Category Archives: Global Macro Trends

Judgment day – when will US and China, India and others

Posted on December 6, 2010 by

It’s hard to see how the United States can resume the rapid GDP growth necessary to reduce its fiscal deficit when almost 20 percent of its working population is unemployed or underemployed. A McKinsey Quarterly report on Globalisation’s Critical Imbalances. … Continue reading →

Posted in Global Macro Trends | 3 Comments

Global warming and you

Posted on April 29, 2009 by

Here’s  excellent graphic from FiveThirtyEight via Treehugger and via New Zealand’s The visible hand showing data from a report from the the Yale Forestry and Environmental Studies School Climate Change project. It needs no explanation. The project’s survey: “Climate Change … Continue reading →

Posted in Global Macro Trends, media | 2 Comments

How to blog anonymously

Posted on March 28, 2009 by

As we progressively lose our freedoms on the internet, it was timely to have a read of some of the excellent material written by Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society – it’s part of the Harvard Law School … Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Global Macro Trends, Internet Business, Politics | Tagged , | Leave a comment

The real estate market plunge

Posted on March 11, 2009 by

Alex Tarrant over at Interest.co.nz had a couple of, well, interesting posts on the housing market in NZ. There is a piece on the February housing statistics, which rose dramatically versus January, although the median price stayed down, and the … Continue reading →

Posted in Global Macro Trends, Investing | 5 Comments

Bad news for Cricket: Sponsor Standford is being investigated

Posted on February 16, 2009 by

Via the WSJ it appears that Stanford International is under investigation: Stanford International Bank Ltd. of Antigua recently failed to provide some $16 million in funding to a small Florida telecommunications firm, while a small Alabama health-care firm said it … Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Global Macro Trends | 2 Comments

Lower the barriers to raise car ownership

Posted on February 9, 2009 by

New Zealand has the third highest car ownership per person in the world, the economist informs us. That’s amazing, especially as tiny Luxembourg tops the list. It’s especially amazing when you are standing at a rental car counter during summer … Continue reading →

Posted in Global Macro Trends, NZ Business | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Final Ferrit: The site idea and execution

Posted on January 24, 2009 by

Part two of  a four part take on the end of Ferrit. We started with Market Space, and business economics and governance failure are next. The idea of the Ferrit site So while there was a space, the proposed way … Continue reading →

Posted in Broadband, Global Macro Trends, Internet Business, NZ Business | Tagged , | 5 Comments

BHP Billiton SSM job loses – WA and NZ impact

Posted on January 21, 2009 by

Nickel prices are very low, and so there are some big cuts just announced for BHP Billiton Stainless Steel Materials. As rumored the $2 Bn Ravensthorpe laterite plant is going to go flat, and about 2,100 jobs in total will … Continue reading →

Posted in Global Macro Trends | 1 Comment

Rio Tinto: Tiwai Point will be fine, but Kiwis will be affected

Posted on December 11, 2008 by

With 14,000 workers going from Rio Tinto, the folk at Tiwwai Point’s aluminium refinery are apparently nervous. They have “787 full time staff and 133 contractors” down there in the deep South, a bit under 1% of Rio’s total of … Continue reading →

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A foreshadow of the World’s geopolitical risk?

Posted on November 27, 2008 by

Take a look at the car (below) in this article. “You are looking at a nano-cosm of a foreshadow of the future of the world’s geopolitical risk. That’s how a friend of mine characterizes the global situation right now. And … Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Global Macro Trends | Leave a comment

Are we in a deep hole that the entire world could fall into?

Posted on November 25, 2008 by

Jeff Garten, the Dean of Yale School of Management when I was there, and now a Professor of International Finance there, was quoted via a recent NYTimes Thomas Friedman oped: “A great judgment has to be made now as to … Continue reading →

Posted in Global Macro Trends | Leave a comment

Please don’t bail out GM

Posted on November 18, 2008 by

I have to agree with Greg Saunders, posting at Tom Tomorrow on this: “When it comes to bailing out the auto industry, count me in the “let them starve” camp. The auto industry has been outsourcing American jobs for 25 … Continue reading →

Posted in Global Macro Trends, Investing | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

We are living longer

Posted on November 10, 2008 by

It seems that we now have a longer life expectancy – 82.2 for women and 78 for men, up 1 and 1.7 years However there is still a substantial difference for Maori – with Maori newborns having life expectancy of … Continue reading →

Posted in Global Macro Trends, Life, media, NZ Business | 1 Comment

Building a Strategy for New Zealand – some starters

Posted on November 5, 2008 by

Here are a few starter strategy phrases. They should give some flavour of the sorts of things that could make good goals. The idea is not to have a goal cover everything, but to address the key things that drive … Continue reading →

Posted in Global Macro Trends, media, NZ Business | Tagged | 7 Comments

Building a Strategy for New Zealand – two approaches

Posted on November 5, 2008 by

Writing a strategy is relatively simple – anyone can do it. Of course there is a catch.. The hard bit is getting people to agree to a strategy, (and the really hard bit is to execute that strategy effectively.) One … Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Global Macro Trends, media, NZ Business | Tagged | Leave a comment