Toluu

Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed

Musing about technology, finance, venture capital, & the money culture with Paul Kedrosky

Lord Kelvin and Being Usefully WrongJanuary 2

There is nothing wrong with being wrong, only with being wrong for the wrong reasons. Some of the smartest investors, entrepreneurs and scientists get things badly wrong, but the hallmark of brilliance is how quickly they realize their error, as well as what can be learned from the thinking process that got them there.

Consider this great example from Lord Kevin:

Kelvin did not believe that heavier-than-air flying machines were possible and he regarded X-rays as a hoax. Kelvin’s ingenuity was manifested even in cases where his overall predictions were wrong. He gave a lecture on the state of physics at the turn of the twentieth century, and - not unlike Hilbert’s famous lectures in mathematics - claimed that physics was nearly complete and all problems would soon be settled. He mentioned, however, “two clouds on the horizon,” the unexpected behavior of ether in the Michelson-Morley experiment and the problem of the spectrum of the black body radiation. His genius as a physicist was manifested by the fact that of all the scores of open problems in physics present at the time (as there always are), he pinpointed the two problems that subsequently led to revolutions: the ether problem led to r

Peter Schiff vs. Peak Oil in 2008January 2

I'm sure I'm not the only one who has noticed that with Matthew "Peak Oil" Simmons near-complete disappearance from U.S. media has come the ubiquity of Peter "debt is the problem" Schiff. Both men have their charms, so I'm mostly talking about the lead change, as shown in the following Google search trends graph across all of 2008:

Banned Words/Phrases from 2008January 1

Lake Superior State University has out its annual list of banned words and phrases that should not be allowed into 2009:

Green

Carbon footprint/offsetting

Maverick

First Dude

Bailout

Wall Street/Main Street

<3

Icon or Iconic

Game changer

Staycation

Desperate search

Not so much

Winner of five nominations

It's that time of year again

Feel free to add your own. I've suggested many on this site over the year.

Ten-Year Equity Index Returns (in USD)January 1

By request, here is the the chart from the previous post, but in USD. Again, it compares ten-year performance worldwide across all countries for which Bloomberg has data:

Ten-Year Equity Index ReturnsDecember 31 2008

Fun chart of top/bottom ten-year equity index country returns around the world. Note that these are not currency-adjusted.