Will austerity make us happier?
Smiling all the way to the bank
Karl Rabeder is happy, he’s giving away his £3m fortune and plans to have nothing left. His conviction:
I had the feeling I was working as a slave for things that I did not wish for or need.
Is a growing meme, picked up by the novelist John Lanchester (and UK [...]
Saving capitalism from the capitalists
In a section in the profile of Nouriel Roubini I mentioned in my last post, he acknowledges other ‘whistleblowers‘, people or institutions that warned of financial crisis early on. It contains only two:Raghuram G. Rajan, then chief economist of the International Monetary Fund:
“Raghu Rajan gave a very strong speech in 2005,” [Roubini] says, about excessive [...]
Economists who know what they’re talking about
Every month I write a column for Moneywise Magazine called Join The Dots.
I pick somebody newsworthy and explain what their words or actions tell us about markets.
Next month I’m going to choose an economist who knows what he’s talking about, probably Nouriel Roubini (See this profile in this month’s Finance & Development, an IMF magazine.).
He’s [...]
Twitterrrr
Vaguely embarassing, I’ll skirt around the ‘twit’ jokes, but I’m on Twitter.
Here’s a sample of my, err… twits?
Software for value investors
This is a biased review. I love this software.
Let’s start this review at the beginning of my investing week, which, curiously, starts on Friday at about 5.30pm.
Sharescope
That’s when the day’s share prices are ready for download into Sharescope1, a program that helps with financial analysis, charting, and portfolio management. I probably use less than 1% [...]
Million Dollar Traders
I’d rather be an Apprentice
Did you see Million Dollar Traders? It’s the BBC’s share trading version of The Apprentice, which started last night on BBC 2 at 9.00pm, and continues for another two shows. It’s also on the rather brilliant iPlayer for the next twenty days.
Hedge fund manager Lex van Dam funds eight novices, including [...]
Who reads this blog?
Our audience is global, and that’s not all
On the premise that, if you’re interested in what you read here, you might be interested in what fellow readers are writing, here’s a rundown of the bloggers who’ve commented on my blogs.
I haven’t edited this list as I would neither insult a reader by not [...]
Banking crisis: Your questions answered
Many of our banks are to lose their independence, or some of it, investors are to lose their dividends, and the rest of us are going to find it rather more difficult to borrow for years to come. Even the bankers are resigning.
It’s hard to disagree with commentators that recent events are momentous, so what [...]
Last word on banking
Well, maybe for a while. I’m consulting the financial journalist’s bible - Michael Brett’s How to Read the Financial Pages - on banks and rights issues - as background research for a Moneywise column on Fred “the Shred” Goodwin, the RBS chief executive who recently asked shareholders for £12bn to improve the bank’s capital ratios.
This [...]
Fake boob scandal rocks iBall
Yes, those boobs were fake!
As regular readers know, when I’m not writing this blog, or editing the Interactive Investor mothership, or writing my Moneywise columns (or eating Swedish Meatball Wraps at Pret-a-Manger), I’m writing scripts for iBall.
It’s a lot of fun, though sadly with success comes money and ambition and the iBall team has moved [...]
