Articles for the week ending January 23

hmm... the market is starting to sell off but not sure if it's anyting political (taxes on banking...also some suggest that Ben Bernanke won't be re-appointed but I don't think so; but if he does not get re-appointed, the next best canadidate appears to Lawrence Summers. Some of the "back-benchers" on the Fed also have a shot.)


Last year's inflation vs deflation debate—which is not yet resolved—appears to have been sidelined, in favour of the China bubble debate.

Here are some articles I found interesting:

• China bear arguments (The Economist): Some are turning bearish on China but The Economist has an opinion piece presenting its mildly bullish view.
• (Recommended) China is not a fake boom like Japan (The Economist): In-depth look at various macroeconomic factors impacting China. The Economist suggests that China is nothing like the bubbly 80's Japan. I am maintaining my bearish view but I have held that view for years. 
• (Recommended) Malcolm Gladwell's thoughts on entrepreneurship (Street Capitalist): Street Capitalist goes over Malcolm Gladwell's article in The New Yorker (subscription required) touching on entrepreneurship.
• Yale School of Management interview with James Chanos (Miguel Barbosa via GuruFocus): Miguel Barbosa of Simoleon Sense linked to this interview with James Chanos, conducted by Yale School of Management during Fall of 2009. Some of the interviews I have linked to in the past cover the same material but this multi-part interview is a good recap of Chanos' bankground, his views of short-selling, and various other issues.
• China's difficulties with buying foreign companies (Reuters via Financial Post): Chinese companies had been on a tear buying up foreign companies but the results haven't been good.
• Target plans to enter the Canadian market (The Star): American discount retailer, Target, is finally coming to Canada. This could shake up the discount retail market in Canada, which, in my opinion, hasn't been keeping up with retail innovations in the US.
• New York Times plans to charge for online news (The Star): Sometimes subtle, small, changes end up changing history. I wonder if this is one of them. New York Times is apparently going to be charging for online content, starting in 2011. It tried doing this before and failed—twice! It is a big gamble but desperate times often result in desperate moves. As I have argued several times before, newspapers have no hope of being as grand as they were before. The core problem is that they lost lucrative revenue sources such as classifieds. Their only hope is to slowly shut down the print operations (not an easy thing since they have high fixed costs and long-term labour contracts.) If e-readers or tablets take off, I can see them surviving with subscriptions while the physical paper dissapears.