Friday, January 2, 2009

Equity markets globally ethered in 2008

Check out this Economist magazine link.

I had already known the US equity market (S&P 500) had collapsed 40.8% in 2008.

I was surprised to learn most other countries' equity markets had been more severely ethered.

In particular, the BRIC countries, aka "their takin our US jobbs" coalition aka the 21st Century new superpowers got pwned in 2008, both in their own currency & in USD terms.

In other words, the BRIC caught a brick, dunny! More like a dumptruck of bricks fell on their head.

Damn sonn, this doesn't bode well for labor globally, whether you're in the US or Vietnam. Whether you're a PhD scientist or a HS dropout manual laborer. More justification for more race to the bottom tactics. China is getting ethered despite paying $0.40/hr for factory workers, & India likewise paying $15K/year for PhD engineers & scientists in offshore outsourcing R&D centers? If the "Ownership Society" cats are getting ethered, best believe they will "trickle down" the pain to us wage slave laborers. Maybe Busta Rhymes was prophetic, yet 10 years early in his ELE prognostications.

Country Local Currency USD
Brazil -42.0% -57.0%
Russia -66.6% -71.9%
India -53.0% -61.7%
China -64.8% -62.5%

Question: I like how The Economist lists all this data, but I also want to see Price-to-Earnings (PE) & Price-to-Sales (PS) ratios to see the relevant valuations between countries, & more importantly, the relevant current valuations over the 100+ year historical valuations of the US stock market. Hit up the comments if you know of such a site, help a brother out mayne!

Flowchart of Ice Cube's "It Was A Good Day"

flowchart You don't even have to use ur AK

Monday, December 29, 2008

fw - 30 FOSS apps

article bigging up 30 FOSS (free & open source software) apps for consumer PC.

I currently use #1 Firefox, & 11 VLC.

I used to use 17 MusikCube, but currently use the imho superior Foobar2000. Either way mf a wack iTunes app.