Sam Kornstein

We Make Lots Of Stuff

Posted on February 7, 2011February 7, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in Markets

About 20% of all stuff in the world, actually. From the Boston Globe, via Colin Whooten (no blog) and Scott Sumner: Americans make more “stuff’’ than any other nation on earth, and by a wide margin. According to the United Nations’ comprehensive database of international economic data, America’s manufacturing output in 2009 (expressed in constant 2005 dollars) was $2.15 trillion. That surpassed China’s output of $1.48 trillion by nearly 46 percent. China’s industries may be booming, but the United States still accounted for 20 percent of the world’s manufacturing output in 2009 — only a hair below its 1990 share of 21 percent. “The decline, demise, and death of America’s manufacturing sector has been greatly exaggerated,’’ says economist Mark Perry, a

Hedging What?

Posted on February 6, 2011October 19, 2013 by Sam Kornstein in General, Uncategorized

A reader sent me this article about companies betting on snowfall: “With record amounts of snow blanketing even some of the warmest cities across the nation this winter, an increasing number of companies are protecting themselves by betting on …. snow. Unexpected blizzards and snowstorms can cost companies thousands of dollars in lost business each year. “People have tended to have a fatalistic view of weather,” said Tim Andriesen, managing director of Agricultural Commodities at CME Group. “Now more and more people are recognizing that while you can’t control the weather, you can at least manage the financial impact of it.” The Chicago Mercantile Exchange, which began offering snow futures in 2006, has already sold five times more contracts this

Angry Dogs

Posted on February 6, 2011February 6, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in General

Earlier today this happened on the deck outside my third-floor bedroom: I have no clue who they are or where they came from.

Food Prices

Posted on February 5, 2011February 5, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in Current Events, Markets

There’s been much talk in the media about how the initial protests in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, and Jordan were, at least partly, sparked by unrest due to rising commodity and food prices. What’s been discussed much less is the underlying cause of these price spikes. Is it speculation, or an actual increase in consumption (or a decrease in yields)? I hadn’t thought much about it until a reader sent me this article written by Joel Brinkley, a Stanford journalism professor who’s a foreign correspondent for the NYT (syndicated in my hometown’s daily newspaper): The world is heading into a food crisis again, barely three years after the last one in 2008. That, not political reform, animated the riots and demonstrations

Site Traffic…Sex!

Posted on February 4, 2011February 4, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in General

I continue to find it really interesting to track my site traffic trends using wordpress and Google analytics. I’m never really sure which posts will generate a lot of traffic, or where it comes from. So now that I’ve been at this for just over a month, I decided to take a look. Here’s what I came up with: Seeing as how I’m not going back to Cambodia, eating more tarantulas, or changing my domain name anytime soon, I’ve concluded that if I want to increase my traffic, I need to talk more about sex, and James Spector needs to keep re-tweeting my posts. But it would be strange in a circular sort of way if he re-tweets this one.

Ice Desert

Posted on February 3, 2011February 3, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in Boston/Cambridge, Photography

The Charles at sunset:

The Original Venn Diagram

Posted on February 3, 2011February 3, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in Cartoons

Panowhat?

Posted on February 2, 2011February 2, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in Photography

A 24 hour view of the sky in Athens: Via Chris Blattman via Kottke.

No, Shut Up

Posted on February 2, 2011February 2, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in Technology

This is dead on. Via Ezra Klein, the following answer was provided on Quora in response to this question: Why is Dropbox so popular? Well, let’s take a step back and think about the sync problem and what the ideal solution for it would do: There would be a folder. You’d put your stuff in it. It would sync. They built that. Why didn’t anyone else build that? I have no idea. “But,” you may ask, “so much more you could do! What about task management, calendaring, customized dashboards, virtual white boarding. More than just folders and files!” No, shut up. People don’t use that crap. They just want a folder. A folder that syncs. “But,” you may say, “this is

The Framing of News

Posted on February 1, 2011February 2, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in Current Events

I wanted to check out the latest from Egypt this evening, so I first went to the BBC: Then I went to Al Jazeera: From the headlines alone, you’d think he gave two different speeches. I won’t read too far into it, and the articles reported much of the same information with varying emphasis, but it seems the BBC is quick to report a victory on behalf of the protesters, while Al Jazeera is implying the protests must will go on. Take another look at the two pictures of Mubarak.