Secular Bears - Adjusted

One of my favorite annoyances is that media reports seldom put economic numbers into context. This chart of secular bear markets does just that by adjusting the Standard & Poor's measure by the Consumer Price Index giving a true measure of the market's value.

Barry Does It Again

Barry Ritholtz of The Big Picture is one of my favorite economics bloggers. Actually, I quite often disagree with his conclusions but he is always thought provoking and well worth the read. This is a fabulous chart of the relative size of ginormous government spending programs. Hold your breath before you enter.

The Book

In a previous life time I was a newspaper reporter. Early in my IT career I published a couple of technical articles on database design (back when relational databases were new technology - check your calendars for that date!). At that time I had ambitions of publishing more articles but then the babies started appearing from some magical place. (I never did understand how that happened ... ) Read more really means read more this time.

Here's an outline for a book I've wanted to write for a long time. By posting this, I'm mostly putting pressure on myself to get cracking on it. The target audience is the professional business manager like a CFO, a VP of Sales, or a Purchasing Director. Quite often these types struggle to understand what motivates people who work with computers. My goal is to give them the keys to their inner geeks. It's supposed to be light hearted but sometimes people don't seem to get it. We'll see how that goes over as I develop the chapters.

Understanding Information Technologies: A Management Guide for the Business Professional

1. Why would a sane person want to work with computers?
     a. The psychology of computer people
         1. The software developer
         2. The technical geek
         3. The business analyst
2. What makes a computer person get out of bed in the morning?
     a. Falling asleep with dreams of do loops in your head
     b. The doofis from accounting down thehall
     c. The need for speed
     d. He’s really not that into you
3. How can I get them to talk to me in English?
     a. You call that English?
     b. There really is a thinking human being in there
     c. Try donuts, they work
     d. Speak English to her and she’ll speak English to you
4. How are computers like narcotics?
     a. What two professions call their customers users?
     b. Put down the Blackberry and walk away slowly
     c. Was it really so bad with manual typewriters?
5. What are the three areas of computing and why should I care? (applications, technical support, and networking)
     a. Technical support – don’t look at the man behind the curtain
     b. Networking – they make technical support look sexy
     c. Applications – almost human
6. What if I don’t have a computer department but I have computers?
     a. Finding the inner geek somewhere
     b. How to buy hardware when you don’t know what you’re buying
     c. How to buy software when you don’t know what you’re buying
     d. How to manage the non-IT IT manager
7. I want to install a business system but I don’t know where to start.
     a. Are you sure?
     b. Are you really sure?
     c. The basics of who, what, where, when, why, and how
     d. How to find help – you’ll really need it
     e. You’re not as smart as you think
     f. How can you tell when a salesman is lying?
     g. As the song says, Respect Yourself
     h. A verbal contract isn’t worth the paper it’s written on
     i. A consultant will borrow your watch to tell you the time
     j. Do your homework before you go out and play
     k. How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice.
     l. When you throw the switch, do the lights go out?
8. It’s one emergency after another. How can I make it calm down?
     a. Your choices in the face of chaos
           1. Ignore it
           2. Deal with it
           3. Manage it
           4. Make it go away
     b. Learning to manage the noise
     c. I have an IT department
           1. I need a new manager
           2. I need new IT staffers
           3. I don’t have an IT department
               a. Make one
               b. Hiring a great manager
9. How can we make this manageable?
     a. The great manager – Part Deux
     b. You’re hooked – get used to it
10. How can I know that I’m making the right investment decisions?
     a. How do you usually know?
     b. Put it in your budget and manage it
     c. Count the payback – if you can
11. Finding the right person to run Information Technologies.
     a. The great manager – Part Tres
     b. Recruiters
     c. Help Wanted
     d. The IT manager is not a gnome in the basement
     e. The IT manager is now part of your management team
12. Making the changes stick so I never have to worry about this again
     a. Process change for the scaredy cat
     b. Procrastination as an art form
     c. Fire quickly and hire slowly
13. Ignoring IT and getting my business done.
     a. Bad management can turn gold into dirt
     b. Good management can turn dirt into gold
     c. Do you ignore sales or purchasing or accounting or production?
     d. What are you good at?
     e. Getting good at the self-managing IT organization
     f. Making it last and feeling good about it
14. Congratulations – relax and enjoy life

Why No Picture?

Ever wonder why I don't post a picture on my profile? Here's a snapshot of me from a recent pool party at my summer home and I'm just too modest to show it to just anybody.

Truth be told, I'm still moving into my new (old) house. I have a great picture of me in a bike race from a few years ago. When I find that one, it gets posted.

Is This the Corrrection?

As of 10:30 a.m. Central time, the Dow is down just over 200 points. Is this the correction I predicted to start a month ago? Or, perhaps it's a buying opportunity. Actually, it's probably both. A true correction is 20 percent from the peak of 8700 on the Dow, which means it must drop to the 7000 range. I doubt that's going to happen. So far, my market timing has been off but my prediction of the trends has been close. (If you're keeping score.)

The Boats They Be A'Sinking

In years past, I was very respectful of the written word and the well-crafted sentence. As I get older, I gain more appreciation for good images that tell a story. Here's one on the relative size of recent bankruptcies.

The Geography of Job Loss

Here a great graphic showing the national distribution of job losses. This is similar to one I posted recently regarding housing cost changes around the country.

Someday I'll have to remember that this blog is supposed to be about IT and economics - not a place for my mental diarrhea. Someday ...

17 Percent Will Boycott GM & Chrysler

I'm sorry I'm on a car kick lately. Again, having grown up in Detroit and working in the auto industry for almost ten years (in the 80s and 90s) I will have a never-ending interest in the industry. GM and Chrysler have destroyed themselves. I didn't have to be so.

GM & Chrysler are doomed and here's why

It may require a Wall Street Journal subscription but the link will demonstrate quite clearly why GM and Chrysler are doomed. In ten years, Ford, Nissan, Toyota, etc., will rule the roost.

Great Graphic - It's the Bomb!

One of my favorite economics blogs - The Big Picture - has a very good time-phased graphic of the 2008 collapse. Check it out.

Government Motors Explained

I post this only because I grew up in Detroit and I still have family there. Those who didn't grow up there will have a hard time understanding the trauma of GM's bankruptcy. I have no sympathy for either Bush's or Obama's action in this regard, however, this posting is an excellent background piece written by a former Bush official.

The Counterintutivity of Interest Rativity

In this time of financial turmoil (and, come to think of it, doesn't that phrase apply to any time?) pundits will pundize endlessly that for real estate to recover, interest rates must fall. Well, here's a counter-intuitive observation.

I'm old enough to have lived through the Carter years which, at the peak, suffered 18 percent inflation in one quarter of 78 or 79 (I forget which one and I'm too lazy today to look it up.) Rapid price growth has one dramatic affect on buyer behavior; it makes you buy now instead of waiting.

I remember going shopping with my wife when I was a young man with a full head of black hair and buying a rocking chair that we didn't need. Why? Because it would cost a lot more the next time we went out.

This is going to happen to real estate now, I think. Interest rates are going to climb from the 4.875% I just paid for a mortgage a few weeks ago to the 5.2% of today and keep climbing until they reach a natural, un-federal-reservalized number.

Conventional pundit-wisdom (an oxymoron?) says this will put a spike into a nascent real estate recovery. I say the opposite. In anticipation of rising rates, people sitting on the sidelines are going to jump in anticipating future higher rates. Home purchase activity will increase from here ... and the pundits will drop their jaws in amazement.

Again, we'll see just how smart I am ( ... or not).