From a business perspective (and believe it, it hurts me saying that), this discussion makes no sense. It's like saying: 'are we in a PMIs bubble'? Or, 'are we in a multinationals bubble?'. The point is that we tend to group things together in categories. But does it make sense to put, say, Facebook and, say, MakeLeaps (start up that manages invoices for small businesses) in the same category? It think it does not, as much as it does not make sense to put Apple and Mc Donald in the same pot. Would you say Apple and Mc Donald are in a multinationals bubble?
However, those discussions do show something, that there is an underlying need to understand the market and the businesses out there. More start ups focused on BtoB I think are needed. Corporate and business software sucks and costs a lot in terms of actual cost and lost efficiency, when are people going to realize that and work on that too?
Agree. But usually business rules and exceptions boil down to filters and look ups on the dataset. It is difficult to keep up with that mess from outside, but if you deliver a way to make look ups and filters efficiently, maybe you got a solution.
Well, at work I use Cognos. But it is clumsy and it forces you in its paradigms. Instead, when I dream or code (I am learning to code, I am a finance guy), I am making demos for things that should provide a better way to explore your data: http://andemo.ep.io/.
Basically, my issue with corporate analytics is that there are no apis. Everything has to be accessed from its software. SAP data stays in SAP or goes in some 90' data warehause system.
Another issue is that data is stored in multiple versions in different files across many users locations (Excel files madness). This drives people nuts and I can't understand why don't we already have a BaseCamp for finance and analytics.
A third issue is that people are mixing data and views. This makes usually data in, i.e. in spreadsheets, completelly unuseful for other analysis, you basically have to copy and paste data from the fancy templates to a clean file to use it. Views should be web based too, not to enter the 'update this file periodically manually' hell.
Once you have apis, it's a matter of building apps to consume them and eventually to make snapshots of your data (you don't want to recalculate monthly billings at every page request). Your specific need, for example, could be solved with a fancy web based pivot table (the sort you have in spreadsheets) that accesses json data...
So, finally, if you find or start an interesing project of this type, let me know as I am interested to join!
RE. issue 2) and 3) I just thought that data cubes an open, but standardized format could help - not only in the financial area: I found RDF data cubes ( http://publishing-statistical-data.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/... ) perhaps being a part of the solution there, with the value add that you could easily connect different data source using their semantics.
Are you sure of this example? It does look like GDP is 200k in both cases. The first case looks wrong, if he pulls 25k from his savings, there will be -25k in savings (or investments as they are the same) and +25k in spendings. Effect is 0...
The maid spends money in the first case, also. In the first case the money flows through a 25k expenditure that it doesn't flow through in the second case.
You are assuming that investments don't bring spending. But that is wrong. If the maid does not get the 25, a company, a bank, a fund, will get it (as savings=investments). This means the 25 will flow in the economy in both cases.
GDP is a first principles thing. It's designed to measure how much money is spent on consumption.
When the maid gets married, money is no longer spent on consuming her services, and that's the end of the story. Everything else is just accounting. In this example, the 25k of spending in the first case is counted one time extra because it passes through the maid on the way to some other saving or spending.
In the first case he has 175 of investments (I) and 25 of consume (C).
In the second case he has 200 of investments.
If some of the downvoters can please explain in those terms where I am wrong, it would be nice. Please, show me where the +25 come from in the 1st case.
Let's say the man invests all his money in a socks business. In the first case his socks business will demand 25k less. The maid will demand 25k more. I still see effect 0. I think the problem is people are not considering savings in the equation...
In the first scenario, the income of the man is 200K and the income of the woman is 25K. For a total income of 225K. It doesn't matter where the money comes from or is going. That's the income both will write on the federal returns or whatever you want, for the sake of the example.
When they get married, the man's income stays the same. The woman's income evaporates. She's not getting paid anymore. So their combined income is now 200K.
But the situation is exactly the same! The same amount of work is being done.
GDP works exactly the same way. It's an account of money flows, not production or actual economic activity.
Again, in the first case the man is simply spending the 25k on the maid. In the second case he will spend the 25k in something else. That something else will then spend the 25k as the maid would have done. No change.
Again, in the first case the man is simply spending the 25k on the maid. In the second case he will spend the 25k in something else.
