Economies, in the plural, since two recent articles have dealt with the “unofficial” sides of the Chinese Economy. First there was a Bloomberg article on Chinese banks getting the order to move their off-balance sheet stuff to the books. It makes us wonder who still trusts short-term bank earnings in China. We suggest a “translation” to the funny part inside, along with the second article, a LEX on China’s “grey” economy, mentioning research by Credit Suisse. In it CS researches China’s “real” wealth distribution, and surprise surprise, it looks more like South than North America. Why? Because incomes may be as much as 90% higher than official stats. Would the real China please stand up?
A rare but always welcome interview by Charlie Munger embedded inside, courtesy of an attentive reader and the Stanford Law School. Some highlights inside as well. The main theme is the economic/ financial crisis (what else?).
Buffett was particularly expansive regarding his processes and methods, and this alone makes this video worth the time (some 90 minutes). The fact that it was October 1998, a pivotal time in the dot-com boom and just after the LTCM imbroglio makes it even more interesting.
Alice “Snowball” Schroeder last month wrote a piece on Bloomberg called “Wall Street makes it hard to earn a legal living”. While IP has always discussed the obvious conflicts of interest for all the market’s agents, and the sell side in particular, Alicemisses a turn in the road somewhere – falls down the rabbit hole? – and turns this article into quite the generalization. The issue of conflicts of interests deserved a better effort.
