Thursday, August 20, 2009

On the Enjoyment of Unpleasant Places

by Robert L. Stevenson.
I happened to enjoy this essay, and the website, and did not find them at all unpleasant.

http://essays.quotidiana.org/stevenson/enjoyment_of_unpleasant/

Sunday, August 9, 2009

The World is Curved, by D. Smick

http://fora.tv/2008/11/06/David_Smick_The_World_is_Curved

http://www.theworldiscurved.com


A very interesting read for people who wish to examine the financial situation, and how it got that way. Most informative are the chapters that discuss the effects of Sarbanes-Oxley on New York and London, and of the Basel Standards in general.

An excerpt from p. 34:

"the world today is moving away from globalization and unfettered free markets of recent decades toward something more reminiscent of the nineteenth-century model of globalization - a new, more mercantilist era of backroom rivalries, deal-making, and tensions based on ambitious political agendas and capital shifts controlled by governments."