Again, you are looking at the GDP of the man, not of the pair of people.
Because the man first spends 25k, and then the maid spends 25k again, the 25k is counted twice in GDP statistics. In the second case, it is counted once.
Well, let's say that now that he saves 25k for the maid, he hires a gardner. GDP 225 again? So basically the GDP depends on the number of transactions? Is that so?
To me your arguments seems to be sound. What is 'scary' is seeing some prices out there. They are very low. I was looking at mixpanel pricing (https://mixpanel.com/pricing/) lately. A game changer should be able to provide more than those fees per month. Especially in the analytics sector that needs solutions like crazy. I mean, a decent consultant makes 1 k per day at least, why? Are start ups asking themselves about the value they provide or they want just to hit it big: become valuable only because serving millions of people?
This looks good, what about the non standard browsers (IE<9, what did you think?)? I have been looking into d3 a lot lately, but if there is no good support for IE, then no way this can be used for business apps.
From what i read rickshaw is based on d3. So if rickshaw essentially works as a high level wrapper around d3, then there is a possibility that we can get it working on older IEs with the usual d3 hacks.
Agree on this. Especially the shiny and good looking ones. For a technical crowd you can stick with a black line. For business the format is as important as the substance. Therefore, I can't see lots of applications for graphs libraries that don't support that piece of work that is IE.
Workers are not pointed a gun to do the job. Given the opportunities they have, they are choosing this specific opportunity. This means that this service is increasing their expected value from the job. I don't see how this can be bad.
What's the problem then? Having management? 'Stealing' profit from the workers?
You can't seem to understand that 1000 workers doing 'their' job may be hundrends of times less productive than doing the same job under the same company. Lots of things (machinery, know how, etc.) need a company and a capital.
Finally, I also don't understand discussing capitalism. Here we are discussing freedom for individuals to work and to create a start up. What would you rather do? Force everybody down the same principles? Not sure it's right.
For us business guys (and the term is broad, there can be also quite technical/numerical business guys...) is really a struggle convincing anybody that we can code. Yes, we have small tiny demos laying in there (<shameless plug>http://andemo.ep.io </shameless plug>), or we hack some scripts for fun, but we are not professionals! And it takes ages to become one alone.
Point is, it would be cool to have more chances. Even unpaid gigs or below decency pay could help. But nothing of this around. Especially because it should be remote. Hope somebody fixes this, if there is really a shortage of programmers I mean.
The main challenge is that start ups, as it is normal, seems to look for top people or with lots of experience. The second challenge is that even if they would consider an unexperienced person, they would not do it remote. I am pretty sure if I lived in the right 'hot' places I could find something, but I don't.
It has to be remote as I live in a small city in Germany. I can't move out as I need my job. I don't live my job as I have no idea if start ups would be for me (that's why a remote work would be nice too, to get to know what the job is...). But I noticed I get programming fast, so that's why I always look for a chance to prove myself in there, maybe finance is not for me after all, who knows.
Could you be more specific on why this will not happen? As you say, in-web calls should be possible, why people don't compete against skype with decent web apps?
I think a new stand-alone application has zero chance of successfully taking on Skype head to head. A web app, possibly embedded in a social setting, has a much better chance of success, if well executed.
This is good news. But I am not sure yet if I would vote for them (usually I do not vote). Their economic policy seems not mature enough or too much towards an even more socialist State. This is what is now failing us in most of the western Europe.
I would really like to see some groups against copyright/patent madness AND against public spending/over taxation madness we have been struggling with for the last decades. Unfortunately, it seems that in Europe those ideas tend to polarize between 2 'very' different groups such as left (and not even all) for the copyright thing and right (and not even all) for the taxes thing. And that's why I do not vote.
Fuck I just wrote a juge text but the link expired and I lost it.
Heres the short version:
Generally I agree and I would like to see that too.
About PP:
1. Basic Income (BGE) is a very liberal socal policy(something I could see Friedman or Hayek support). It rases the amount of GDP on the government side but takes away a lot of the controll and bureaucracy that is there now.
2. The want to take away alot of state power too, specially in police and military. Think about what massiv change there drug policy would make.
