Vorig schooljaar gaf ik enkele maanden wiskundeles aan leerlingen uit de derde graad ASO1. Aangezien ik zo’n vijftien jaar geleden op dezelfde school gezeten heb, was het boeiend om te zien wat er in die tijd veranderd is. Continue reading “Veranderingen in de wiskundeles”
Month: August 2018
Down to the corporate side!
The Up to the Mountains and Down to the Countryside Movement was a government policy in the People’s Republic of China during the 1960s and 1970s. From Wikipedia: “privileged urban youth [were] sent to mountainous areas or farming villages to learn from the workers and farmers there.”
A lot of economists and economic historians study aggregated data, e.g. gross domestic product, inflation, trade flows, or productivity.
Such a high level approach is valuable. However, the macro perspective by definition misses the details. A macroeconomist will typically explain productivity growth by referring to increases in (human) capital and total factor productivity. But how exactly do concrete changes lead to higher output? Continue reading “Down to the corporate side!”
The most devastating cyberattack in history
Wired has a great article (warning: long but worth your time) on last year’s cyberattack. It started as part of the Russian cyberwar against Ukraine. Almost immediately, companies around the world became collateral damage. Andy Greenberg’s Wired story highlights the impact on shipping giant Maersk.
Just to illustrate the vulnerability of IT systems:
Maersk’s 150 or so domain controllers were programmed to sync their data with one another, so that, in theory, any of them could function as a backup for all the others. But that decentralized backup strategy hadn’t accounted for one scenario: where every domain controller is wiped simultaneously. “If we can’t recover our domain controllers,” a Maersk IT staffer remembers thinking, “we can’t recover anything.”
The total damage caused by the attack has been estimated at $10 billion…
Zijn de Duitse pensioenen onbetaalbaar?
Econoom Carsten Brzeski schrijft in zijn column in De Tijd:
Wie in [het vergrijzend Duitsland] constante pensioenen voor de komende twintig jaar belooft, gooit hoge ogen bij het electoraat, maar is bezig met economische zelfmoord.
Economische zelfmoord, dat klinkt serieus! Laten we verder lezen… Continue reading “Zijn de Duitse pensioenen onbetaalbaar?”
‘Hoe bankiers geld scheppen’ in de boekhandel
UPDATE 6/12/2019: Hoe bankiers geld scheppen is enkel nog verkrijgbaar in Leuven en Roeselare en online. Dank aan alle boekhandels die mijn boek in hun aanbod opnamen!
Blader je graag in een boek voor je het koopt? Dan is er goed nieuws!
Hoe bankiers geld scheppen is nu ook te koop in deze boekhandels:
Acco (Gent en Leuven)
De Groene Waterman (Antwerpen)
De Raaklijn (Brugge)
De Reyghere (Brugge)
De Zondvloed (Mechelen en Roeselare)
Letters & Co (Deinze)
Theoria (Kortrijk)
Ignore the news
“War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength“
– Slogan on the building of the Ministry of Truth (George Orwell, 1984)
The financial news offers an endless stream of scary stories and opinions.
Should you sell your stocks because of the news?
Maybe. But probably not. Continue reading “Ignore the news”
Read Brad Setser
Public service announcement: Brad Setser is the go-to guy for all things related to international trade and money.
A few additional points here —
As I find the balance sheet of Turkey's banks fascinating. https://t.co/zm8GfmlVU7
— Brad Setser (@Brad_Setser) August 20, 2018
A prediction about Turkish government debt
The central government debt of Turkey was 28 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) at the end of 2017.
Although making financial predictions is usually a fool’s game, I’m pretty confident that by the end of 2020, the central government debt of Turkey will be higher than 40 percent of GDP.
My prediction is based on the ongoing crisis. Private debt tends to become public debt in these circumstances. Because the debt is dollar-denominated, it cannot be inflated away.
Check this post in 2021!
If this was financial assistance, I’d hate to see the opposite
The European support program for Greece ends today. Some called the program a bailout, others assistance or solidarity. Whatever you call it, the outcome has been abysmal.
You did it! Congratulations to Greece and its people on ending the programme of financial assistance. With huge efforts and European solidarity you seized the day.
— Donald Tusk (@eucopresident) August 20, 2018
Greece fared worse than the US during the Great Depression. Emerging markets recovered faster from financial crises than Greece did. The only countries that have shrunk more than Greece in the past ten years are failed states like Libya, Yemen, and Venezuela.
“Congratulations” to all who were responsible for this “success”.
Luister naar je bankier
De crisis in Turkije heeft ook gevolgen voor Belgische bedrijven die er actief zijn.
De CEO van Soudal zegt in De Tijd:
Toen we gisteren hoorden dat de Turkse lira was gezakt, hebben we beslist niet meer te leveren. Want we kunnen niet meer verkopen aan dezelfde prijs.
In hetzelfde artikel zegt hij:
De betalingstermijnen zijn lang, waardoor we met heel wat uitstaande saldi staan. We gaan die nu eerst zoveel mogelijk proberen te reduceren en onze risico’s proberen te verminderen.
Banken bieden nochtans producten aan die deze financiële problemen kunnen voorkomen. Bedrijven kunnen zich indekken tegen schommelende wisselkoersen met behulp van een FX swap.
Bedrijven kunnen het risico op laattijdige betalingen vermijden door factoring.
Zolang alles goed gaat lijken deze diensten misschien een nutteloze kost. Maar dankzij de corporate bankers kunnen bedrijfsleiders zich focussen op de kernactiviteit van hun onderneming. Ook in tijden van crisis.
Luister dus naar je bankier 🙂