Where do Lamb Shanks Come From, Mummy?

This ad is currently running on New Zealand TV, prime time as well.

Love the kid's voice over - so non-PC it's too good.

Squattez un location qui décoiffe en vacances!

"Une chambre dans un loft new-yorkais ? Une maison d'architecte sur les hauteurs de Barcelone ou une cabane au Costa Rica à partager entre amis ? Pas besoin de vous ruiner pour vous offrir un location qui décoiffe."

check out Airbnb.com

from Merci Alfred

                                            Amsterdam 

Chinese Growth is Well Balanced: A Contrarian View.

Yukon Huang, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment and a former country director for the World Bank in China has some very interesting comments in a recent article published in The Financial Times today.

Taken at face value, these have important implications for economies such as Australia and New Zealand whose exporters that are riding the tiger of the Chinese commodities boom.

China’s announcement today that inflation in May hit a three-year high of 5.5 per cent and industrial expansion exceeded expectations will buttress those who see an inevitable economic crash coming. But even those who remain confident that a soft landing is possible seem to agree that China’s economic growth is unbalanced, with these imbalances widely blamed for trade surpluses with the west. This view, however, is much exaggerated.

see The myth of China’s unbalanced growth 

Newspapers: Graphs of Past and Future Collapses.

SAI Business Insider has published two graphs about a week apart:

• One called "Why The Newspaper Industry Collapsed"
• And the other called "The New York Times' Delusional Digital Pricing Scheme

It's interesting to compare the two. 

 

Wonder what similar charts will look like in a year's time?

The Largest Market in the World - The Forex or Foreign Exchange Market $7 Trillion Daily and Counting.

"...a 20% increase in global foreign exchange (FX) market activity over the past three years, bringing average daily turnover to $4 trillion"

Yes, that is a daily volume amount, and it's increased by 20% since 2007. And in spite of the comments in the article below, the foreign exchange market remains mostly unregulated and functions very well

How governments would love to get their greedy hand on it but just do not dare. It's too big, too powerful and too important.

From Vox - Research-based policy analysis and commentary from leading economists

Full article

The $4 trillion question: What explains FX growth since the 2007 survey?

 

Voice your Wall

Depending on what you were saying, these pictures of your voice print could make for an interesting before dinner drinks conversation.
From the Canadian company VoicePrints comes this art form of printing your voice and hanging the results on your wall.



Now is that a shout, a word or 'what were you saying?'

Original story via Thrillist.com (original link)

The All Important Revenue per User - Chart of the Day

"How much is a unique visitor worth on the Internet? Depends on who you are. Amazon (e-commerce) is generating $189 per user. Google (search) is generating $24 per user. Facebook (social networking) is only generating $4 per user according to this chart from JP Morgan's Imran Khan. "

From SAI Business Insider Chart of the Day

Here's How Much A Unique Visitor Is Worth

News Online and The Paywall Debate - To Build or Not to Build?

Stephen Bartholomeusz, writing in the Australian Business Spectator, in an article entitled 

False iPad hope? (free sign up required to view).

This blogger finds it ironic that a writer in what is a essentially a free online publication, doing very well with it's model, needs to wonder which online model will work for traditional journalism. The following models will not work:

• The general readership, major newspaper behind a paywall a la the UK's Times online
• Specialised Magazines whereby the app costs more than the print edition a la Wired Magazine (and you can get it free on the web - how dumb is that?)
• Any combination of the above as in the proposed new Murdoch online Daily which is "...an interesting and brave experiment with a purpose-designed tablet product, with News committing an estimated $US100 million to the venture." (from the Bartholomeusz article above)

The models that do work are:

1. And one only: The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times and The Economist online editions. No prizes as to why these online publications make money and actually work - the financial market participants reading them have money to burn. Very simple.

Everyone else is doomed to failure.

So get on the advert supported band wagon and stop winging about it...!

 

Reserve Bank of Australia Commodity Index - Long Way Down

The RBA - The Reserve Bank of Australia -  released Index of Commodity Prices for December 2010.

From it's statement "Preliminary estimates for December indicate that the index rose by 3.2 per cent (on a monthly average basis) in SDR terms, after rising by 1.2 per cent in November"

SDR's are "Special Drawing Rights" essentially a basket of major currencies - see SDR Valuation from the IMF

Facebook and the Road to a $50 Billion Dollar Valuation Helped by Russians and Now Goldmans.

"Facebook is now solidly a $50 billion company, as measured by valuation from investors, thanks to its latest round of funding -- $500 million from Goldman Sachs and DST. "

So Facebook has now the valuation that Mark Zuckerberg has been saying it should have thanks to Goldman Sachs and DST.

Right, DST who? Digital Sky Technologies a Russian company that has this really interesting web site. Check it out: DST. A lot more information on this global investor into mainly US based tech companies can be found in The New York Times Deal Book article:

Russians’ Large Stake in Facebook Grows Larger

Chart from SAI Silicon Valley Investor Chart of the day

Facebook's Bumpy Road To $50 Billion 

Lex and 3 Economic Scenarios for 2011

Named as The Crab, Disaster and Lift-Off the Lex Column in the Financial Times essentially gives fancy names to 3 probable economic outcomes for 2011.

The interesting bit is the percentage of probability or likelihood of each scenario playing out:

1. The Crab or more of the same as 2010 - 70%
2. Disaster or up the creek without a paddle - 20%
3. Lift-off or yeh! we're back to normal - 10%

See

Three scenarios for 2011

Zambia and yet Another High Cost Story

"Why is Zambia so expensive? Observers have offered a number of explanations. The labour market is rigid—a 15% annual increase in wages is customary. Transport costs bump up the price of everything else—Zambia is a landlocked country with little domestic manufacturing. The cost of finance is high—banks charge up to 35% in interest (one study even reports loans with 100% interest rates). "

From The Economist Baobab Blog

Some Puzzling Numbers