #
• Entertainingly bizarre: Star Trek-TNG crew watches Star Wars IV on the viewscreen – http://t.co/xYbMnXZg #
• Ghost hotels: Booming China hotel market has translated into lowest occupancy rates in Asia – http://t.co/FkxNXHG3 #

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Post by me at Forbes on migration and regional flux in America.

• Bering Sea super storm photo set – http://t.co/BVksZuKX #
• RT @kevinkrim: A guide to Jack Dorsey's 80-hour workweek http://t.co/6mxgdrXr (very impressive, if it works…time will tell) #
• Alan Blinder argues against flat tax in WSJ. I'm assuming an editor will soon be sacked. http://t.co/e7Uc1Kkk #
• Sign #3759 that you were off the grid too much lately: Just realized that I haven't checked email in two days. #
• Fave moment from my Q&A with Sequoia's Valentine in Palm Desert last week: He asked for hands of people funded by Sequoia, & none went up. #
• Dear Twitter-sphere: What is the difference between an "iterative" and a "reiterative" process? #
• Trying to watch Roger McNamee's talk on the future of tech. I defy you to do it while seeing his hair. http://t.co/LfHqKDun #
• Unnerving data about young people's preferred employers, led by Google and Dept of State – http://t.co/i1j6JOlX #
• Here is that same student survey data on preferred employers, but from Europe – http://t.co/6YP5UOhf #
• From now I am going to call Roger McNamee the "Tech Whisperer". Why did he whisper his way through his TEDx talk? #
• I cannot read LOLR (lender of last resort) without Bored of the Rings flashbacks to Goodgulf Greyteeth, Frito Bugger, et al. #
• Tyler Cowen currently debating some cornuccopians – http://t.co/LkLphHLg #
• Google has most effective dot-com TV ads this year, while TheLadders and Go Daddy are least – http://t.co/Adlsr1GQ /cc @cenedella #
• What I like about Wells Fargo is its steadfast resistance to allowing me to move money between accounts. Righteous. #
• I love Wells Fargo even more now that I know it transfers money out to an ACH just so that it can transfer between internal accounts. #
• Breathtaking video of starling murmuration. http://t.co/AXTixkP9 #
• Lex in the FT over the weekend: "What a pity the world cannot always live in the aggregate." #
• IPOs should be easier, but this is flawed logic. http://t.co/p0njetVQ #
• 2010 renewable energy data book – http://t.co/oxFQpoId /cc @katiefehren #
• From a new paper, a list of abnormalities found in endurance athletes' ECGs – http://t.co/gHTZP4YB #
• Sad. RT @bryce: I knew Jamie from our time in the Snowbird tramline. great guy, terrible loss. http://t.co/Et3O9xqw (via @TetonGravity) #
• The Birth-Death-Mutation Process: A New Paradigm for Fat Tailed Distributions – http://t.co/TZ5WLjZv #
• Meant to mention it sooner, but @SteveCase was masterful on entrepreneurship last week at E&Y/Palm Desert. Direct, urgent, & compelling. #
• Latest (unhappy) OECD data on startup rates around the world – http://t.co/PaSMCZGk #
• BCA: Switch to "buy on weakness" from "sell on strength" – http://t.co/NR4GUIOy #
• RT @CMEGroup: Book review from @financialtimes — Currency Wars http://t.co/DYolRTlD $study #
• Why Italy needs to fix its labor markets (via JPM) – http://t.co/LJAije6T #
• The smart, funny George Bush guy who spoke in Palm Desert should run for president. Too bad he shares a name with Obama's predecessor. #
• That Buffett is buying IBM/Intel etc. makes me feel even better about my MSFT short. The sector is late-life value play. #
• Give me your tired, your … never-mind. RT @peHUB: Summify CEO: U.S. Immigration Issues Drove Us to Vancouver http://t.co/5EVDB6Fz #
• LazyTwitter: WHat's easiest programmatic way to get founding dates for an arbitrary list of companies? #
• Best predictor of stock being bought by Warren Buffett? Age: Only 3 of his 10 largest holdings founded in 20th(!) century. #
• RT @MarkThoma: "Congress is Indeed Subject to Insider Trading Laws" http://t.co/GtvEXDfl #
• Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: [to Inga from behind the bookcase] Put… the candle… back! #
• Hate cliched expression "low-hanging fruit". Btw, what is its opposite? Deeply-buried vegetables? #
• RT @EddyElfenbein: @pkedrosky Agreed. That cliche needs to be thrown under the bus. #
• Hung out on @BloombergTV this afternoon taiking Buffett, why shorting Groupon is costly, etc. #
• So, I bleat-tweeted here earlier about Wells Fargo, & some fine gentlemen from there just called. This Twitter thing could be big. #
• This is pure @timoreilly: Insightful, surprising, literate and positive. Birth of the global mind – http://t.co/W8sgJnTC #
• Incredible shot from photo set on Thailand's slow-moving floods – http://t.co/WD7Ui6kI #
• Spoke to Barry Silbert of SecondMarket on weekend. Intrigued by his idea that going public should be a dial, not a switch. #
• Wonder which startups' businesses Google smoked today with the Big Query announcement. http://t.co/aOBn9dU1 #
• Good FT piece on the dea(r)th of IPOs (other than part where it gets GOOG offering wrong) – http://t.co/k7x5MGbk #
• California’s tax revenue trailed projections in October for the fourth consecutive month http://t.co/1a559eRm #
• CA tax revs highly levered to stock option exercise, so rev gains ahead on LNKD (soon), Zynga etc later. Could shrink deficit quickly. #
• Cop1: Wouldn't hold out much hope for the tape deck though. Cop2: Or the Creedence. http://t.co/M51mbDVF #
• Comments like on this FT thread show why paywalls don't even slow idiots & trolls down – http://t.co/ue32KERw #
• The private and social costs of patent trolls – http://t.co/WpCsx7Rh /via @bfeld #
• New paper: Positive _and_ negative news about a company on CNBC makes its stock go up – http://t.co/n53VLNqu #
• Putting Alaskan super-storms in context: This one was bad, but not that bad – http://t.co/cZcTWm5G #

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I put this together yesterday to satisfy my curiosity: A list of the top dozen Berkshire Hathaway holdings by size, with their founding dates. Turns out one of the better predictors of being a core Warren Buffett holding is being founded in the 19th century. The only 20th century companies are in bold, and IBM took that count from two to three. [-]

Good new Radiolab episode on the communicability of everything.

Amusing new study shows that both positive and negative news about a company on CNBC makes its stock go up. Apparently all companies should want anymore is to have their tickers spelled right.

This paper examines investor reaction to stale information using a novel data set containing a time-stamped transcript of the financial news network CNBC. I measure changes in stock price and trading volume at the precise time that a company is mentioned on CNBC in the 24 hours following a corporate news event, and strong evidence that some investors react to stale news. There is a significant increase in stock price at the precise time that a company is mentioned on CNBC following a positive news event. Surprisingly, there is also a significant increase in stock price at the precise time that a company is mentioned on CNBC following a negative news event. This puzzle is not explained using observable differences between positive and negative news events or their subsequent mentions. Evidence using cross-sectional variation in the number of positive and negative words suggests that media attention can inate asset prices in the presence of short-sale constraints as investors with the most optimistic valuations are able to buy while those with the most pessimistic valuations are unable to sell short.

More here.

From Michael Cembalest at JPM, the task ahead in reforming European labor markets:

Latest OECD data on startup rates in some select countries. Unimpressive stuff.