Bl: market is crazy!

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&refer=home&sid=aCgQ.Md6Xq7M

In October, the index rose or fell at least 3 percent 13 times, more than half of the 23 trading days during the month, including six moves of at least 5 percent. This month, the S&P 500 moved at least 3 percent on 10 of the 16 trading days, including eight moves of at least 5 percent.

Only November 1929 overshadowed October 2008 as the most volatile month for the index, according to S&P analyst Howard Silverblatt, citing moves of at least 1 percent on 86 percent of last month’s trading days.

Investors are paying $9.24 per dollar of operating profit forecast in 2009 for S&P 500 companies, half the two-decade median of $18.10, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Stock valuations suggest S&P 500 profits may decrease as much as 42 percent next year amid forecasts for the worst recession in more than two decades.

Bl: Recession’s Grip Forces U.S. to Flood World With More Dollars

wow, China now holds more Treasury funds than any other country.


Bl: Recession’s Grip Forces U.S. to Flood World With More Dollars
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aCqvVS7Zk7ZQ&refer=home

E: Start-ups and slow-downs "What impact will recession have on entrepreneurship?"

cool article, fun

http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?story_id=12625763

What impact will recession have on entrepreneurship?

E: Hawthorne Effect (Group Study, cool)

http://www.economist.com/business/management/displaystory.cfm?source=hptextfeature&story_id=12510632

The Hawthorne effect

Nov 3rd 2008
From Economist.com

The original purpose of the experiments was to study the effects of physical conditions on productivity. Two groups of workers in the Hawthorne factory were used as guinea pigs. One day the lighting in the work area for one group was improved dramatically while the other group’s lighting remained unchanged. The researchers were surprised to find that the productivity of the more highly illuminated workers increased much more than that of the control group.

The employees’ working conditions were changed in other ways too (their working hours, rest breaks and so on), and in all cases their productivity improved when a change was made. Indeed, their productivity even improved when the lights were dimmed again. By the time everything had been returned to the way it was before the changes had begun, productivity at the factory was at its highest level. Absenteeism had plummeted.

The experimenters concluded that it was not the changes in physical conditions that were affecting the workers’ productivity. Rather, it was the fact that someone was actually concerned about their workplace, and the opportunities this gave them to discuss changes before they took place.

A crucial element in Mayo’s findings was the effect that working in groups had on the individual. At one time he wrote:

The desire to stand well with one’s fellows, the so-called human instinct of association, easily outweighs the merely individual interest and the logic of reasoning upon which so many spurious principles of management are based.

Later in life he added:

The working group as a whole actually determined the output of individual workers by reference to a standard that represented the group conception (rather than management’s) of a fair day’s work. This standard was rarely, if ever, in accord with the standards of the efficiency engineers.

Fritz Roethlisberger, a leading member of the research team, wrote:

The Hawthorne researchers became more and more interested in the informal employee groups, which tend to form within the formal organisation of the company, and which are not likely to be represented in the organisation chart. They became interested in the beliefs and creeds which have the effect of making each individual feel an integral part of the group.