3. The are the only ones that I could ever see attacking finance. Because (a) the are young (b) not infiltrated by lobbiests (yet) (c) currage to trie something diffrent (think out of the box) (d) efficent use of tools and communication (work on the buget like a opensource project would be something worth trying)
Rather have liberal statist with a social side then conservativ statist with love for police (CUD) or hardcore statist like (SPD).
"Basic Income (BGE) is a very liberal socal policy(something I could see Friedman or Hayek support)."
Actually Friedman (I assume you're talking about Milton Friedman here, since there are several prominent economists named 'Friedman' nowadays) advocated just that in 1962 in 'Capitalism and Freedom', albeit in the form of a negative income tax.
I believe Friedman supported it sort of half-heartedly, because he thought the population wouldn't stand for not having a social safety net at all, and if there was to be one, the negative income tax was less distorting and less bureaucratic than the usual mixture of rent control, food stamps, and unemployment benefits.
Hayek did support it on more philosophical grounds, because he thought it would increase individual freedom. Almost the exact opposite reasoning as some libertarians, actually. It's common for libertarians to argue that social programs should be handled by private charity, but Hayek worried that doing so leads to collectivism, because people feel bound to social cliques that provide social safety for their members (ethnic groups, churches, etc.), and fear leaving the groups lest they lose their insurance. So he would prefer there be a society-wide safety net not tied to these cliques.
Yes I talk about Miltion. He supported the negative income tax because it was a better system (I think that BGE is even more effectiv). The diffrence between Milton and me for exmple is that he tought that the NIT was only temporary. He wanted a temporary system until the Free Market did not need such a system any more but I think he agree that it would take a while.
I encourage you to vote next time. Of course no party will ever be fully aligned with your interests. And true, the Pirate Party has only recently started to seriously think about topics outside their main fields. But no party completely pushes through their own positions anyway:
If the Pirate Party would form a coalition e.g. with the Union party, they would have to negotiate a coalition agreement. And each party will make sure that they please their clients (i.e. their voters or other supporters) sufficiently. So the Pirate Party would probably abandon their weaker positions (e.g. economic policy), but hold their ground on their main topics (copyright/patents etc.).
well i have bad news for you.
the only party in germany that is really pro free market capitalism, the FDP, is on its way to obscurity due to severe policy missteps.
All the other parties embrace, as we call it here, "social capitalism" to varying degrees.
So, in germany, you mainly have the choice between several "left leaning" parties.
When measured by US standards, most our parties are "socialist".
As much as definitions are concerned, also US has only socialist parties. The first problem begins when your parties only discuss about further spending and never about expense reductions (as in US too). The other problem begins when the State thinks it has the right to decide on things that should be left to the individual, for example, it makes absolutely no sense that in Germany shops are mandated to be closed on Saturdays (less of this in Us?).
Finally, as there is no pure socialism/capitalism, I believe we should look at few simple things. For example, effective taxation (together with mandatory helthcare and pension) on the individual should not be 50% of his income (and it is in Italy, for example); public spending should not be 50% of GDP either. Let's start from here...
I think you use the term socialism wrong. Socialism means the workplace is owned by workers in some fashon. What you talk about are Statist policys. They are often confused because what people often mean when they say Socialism/Communism is State Socialism USSR style.
I agree that we need to throw away this rules and lot of burocracy. I think the BGK is a nice system if you want to have a social system and a pension system without giving the government real controll of the people (Gov. part of GDP would rise but the controll would be a lot less).
Taxation needs to be simpler, the current system is all about spezial intresst. Its a difficuled field but there are many ideas.
It seems to be by US standards every state that collects taxes is socialist. After all, that means the government decides what to spend part of your money on. Why is it more socialist to spend the money on healthcare than on a new motorway?
I am not from US, but indeed I do see as socialist any State that collects taxes. Socialism is a broad definition, I just like to use it like this because it shows that the problem is the continuum and not the extremes. And for me the main continuums to look at are spending and taxes on GDP. Those should be lower than 50% (arbitrary number from my side, but it makes sense).
However, those discussions do show something, that there is an underlying need to understand the market and the businesses out there. More start ups focused on BtoB I think are needed. Corporate and business software sucks and costs a lot in terms of actual cost and lost efficiency, when are people going to realize that and work on that too?