The Underpants Gnomes
“I think best in a hot bath, with my head tilted back and my feet up high.” –
Elizabeth Jane Howard, Mr. Wrong
“Now, I want y’all to read a newspaper — or better still, watch television — and come up with something current to do a report on.” –
Mr. Garrison
“Business is all about solving people’s
problems — at a proft.”
–
Charles Baudelaire
“A dream business that doesn’t make money is a living nightmare.” –
Habeeb Akande
“Proftable bookstores sell books. Unproftable book sellers store books.”
–
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
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THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO
Hmmm...
A walk around the fringes of nance
By Grant Williams
27 May 2014
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THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO
Hmmm...
27 May 2014
Contents
Europe’s Centre Crumbles As Socialists Immolate Themselves on Altar of EMU .............18Barclays Fined for Manipulating Price of Gold for a Decade ....................................19Wall Street Finds New Subprime with Brokers Pitching 125% Loans ...........................20Century-Old Gold Benchmark Back in Focus After Barclays .....................................22Decade of Sino-Russian Talks on Natural Gas Finally Yields Agreement .......................23Thailand’s Military Stages Coup, Thwarting Populist Movement ...............................25We Ought to Be EU-Skeptic ..........................................................................26A Question of Velocity ................................................................................28Are There Major Mistakes in the Bombshell Economics Book of the Year? ....................30
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THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO
Hmmm...
27 May 2014
Things That Make You Go
Hmmm...
This week’s TTMYGH will be a little shorter than usual (“Thank heavens!” I hear you cry) owing to my presence at the Strategic Investment Conference 2014 this past week and the travel time to and fro.Due to the hectic schedule and the fact that there were so many interesting people in attendance, I had planned to spend my week dragging as much knowledge as I possibly could out of those who made the trip to San
Diego rather than committing nger to keyboard; but a
chance encounter with a delightful young lady initiated an engaging conversation which, in turn, led to my discovery of the Underpants Gnomes.Those of you who have ever attended an event such as the SIC know full well how such conversations arise. Those of you who haven’t will likely think I’ve taken another step towards the light (and will wonder just what sort of a dialogue we engaged in), but allow me to elaborate.I will spare the name of the young lady in question to protect her modesty, but if she happens
to be reading this back home in Bath, my thanks for the inspiration — even though I nd myself
awake at 3 AM rather worriedly thinking about underpants.On December 16th, 1998, Comedy Central broadcast the seventeenth episode of the second season of
South Park.
In the episode, written by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, Harbucks (a franchise coffee shop chain with no similarity to any real-life company) planned to enter the South Park coffee market, thus threatening the local business owners.Through a rather convoluted series of developments, the boys (Stan, Kenny, Kyle, and Cartman), are tasked with writing a school report on the threat that corporatism poses to small businesses. The report mobilizes the South Park community to take action against the insurgent corporate behemoth.In true
South Park
style, what starts off as an attack on the culture of greed surrounding corporate interests ends up taking a pot-shot at the work ethic and merchandise quality of the small business owner.Somewhat surprisingly, the TV critic (and sometime Austrian economist) Paul Cantor referred to this particular episode as “the most fully developed defense of capitalism ever” — which simultaneously speaks volumes regarding both the
South Park
writers and all those who have at one point or another defended capitalism.
(If you’d like to watch the full episode, you can nd it
HERE. Ain’t the internet grand?)
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