economics

Sunday Morning Geekonomics

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Well I’m up early, had to call people for Father’s Day, and of course, check in on the economic news.

First, the Greek elections are happening – again – and this pretty much determines the fate of the country, the Euro, and the world economy.  A BBC roundup is here.

I’m not exactly enthused about the chances for this to work out – my suspicion is that everyone involved wants to keep kicking this can down the road until there’s some kind of soft landing or until the rest of the world economy picks up.  No one wants to be the one holding the bag when/if things melt down, so I’m not seeing a lot of political courage here.

Barry Ritholz has a delayed column on the housing market, and he’s got some interesting analysis.  In general the housing market seems to be depressed for awhile – he says 3-5 years, I’m betting in some areas as high as 10.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach for professional and potentially professional geeks, fans, and otaku. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/

Must Read: Digital Disruption And Mobile

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Ritholz comes through with this infographic that you just have to see.

There’s a lot to read over and to think about, but here’s some takeaways from my thoughts:

  • Everything is going mobile.  That means your website (personal or profssional) needs to be mobile, your projects need to keep mobile in mind, and that doing geek stuff mobile is great practice.
  • Everything is going social, so you need to as well.  Twitter, Facebook, whatever.
  • On a side note, I’m wondering what the role of traditional RSS is going to be.  I’m not sure, to be frank.  I suspect email newsletters may be a big thing.
  • Everyone is going mobile, including businesses.  This is a pretty rapid transition, and it means that if you jump on mobile you’re going to be ahead of the game.  If you’re a developer, learn to develop in mobile, if you’re in marketing, you get the idea.
  • Consumer engagement is a big factor here – people do their research in stores.  What this means for online shopping also intrigues me – people are used to the online experience and are porting it elsewhere.
  • All this move to mobile can’t last in my opinion.  At some point “mobile” will just merge into “internet stuff” so what we see now is going to change and evolve anyway.
  • I see big opportunities for developers, marketers, and analysts here.

Any thoughts on your end?

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach for professional and potentially professional geeks, fans, and otaku. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/

Greece Leaving The Euro?

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OK I’ll put on my Robe and Economist’s Hat and note we’ve got a nice article here on what happens if Greece leaves the euro – or gets kicked out.  Basic result is it hurts, but also people pull money out of other troubled Euro countries, probably putting it into Germany.  Most of this is due to one of Paul Krugman’s predictions, which people tend to listen to.

I’m feeling Krugman is actually too negative on how this could play out (it’s summarized at the article), but it’s still going to end badly for someone(s).  The real question is how the pain is spread out and which politicians want to watch things go to hell on their watch.  In short, I can see things being drawn out in the hope of a soft landing that pushes these possible scenareos out into the future, it’s just that the question of “can we kick people out of/do we leave the euro” is going to come up eventually.

This is made further complicate by the Greek political situation, which I have had trouble figuring out for years.  I’m not exactly sympathetic to Greece’s situation, let’s put it that way, though I’m anti-Austerity.

What this means for us in the U.S. is that the world economy, at any time, could have some nasty shakeup as the Euro kicks people out, gets left, new austerity measures go into place, politics change, etc.  I’m not sure what role the U.S. is taking, if any, to try and sort this mess out – it’d be very useful to do some digging.

So U.S. recovery aside and other hope, we’ve still got a big chunk of the world having economic problems.  That, in short, could mess things up for everyone else, us included.

Oh, and Canada.  Hey guys.

– Steven Savage