Robi Ganguly’s Big Ideas

Amazing, that’s all I can say about this data visualization. Absolutely stunning when put this way.

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Props to my buddy Tom for sending me over to www.thedailyshow.com to see the entirety of this interview with Bill Clinton from a few weeks ago. I always appreciate more detail and thoughtfulness when it comes to political and economic discourse.

Popularity: 3% [?]

I do a lot of thinking about the economy, the stock market and how to build great businesses. Like Howard Lindzon says, Twitter’s killed my blog too, but I need to remedy that. Let’s combine some humor (not mine) and insights (hopefully mine ). Here are some interrelated observations in my head right now:

• As I work on building ideas & companies of my own while watching politicians, media pundits and anal-ysts (they charge people for predictions they don’t follow or stand behind, WTF is going on here??) futilely attempt to make sense of what’s going on in the midst of our globe’s financial tornado I think to myself: these guys are talking too damned much.
• Credit was built on trust. When credit was invented it was highly controversial for a lot of reasons, but one was because of something we seem to have forgotten: money is based on trust as well.
• I don’t think any of us should trust a single bank until they can prove to us that they’re trustworthy again, individually and in aggregate. The Government’s actions aren’t fucking helping make us trust them any more, so their involvement is mostly absurd. The trust we’re talking about isn’t trust that they’ll lose all our money, it’s that they don’t know what the hell they’re doing it and are COSTING US ALL MONEY. I don’t trust them to not gamble all of our aggregate profits away.
• Profitable companies that have massive amounts of cash, no debt and high margins should be getting reamed for hoarding their cash unintelligently, as many of them are doing. Profits are to re-invest in your business, your ideas and your future.
• Assets and people are on a fire sale right now, why aren’t winner companies investing? Microsoft, Google, eBay, Yahoo, et al are announcing layoffs and basically indicating that they’re either: a) afraid of using the word “fire” and lying about layoffs or b) making decisions in reaction to the stock market, as opposed to making decisions based on plans and opportunity. To which I say: you all need to step up to the plate and be leaders right now.
• If you’re pissed off, bummed out, frustrated or just plain confused, remember one thing: you can work harder. Step up and be a leader in your own life.
  

Last night’s South Park episode was funny and unrelenting in pointing out the stupid pyramid of lies we see around us. I recommend watching it and thinking about it in the context of our ongoing credit crisis.

South Park – “The Pinewood Derby”

A few choice quotes:

Dedicated to Iceland’s defunct economy: “Hey guys, Finland’s dead…. Hey guys, somebody better break the news to Norway, they were pretty close.”

To all of the politicians and bankers who think they should talk about transparency but not actually provide it: “And if I’m not honest now, I’ll have to keep this lie going on forever and it’ll just grow and grow.”

To anyone who thinks that “solving” the credit problems facing our globe isn’t within our power: “There is no space jail and space cash is only worth what YOU decide it’s worth. I mean, come on, how stupid is your species?”

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