Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

GDP, M&A, EBITDA, P/E, NASDAQ, Econo-thread Part 12

Collapse
This topic is closed.
X
X
Collapse
 
  • Page of 34
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts
Previous 1 3 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 23 34 template Next
  • #181
    Originally posted by Adam Smith
    I will grant that all measures have noise in them, though its always disturbing to realize how much noise. But my point was that the multifactor measure is more relevant (and lower) than attributing all productivity to labor.
    Sure, but that's pretty theoretical if the numbers you have to work with are just wild guesses. The BLS error margin on payrolls is quite large, I don't want to know how big it is on hours, and BEA's GDP numbers have some fudge factor as well, mostly on the investment side it seems. So we might say MFP grew somewehre between 0 and 3 %. And then... uhm...
    “Now we declare… that the law-making power or the first and real effective source of law is the people or the body of citizens or the prevailing part of the people according to its election or its will expressed in general convention by vote, commanding or deciding that something be done or omitted in regard to human civil acts under penalty or temporal punishment….” (Marsilius of Padua, „Defensor Pacis“, AD 1324)

    Comment

    • #182
      DanS:

      I don't have a good read on Snow's style, since I only saw him in internal industry meetings where he was clearly the biggest fish in the pond. I don't think he has enough weight outside the transportation industry to play the heavy.

      Roland (or should I call you H/O?):
      The BLS error margin on payrolls is quite large, I don't want to know how big it is on hours, and BEA's GDP numbers have some fudge factor as well, mostly on the investment side it seems. So we might say MFP grew somewehre between 0 and 3 %. And then... uhm...
      And that is why I pay very little attention to monthly numbers, little attention to quarterly numbers, and only some attention to annual numbers.
      Old posters never die.
      They j.u.s.t..f..a..d..e...a...w...a...y....

      Comment

      • #183
        Originally posted by Adam Smith
        And that is why I pay very little attention to monthly numbers, little attention to quarterly numbers, and only some attention to annual numbers.
        You should run for fed boss.

        As for Snow, his job is pretty irrelevant apart from 3 functions:

        - sell the Boss's econ policy. That means sell tax cuts for upper brackets. He might be good at that.

        - manage the dollar. Here his background should make him listen to US exporters, overall policy forbids him to scare the speculators though. Btwm the "strong dollar policy" is the funniest mass delusion since Hitler's Alpenfestung.

        - engineer bailouts. O'Neill didn't want to play along as well as Rubin or Summers, guess that's what really broke his neck. Suppose Snow knows his duties.
        “Now we declare… that the law-making power or the first and real effective source of law is the people or the body of citizens or the prevailing part of the people according to its election or its will expressed in general convention by vote, commanding or deciding that something be done or omitted in regard to human civil acts under penalty or temporal punishment….” (Marsilius of Padua, „Defensor Pacis“, AD 1324)

        Comment

        • #184
          "You're just ducking the question aren't you?"

          Well, not really. Or at least mostly not. I'm just hedging my bets because I don't have a clear sense of how Sony approaches it normally. Also, the explanation is perhaps too long for this thread (and it's only a 1/2 formed opinion anyway). But I'll give it a go.

          I have a pretty good sense of how Philips does it. Philips appears to use a standard library of in-house functional blocks which are used in concert to create a single integrated circuit that does a specified task. The IC is then sent out to a fab house (demand is probably pooled among several different internal customers). Sometimes Philips creates its own DVD players, etc. with its own ICs--very rarely with others' ICs. Let's assume that Sony goes with this approach on the PS2, and the fab and assembly houses are its own.

          Nintendo uses a somewhat similar approach with the Gamecube. Instead of using an in-house functional block library, it rents others' libraries. However, not all functional blocks are available for rent (for instance, I don't think nVidia would allow Nintendo to license its functional blocks). With these functional blocks it then creates three or four ICs to do all of the tasks needed for the entire machine. Send the plans to the fab house (contract) and then assembly (contract?).

          Microsoft does business differently. A good portion of the task is completed by generic ICs (and other ICs that are normally used in a PC context), and an operating system that serves as an interface between the hardware and software on a more abstract level than the PS2 and the Gamecube. For instance, the XBox uses a Pentium III 733 MHz CPU--the same one that you buy off the shelf for your PC. A ~ GeForce 4 chipset. DDR memory sticks that you could buy off the shelf.

          Microsoft uses none of its own parts. The only hardware it designs is the PCB. The operating system, programming tools, etc. are largely borrowed from Windows XP. All fab and assembly is contract. Microsoft can choose among several different vendors for all of the parts that it buys.

