MetaFilter posts tagged with capital

Is Silicon Valley a systemic risk?

thedailygrowl — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 23:02:08 -0800

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.

"Putting your money where our mouth is."

infini — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 06:37:03 -0800

Strategery is a unique hedge fund.

Dead labour.

Abiezer — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 06:35:04 -0800

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.

Diversity counterproductive to "social capital?"

gregb1007 — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 21:40:53 -0800

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. Putnam has discovered that friendship, carpooling, participating in local projects is much lower in ethnically heterogeneous communities than in homogeneous ones. His research reveals that the exception to the tendency of diversity to inhibit "social trust" occurs in ethnically diverse military or religious settings as well as in social circles with intermarried couples. Wilson adds sports teams to the list of these exceptional places where ethnically different people click well. Wilson also ends up rejecting Putnam's idea that increased church presence and the building of additional public athletic facilities would bring ethnically diverse residents together. Instead, he offers up his own rather vague suggestion:"strong families living in neighborhoods made up of families with shared characteristics seem much more likely to bring their members into the associational life Putnam favors." Looks like "strong families" can overcome the lack of social interaction in neighborhoods. But isn't the term of "strong families" reminiscent of GOP's panacea for all problems?

Yesterday threatens to devour to-morrow.

thatwhichfalls — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 07:18:28 -0800

Karl Marx' 'Capital' in Lithographs by Hugo Gellert.
via The Early Days of a Better Nation.

Not something you can drop on your foot ...

woodblock100 — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 04:27:39 -0800

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. "[This report] convincingly shows what countries need to do to create wealth and lift billions of people out of abject poverty: Establish the rule of law and educate their people. That's a lot harder to do than building giant dams or aluminum factories, but it would be a lot more effective in reducing poverty. ... An economy with a very efficient judicial system, clear and enforceable property rights, and an effective and uncorrupt government will produce higher total wealth."

But given that the institutions present in developed countries are the result of hundreds of years of incremental change, this would seem to be, at bottom, a very pessimistic message for the developing world.

The road to Pyinmana

soiled cowboy — Fri, 09 Dec 2005 13:28:16 -0800

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.

Greek Temple Architecture and Linkeriffica of Antiquity

y2karl — Thu, 19 Jun 2003 05:05:42 -0800

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 r e s t o r a t i o n s. I love restorations, on paper or models rather than at the actual sites. The first in a series.

Hernando de Soto

Pseudoephedrine — Tue, 17 Dec 2002 11:28:56 -0800

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.

ph00dz — Mon, 01 Apr 2002 05:46:05 -0800

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?

jed — Fri, 08 Jun 2001 12:05:21 -0800

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?