April 9, 2008 9:36

The age of Scandinavian economic hegemony continues

The new World Economic Forum Global Information Technology Report is out, and it ranks Denmark and Sweden as the first and second most-networked economies on earth. No. 3 is Switzerland, which would make you think that the key to networkedness is being a small, rich European country. But then, rocketing up the rankings from seventh place last year, is the United States of America.

But this apparently doesn't mean we have better broadband than all the places lower on the list. We just, according to the people at Insead, who assembled the list for the WEF, have better laws and stuff. Reports John Markoff in the NYT:

“What the U.S. has is a number of strengths along a number of dimensions,” said Soumitra Dutta, a professor of information systems at Insead and the director of the study. “It is not just a question of technology. Political and economic factors become extremely important.”

He pointed to France as a country that was a technology leader in terms of network services that had trailed in the study, ranked at 21. “It’s not because France is lacking in technology,” Professor Dutta said. “If you look at other kinds of regulatory issues and labor conditions, you find a rigid situation that prohibits companies from making the most effective use of technology.”

And maybe it's just that we Americans like networking so much.

Anyway, here's the top 10 list of the world's purportedly most networked economies:

1. Denmark
2. Sweden
3. Switzerland
4. US
5. Singapore
6. Finland
7. Netherlands
8. Iceland
9. Korea
10. Norway

Sphere Related Blogs & Articles

|

April 8, 2008 10:17

The first Starbucks recession

My (free) cup of Pike Place Roast, in Bryant Park

You know how all those Suze Orman/Dave Ramsey/David Bach types, when they talk about getting out of debt and saving some money, tend to start by saying you should give up that $4 cup of Starbucks in the morning? Well, Americans appear to be taking their advice, on a mass scale.

"You've got a consumer that clearly is under tremendous pressure," said Howard Schultz, now 12 weeks into his second stint as Starbucks CEO, on a visit to Time yesterday afternoon. "For the first time in our history as a company, we have negative traffic this year vs. last."

Sphere Related Blogs & Articles

|

April 8, 2008 6:16

Welcome to the low-cost manufacturing paradise that is the United States

From today's WSJ:

For years the U.S. has been one of the most expensive places in the world to make cars. But the new contracts with the United Auto Workers union signed last fall significantly improve the global competitive position of Big Three plants. The weaker dollar, which makes production in the U.S. less expensive, is also helping to turn the economics of domestic production upside down.

... Detroit's improved competitive position has sparked concern among foreign manufacturers, which do not use unionized U.S. workers. Toyota Motor Corp. is now pushing to lower labor costs in the U.S., say people familiar with the matter.

Later this year, GM will begin shipping the Buick Enclave, a seven-passenger crossover sport-utility vehicle made in Lansing, Mich., to China, where the Buick brand is a big seller. GM hopes eventually to export as many as 25,000 Enclaves a year to China, said Dee Allen, a GM spokesman. ...

Okay, so maybe we can't devalue our way to prosperity. But it sure looks like we can devalue our way to an export revival.

Sphere Related Blogs & Articles

|

April 7, 2008 3:39

Steven Pearlstein rocks, Pulitzer committee notices

I've actually been meaning for a few weeks to write a post about the vagaries of what in the MSM gets noticed in the blogosphere and what does not. Pretty much every half-baked column on the Washington Post op-ed page gets subjected to a full-on linkfest, I was going to write, while the almost invariably compelling work of columnist Steven Pearlstein gets mostly ignored because it's on the business page.

Well, at least the Pulitzer Prize people didn't ignore him.

Sphere Related Blogs & Articles

|

April 7, 2008 10:46

Global financial crises bring people and nations closer together

In the news today ...

... the WSJ joins the hey-look-at-how-Sweden-dealt-with-its-big-financial-crisis parade (which may well have begun right here on this blog):

As it happens, the U.S. already seems to be applying some of the key lessons from the Swedish crisis. The government-backed sale of investment bank Bear Stearns Cos. "was handled exactly as the Swedish crisis was," says Anders Aslund, a Swedish economist at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.

... Alex Tabarrok argues that the fact that people all over the world have lost money on American subprime mortgages is a good thing:

The losses, of course, are regrettable and the desire to find and apportion blame for the crisis among investors, home buyers, mortgage brokers, credit analysts and regulators is understandable. We should and will learn lessons. And yet, despite problems with transparency one of those lessons ought to be that the crisis would have been worse if the losses had been more concentrated.

Sphere Related Blogs & Articles

|