Here's my Top 10 links from around the Internet at 10 to 8pm in association with NZ Mint.
I'm bringing back the cartoons. Quite rightly, one of our readers from Christchurch said he wanted the real thing, including light relief. Fair enough.
We must take our pleasure where we can find it. Dilbert returns. And the cartoons. And even The Daily Show. I welcome your additions in the comments below or via email to bernard.hickey@interest.co.nz .
1. Cheeky buggers - South Korea better be careful what it wishes for.
Reuters reports it has just started dropping leaflets onto North Korea detailing the riots in Egypt and Libya to the good people of North Korea who may not have been informed.
Does South Korea really want a civic meltdown/exodus/civil war on its border?
South Korea's military has been dropping leaflets into North Korea about democracy protests in Egypt and also sent food, medicines and radios for residents as part of a psychological campaign, a legislator said on Friday.
The campaign was aimed at encouraging North Koreans to think about change, conservative South Korean parliament member Song Young-sun said. The food and medicines were delivered in light-weight baskets tied to balloons with timers programed to release the items above the target areas in the impoverished North, Song said in a statement.
2. Lessons from Kobe - ScienceMediaCentre reports from an expert on the lessons from the Kobe earthquake in 1995 that Christchurch could learn.
A geographer and former urban planner who has written a book about the aftermath of the devastating 1995 Kobe earthquake in Japan, says New Zealand will likely need to respond with a national-scale multi-faceted project to assist Christchurch long-term, in the same way the Japanese Government did to revive Kobe.
That could involve the Government injecting money into business sector ventures and efforts to resurrect tourism, as well as subsidising the building of new housing and rebuilding infrastructure.
3. Some dumb fun - Here's some advice for investment bankers from former i-banker Ash Bennington at CNBC. Here's 25 guys to avoid on Wall St. And a selection of the worst:
Avoid the banker who never seems to close a deal but still manages to remain employed. He's got something ugly on somebody—and you don't want to be involved.
Avoid the guy who offers his clients 'a very special opportunity' to invest in anything. He has a problem with cocaine.
Avoid the guy who gets drunk and loves to brag about never losing in arbitration: He's going to get indicted. (Trust me on this one.)
4. Just like a company - Wall St analyst Mary Meeker has analysed the US government accounts as if it was a corporation.
I'm not sure this is useful, but people are talking about it in America.
5. Richer and older - Most of the gains in life expectancy in America have gone to the rich, stateofworkingamerica.org shows in this chart below.
6. This struck a nerve - Roosevelt Institute fellow Matt Stoller writes here at Naked Capitalism (run by a hedge fund trader) about why there aren't many strikes in America (or New Zealand for that matter) any more.
It all sounds a bit ideological. But I'm struggling to find arguments against it. Modern multinational capitalism and our system of free movements of capital have failed.
Something else has to be thought of.
What you’ll notice is that people in America just don’t strike anymore. Why? Well, their jobs have been shipped off to factory countries, their unions have been broken, and their salaries until recently have been supplemented by credit.
It’s part of a giant labor arbitrage game, that the Federal Reserve and elites in both parties are happy to play. Strike, and you’re fired. Don’t strike, and your pay is probably going to be cut.
Don’t like it? Sorry, we can open a plant abroad. And we have institutions, like the IMF, to make sure that we get goods from those factory-countries, and get them cheap. But it’s not cheaper, or better, or more efficient. Firing your teachers isn’t exactly “winning the future”. And outsourcing manufacturing, as Boeing found out, is often a good way to increase coordination costs, create more operational risk, and destroy value.
However, the system is good at maintaining the power of oligarch-style control of cultural institutions. If no one but the kids of rich people can read, only the kids of rich people will be able to organize society’s resources.
7. Something fundamental - Mark Thoma points out something fundamental about the US economy that many market-watchers forget. This chart shows the median duration of unemployment.
Yet there are no riots in America... I found the situation in America profoundly depressing when I visited.
There is a huge underclass that blames itself for its situation and an elite that blames the underclass too. It won't change in a hurry.
Not with 43 million on food stamps.
8. The great Firewall of China - Now the social network for professionals, LinkedIn, has been blocked in China after someone posted on it that Tunisia's Jasmine Revolution should spread to China, Bloomberg reported.
Since 2009, the world’s largest Internet market by users has shut out sites such as those operated by Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. that don’t comply with Chinese rules to self censor information on politically sensitive subjects.
A LinkedIn user identified as “Jasmine Z” last week set up a discussion group to post opinions on whether the revolutions that brought down the leaders of Tunisia and Egypt should be brought to China. “Often, this is done as a sort of a warning signal -- sort of a shot across the bow,” said Doug Tygar, professor of computer science at the University of California at Berkeley.
"A portion of that is symbolic.’’ The problems accessing the site are “likely” connected to the creation of the LinkedIn group, Tygar said. Chinese citizens can use Internet services to work around blocked sites, he said
9. 'Build me another 45 airports, and make it snappy' - China plans to build another 45 airports over the next 5 years, taking the total in the country to 220, FT reports.
Just imagine what that will do for demand for concrete and steel, which means iron ore and coal.
It does mean however that China remains addicted to investment in infrastructure rather than encouraging consumption, thus worsening the global trade and savings imbalances being baked in by a fixed exchange rate.
The imbalances show no signs of being righted.
Li Jiaxing, the head of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, said that the new investments would take the total number of airports in the country to 220, even though most of the existing airports were losing money.
Although demand for air travel has grown rapidly in recent years as the purchasing power of Chinese consumers has risen, the expansion in airport infrastructure, which accelerated during the stimulus programme over the past two years, has become one of a number of potential sources of over-investment across the economy.
Mr Li, who used to run Air China, the country's biggest airline before moving to the regulator, said that the government would invest Rmb1500bn ($228bn) in the aviation sector in the period to 2015, although he did not say how much of that would go to airports.
10. Totally relevant chart - Here's what has happened to US money supply in the last three months as the US Federal Reserve bought bonds (and printed money). And we wonder why commodity prices and oil prices are going through the roof... HT Zerohedge.
11. Bonus from The Daily Show explaining the situation in Wisconsin, where a union busting governor is slashing and burning. It's sparked a huge fight in America.
And here's Jon Stewart on what American workers need to do.
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