          Which of the three approaches makes the most business sense to you?

          [NB: There is a fourth, new, way to do it--the soft hardware approach. But none of the three use this approach.]
          Last edited by DanS; December 11, 2002, 15:09.
          I came upon a barroom full of bad Salon pictures in which men with hats on the backs of their heads were wolfing food from a counter. It was the institution of the "free lunch" I had struck. You paid for a drink and got as much as you wanted to eat. For something less than a rupee a day a man can feed himself sumptuously in San Francisco, even though he be a bankrupt. Remember this if ever you are stranded in these parts. ~ Rudyard Kipling, 1891

          Comment

          • #185
            Two interesting articles from FT...

            A plea for Dollar Endaka
            http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1039523372845


            '03 Global growth estimates downwardly revised drastically
            http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1039523409847&p=1012571727092


            How long do y'all think we can sustain a strong dollar and a 5% of GDP current account deficit.
            I came upon a barroom full of bad Salon pictures in which men with hats on the backs of their heads were wolfing food from a counter. It was the institution of the "free lunch" I had struck. You paid for a drink and got as much as you wanted to eat. For something less than a rupee a day a man can feed himself sumptuously in San Francisco, even though he be a bankrupt. Remember this if ever you are stranded in these parts. ~ Rudyard Kipling, 1891

            Comment

            • #186
              Ouch!

              Global growth estimated to be over 1% lower next year - that's like losing Australia or Holland!
              19th Century Liberal, 21st Century European

              Comment

              • #187
                Originally posted by DanS
                Two interesting articles from FT...

                A plea for Dollar Endaka
                http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1039523372845

                Does it surprise you that all I can say is "what a load of bull****".

                "The US enjoys sound economic policies"

                As an aside, 19 % of GDP exports for the eurozone ? More like 13-15 % IIRC, but not sure whether that includes trade in services....
                “Now we declare… that the law-making power or the first and real effective source of law is the people or the body of citizens or the prevailing part of the people according to its election or its will expressed in general convention by vote, commanding or deciding that something be done or omitted in regard to human civil acts under penalty or temporal punishment….” (Marsilius of Padua, „Defensor Pacis“, AD 1324)

                Comment

                • #188
                  that's like losing Australia or Holland

                  Ah shoot. We didn't need them anyway!

                  Does it surprise you that all I can say is "what a load of bull****".

                  Hershell: Well, at least it's interesting to hear an opposing opinion expressed once in a while.

                  I don't much care for the argument either. True, we could afford it probably. But that doesn't make it good policy. I'd just as soon let the currency markets do their thing.

                  Re the exports, it's probably not stripping out intra-Euro trade.
                  Last edited by DanS; December 12, 2002, 11:31.
                  I came upon a barroom full of bad Salon pictures in which men with hats on the backs of their heads were wolfing food from a counter. It was the institution of the "free lunch" I had struck. You paid for a drink and got as much as you wanted to eat. For something less than a rupee a day a man can feed himself sumptuously in San Francisco, even though he be a bankrupt. Remember this if ever you are stranded in these parts. ~ Rudyard Kipling, 1891

                  Comment

                  • #189
                    Somethings going to have to give in order for the US economy to get back into equilibrium.

                    Currently the US is cutting investment not consumption - this has led to net investment dropping from 9.4% of net output in Q1 2000 to 5.8% in Q3 2002 (not much higher than the post-war lows of around 5% in 1991-92 and way below the 8%-12% range of 1950-85).

                    The massive rise in depreciation in recent years means that in order for US net investment to get back above 8% gross investment (including that done by government) has to be around 22% of GDP (it's currently 18.4%) a level that was only attained for a couple of quarters in 1979 during the last 50 years.

                    But even if the US could pull off this herculean task the effects on the current account deficit would be dire - you see even with the share of net investment at close to historic lows the US is still running a current account deficit of around 5%, if net investment rebounds with no cut in private consumption then the US's current account deficit will have to double to over a trillion dollars a year by 2006.

                    The best situation would be if government and consumers cut back on spending, if government consumption was cut from the current 15% of GDP to 13% and private consumption from 70% to 66% then the US could bring investment back up to acceptable levels and bring it's current account deficit back down to the levels of the mid 1990's (2% of GDP).

