Deflation the symptom, Demographics & Debt the disease; Default the cure?
You should fear deflation, or so the story goes, as it puts a brake on the economy: In a deflationary environment, people expect the same amount of money to be worth […]
Author Archives: karlstrobl
Where’s the credit shortage coming from?
Have you ever wondered why it’s become so difficult to open, or even just simply operate, a bank account these days? Why your bank treats you in a way that […]
My Prediction for the Scottish Independence Vote
Another little game theory for you: People behave differently in polls than in actual elections. Polls have only signalling value, while votes have a definite outcome. When you vote you have […]
The Trouble with Big Data
Part 1: Why Big Data can spell Big Trouble Confusing significant-looking results with meaningful results in statistics, and how this gets worse in the age of Big Data is […]
Cosmic Events
[note: this is the original post. There is an important update at the bottom; sadly the event was not ‘real’, but I leave the text here for some time for […]
The Destabilizing Risks of Globally Coordinated Regulation
Punchy title, eh? But when there’s something nobody talks about, but everyone agrees when I mention it, it scares me. So here it is. In the aftermath of the financial […]
Sustainable Retail Distribution on the Internet
When internet-shopping, you can’t look your retailer in the eye. You lose a deeply intuitive (and largely effective) indicator of whether you and your seller are a good match. So […]
Ed Snowden will have done the NSA a favour
The title of this post is not a political statement, but will simply be a statistical truth, if the not-so-recent revelations lead to a step away from “just-in-case” wholesale data collection […]
Peak CPU and the next computing revolution
Forget Big Data. Here is the Next Big Thing in computing. First, the central fact: We are hitting the physical limits of processor speed. This ought to reset your expectations of future […]
Entropy and the Meaning of “Renewable”
Fighting Entropy takes Energy (photo: Printemps, flickr) Can we give hard currency to the terms ‘renewable’ and ‘sustainable’? An excellent book by Guy Deutscher, a physicist from Tel Aviv University, […]
Game Theory and the Debt Ceiling
The idea of applying game theory to the debt ceiling debate isn’t exactly new. In fact, I did exactly that, back in March. The FT just ran an article on […]
EU legal opinion on the Financial Transaction Tax
My opinions on the EU-11 Financial Transactions tax have been reported extensively in this blog, in May, April, and February this year. The legal advisor to EU finance ministers — the “Council legal service” […]
A New Road-Map for Deposit Insurance
Chatting with one of Europe’s former central bankers recently, we discussed how Cyprus could have been handled differently, and what it all means for European banking integration and deposit insurance. […]
Peak Water and Food Security
If nations care about food security, their first concern should be sustainability of freshwater supplies. Here is the logic: The world’s fresh water supply is largely inaccessible for water production: […]
Method in the Madness of Greece’s Government?
Moody’s is putting Greece on credit watch negative because of the threat to government stability following the unilateral shock decision to dissolve the government broadcaster ERT in its current form […]
Democracy is Coming Home to Die
Greece, at alarming speed, is digging itself into an ever deeper political hole. The government, or more precisely the Nea Demokratia faction of it, shut down Greece’s national broadcaster on six […]
Global Warming is no Stag Hunt
Is finding a solution to Global Warming really like solving a Prisoner’s Dilemma? Most real-world problems of cooperation and coordination, even if they are said to be one, are really […]
The Financial Transaction Tax and the Long Grass
In an old post, I speculated that the EU transaction tax (FTT) will quietly go away. I feel endorsed now that Mervin King hints that Europe would use delaying tactics to kick […]
The Future of Offshore Outsourcing: The Case of India
My blog has been silent for a while, as I got ready to speak in Bangalore, India, where my friends at AMBA put on a great conference on offshore outsourcing […]
Ready for Ageing? The House of Lords (Thinks It) Is…
We should envy the UK for having the House of Lords! For they have given us a useful reminder of the consequences of an ageing society. But, like most such […]
The Sustainability Report 
You must be logged in to post a comment.