Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Mother of all Bubbles

This article (unfortunately only in German) describes in a brilliant way, why the billions of money which are created at the moment by central banks and governments to end the financial and economic crisis, will ultimately lead to inflation and why the central banks will NOT be able to retract the money quickly by raising the interest rates.

Inflation however does require a second factor which is not mentioned in the article. It does not automatically occur when the amount of money is increased. Large amounts of money deposits in bank accounts do not cause inflation. Prices are created through supply and demand. Only if there is increased demand for something, and supply is short, prices will rise. Labour is not short in supply in today's globalized markets. But natural ressoures are and will spark inflation - someday.

Saturday, April 25, 2009

Why Attractive things work better

Interesting article that explains why beauty and aesthetics are not just eye candy but acutally improve the usability of products. 

Tuesday, February 03, 2009

"the fall of Wall Street is to market fundamentalism what the fall of the Berlin Wall was to communism"

quoted from NPQ (New Perspectives Quarterly): 

"The year 2008 is thus likely to go down in American history as an even more pivotal
moment than 2001, when the 9/11 terrorrist attacks occurred, because the life
of the average American is going to be shaped far more by the consequences.We’re
not talking about the inconvenience of lining up to go through metal detectors at the
airport. We’re talking about the transformation of the American model itself. Joseph
Stiglitz was not exaggerating when he quipped to me earlier this year that “the fall of
Wall Street is to market fundamentalism what the fall of the Berlin Wall was to communism.” Just like that, we’re in a different era. ... Since the 1950s, when Nixon bested Khrushchev in the famous kitchen debate, our answer to the equalized deprivation of socialism has been consumer plenitude beyond compare. Khrushchev may have emptily blustered in those years about burying us, but it was the Communist Chinese, in the end, who gave us enough credit to hang ourselves when our consumer society desired more than we could pay for with our own savings."

Saturday, January 03, 2009

Fuel consumption of a new BMW 320d at different speeds

I drive a BMW 320d, production July 2008, with automatic gear shifting. Using the automatic speed control at different speeds on a relatively empty German highway I discovered the following fuel consumption pattern:

120 km/h: 5.2 litres/100km
140 km/h: 6.5 litres/100km 
160 km/h: 7.6 litres/100km
180 km/h: 9.0 litres/100km
200 km/h: 10 litres/100km

Quite  interesting...