                    One wonders if this can be done however - it would require growth in government consumption of 0.5% for 5 years (around what was achieved during the deficit-cutting years of 1992-97, but remember that defence spending was cut by nearly 2% of GDP during that period) and growth in private consumption of under 2.5% (even slower than during the last two years of 'recession') - this is assuming that the whole economy grows by 3.5% a year.


                    I feel it is likely that the US will fail to invest enough to counter the much higher levels of depreciation now pertaining - with dire consequences for it's long-term growth prospects, unless there is a huge increase in capital productivity (to levels not seen since the 1930's & 40's) then if the US's net investment stays below 7% it is unlikely to achieve long-term growth in productivity above 2%.
                    19th Century Liberal, 21st Century European

                    Comment

                    • #190
                      As you mention it...

                      The funny thing I wonder about is whether the Fed's policy to enforce ultra-low interest rates can create a suboptimal equilibrium where consumption remains high, the foreign account deficit is cut, and net investment shrinks to a level that allows for only 1-2 % GDP growth.

                      Most economists would say no to this, but then, most were predicting 4-5 % GDP growth for Japan for the 1990s.....
                      “Now we declare… that the law-making power or the first and real effective source of law is the people or the body of citizens or the prevailing part of the people according to its election or its will expressed in general convention by vote, commanding or deciding that something be done or omitted in regard to human civil acts under penalty or temporal punishment….” (Marsilius of Padua, „Defensor Pacis“, AD 1324)

                      Comment

                      • #191
                        "One wonders if this can be done however - it would require growth in government consumption of 0.5% for 5 years"

                        At the federal level, there is 0% chance that this will be done (DanS guesstimate ). At the state/local level, much of the growth in spending is constrained by rules keeping spending roughly in line with revenues. You would have to look at the various state/local revenue sources to figure this one out.
                        I came upon a barroom full of bad Salon pictures in which men with hats on the backs of their heads were wolfing food from a counter. It was the institution of the "free lunch" I had struck. You paid for a drink and got as much as you wanted to eat. For something less than a rupee a day a man can feed himself sumptuously in San Francisco, even though he be a bankrupt. Remember this if ever you are stranded in these parts. ~ Rudyard Kipling, 1891

                        Comment

                        • #192
                          US State and Local government expenditures are a little more than 2x the Federal totals by the way; that comes as a bit of a surprise to most folks.


                          US total mortgage debt is now about 74% of annual disposable income. That means we could pay it off in 9 months if we didn't need to eat or pay for premium TV. I was kinda surprised that it was that low. Mortgage debt service then could theoretically be around 5% of DPI.


                          Question for you guys:

                          68% of US domestic households own their home. Does anyone have figures on the levels for the Eurozone or the UK?
                          Be the bid!

                          Comment

                          • #193
                            "US State and Local government expenditures are a little more than 2x the Federal totals by the way; that comes as a bit of a surprise to most folks."

                            Mostly because it isn't true...

                            The federal budget is about 20 % of GDP (including social security), the rest about 15 %. It is however true on the use side of GDP (government consumption and and investment) as a lot of federal spending is redistributing income.

                            "68% of US domestic households own their home. Does anyone have figures on the levels for the Eurozone or the UK?"

                            IIRC it's about 50-55 % for Germany and Austria.
                            “Now we declare… that the law-making power or the first and real effective source of law is the people or the body of citizens or the prevailing part of the people according to its election or its will expressed in general convention by vote, commanding or deciding that something be done or omitted in regard to human civil acts under penalty or temporal punishment….” (Marsilius of Padua, „Defensor Pacis“, AD 1324)

                            Comment

                            • #194
                              Here's a snapshot plot for Europe grabbed from a random PDF. I think home ownership rates can change quickly, as can unemployment (see Ireland).

                              The theory is that high home ownership rates leads to high unemployment due to lack of labor mobility.

                              Apologies if I'm messing up anybody's screen.
                              Attached Files
                              I came upon a barroom full of bad Salon pictures in which men with hats on the backs of their heads were wolfing food from a counter. It was the institution of the "free lunch" I had struck. You paid for a drink and got as much as you wanted to eat. For something less than a rupee a day a man can feed himself sumptuously in San Francisco, even though he be a bankrupt. Remember this if ever you are stranded in these parts. ~ Rudyard Kipling, 1891

                              Comment

                              • #195
                                Combining that data with a series I had for the number of households I get a 60% owner-occupier rate for the EU as a whole.
                                19th Century Liberal, 21st Century European

                                Comment

                                Previous 1 3 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 23 34 template Next
                                Working...
                                X