Is Silicon Valley a systemic risk? Treasury decides to treat venture capitalists like hedge funds The Obama administration wants to regulate venture capital firms to prevent systemic risks. Silicon Valley residents are scratching their heads and asking: What risks? The rest of us should ask why Washington is targeting a jewel of the American economy that had nothing to do with the housing bubble.
posted by thedailygrowl on Apr 8, 2009 - 45 comments

Strategery is a unique hedge fund.
posted by infini on Oct 3, 2008 - 25 comments

A close reading of the text of Volume One of Marx's Capital in 13 two-hour video lectures by David Harvey. (Two online so far) David Harvey is a Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the City University of New York. He has been teaching Karl Marx's Capital, Volume I for nearly 40 years. Marx biographer Francis Wheen speaks on NPR as to why the book remains required reading.
posted by Abiezer on Jun 16, 2008 - 46 comments

Diversity counterproductive to "social capital?" James Wilson's article in Commentary magazine talks about Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam's essay recently published in Scandinavian Political Studies. In the essay, Putnam publicizes the findings of his research, conducted in rural districts, towns, and cities, whose conclusion establishes that diverse neighborhoods show less "social capital" because ethnically diverse residents seem to distrust each other. [more inside]
posted by gregb1007 on Nov 2, 2007 - 37 comments

Karl Marx' 'Capital' in Lithographs by Hugo Gellert.
via The Early Days of a Better Nation.
posted by thatwhichfalls on Oct 12, 2007 - 20 comments

A recent article in Reason magazine discusses a World Bank report that comes to some unexpected conclusions, not the least of which is that "human capital and the value of institutions (as measured by rule of law) constitute the largest share of wealth in virtually all countries." Worldwide, the study finds, "natural capital accounts for 5 percent of total wealth, produced capital for 18 percent, and intangible capital 77 percent." In other words, rich countries are not rich because they have cheap natural resources (or exploited those of other countries), they are rich because of their social institutions. [more inside]
posted by woodblock100 on Sep 11, 2007 - 31 comments

Burma's military overseers, possibly in fear of a US invasion or internal strife, are moving the country's capital. At 6:37 a.m. on November 6th, (a time selected by one of the country’s leading astrologists), Myanmar's government began relocating its ministries to a 100 square-km complex in Pyinmana, a remote forest-bound location about 390 km north of Rangoon. Some analysts said the move is being driven by fears of a US invasion, while many in Myanmar believe it is due to worries about a possible internal uprising. (This despite a commitment to a "discipline-flourishing democracy".) The country's neighbors were put-off because they hadn't been informed of the move. Fortunately, the government is sure the relocation won't affect the country's tourism industry.
posted by soiled cowboy on Dec 9, 2005 - 30 comments

Greek Temple Architecture: They were houses--houses for cult statues, storehouses of treasures given to the gods--they were not churches. Worship consisted, by and large, of sacrificial ritual--animal sacrifice: killing animals and eating them, for the most part--and, hence, it was done out of doors. The Internet Ancient History Sourcebook's Accounts of Hellenic Religious Beliefs and Accounts of Personal Religion give additional flavor and context. Greek religious architecture evolved from wooden structures and was tradition bound--they built in stone as they had in wood according to variations on a traditional canon called the orders, first and foremost, the Doric Order , the Ionic Order and the Corinthian Order. Here are some restorations. I love restorations, on paper or models rather than at the actual sites. The first in a series.
posted by y2karl on Jun 19, 2003 - 15 comments

Hernando de Soto is the founder of the Institute y Libertad Democracia, one of the world's premier think-tanks on economic development, based in Peru. His argument is that development in the third-world has failed because of institutional barriers which prevent ordinary citizens from legally registering their own property. His viewpoint is not unchallenged though, as Robert J. Samuelson challenges that he overlooks significant cultural differences between the West and "the Rest". These differences reward different values than the West's capitalism, and cause development to take a very different course than Western economists predict it should.
posted by Pseudoephedrine on Dec 17, 2002 - 11 comments

PK Interactive receives funding from idealab According to the article on Yahoo News, "New York's PK Interactive, best known as the owner and publisher of popular "dot-com deadpool" site, F---edcompany.com, has received $18 million in private funding from idealab and its existing investors, Chase Capital Partners, Flatiron Partners and TechFund Capital." Sort of a strange turn of events, no?
posted by ph00dz on Apr 1, 2002 - 2 comments

Automatic Media is gone Confirming earlier speculation: Automatic Media's homepage announces that "AS OF JUNE 8, 2001, Automatic Media, Inc. has ceased operations due to an inability to secure additional financing." What does this mean for all the Automatic Media sites? Will Suck's vacation be permanent? Thoughts?
posted by jed on Jun 8, 2001 - 29 comments