Category Archives: Economics

Management Advice from Warren Buffet

Posted on March 4, 2008 by John Hunter

As usual, Warren Buffett’s letter to shareholders is packed with wisdom. He is best know for his investing genius but his writing provides great thoughts for managers also: Berkshire Hathaway 2007 Letter to Shareholders: We will soon purchase 60% of … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Investing, Management | Tagged economy, Investing, Warren Buffett | 1 Comment

Lean Manufacturing Saving Jobs Again

Posted on March 2, 2008 by John Hunter

Lean manufacturing saving jobs Keiper Automotive has slashed more than $2 million in costs and saved 100 jobs from layoff — all by reducing waste. Bob Cook, plant manager at the Scanlan Street auto parts manufacturer, hosted a lean manufacturing … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Lean thinking, Management, Systems thinking, UK | Tagged jobs, open access, UK | 1 Comment

Corporations Do Not Exist Solely to Maximize the Bottom Line

Posted on February 26, 2008 by John Hunter

Do corporations exist solely to maximize their bottom lines? We don’t think so., Forbes Magazine: When Bill Gates suggested recently that corporations should sacrifice profits to the public welfare, practicing what he called “creative capitalism,” he wasn’t the first robber … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Economics, Management, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged Deming, Economics, purpose, stakeholders, stockholders, suppliers | 3 Comments

Losing Consumers’ Trust

Posted on February 24, 2008 by John Hunter

Last week their was a recall of 143 million pounds of beef in the USA. Lets take a short systemic view at what is going on. The public has an interest in a safe food supply which is difficult to … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Management, Psychology, Science, Systems thinking | Tagged Customer focus, export, food, government, health, Psychology, regulation, safety, Systems thinking, trade | 5 Comments

USA Spent $2.1 Trillion on Health Care in 2006

Posted on February 20, 2008 by John Hunter

The percent of GDP spent on health care in the USA increased again in 2006 – to 16%. Health care spending reached a total of $2.1 trillion, or $7,026 per person in 2006, up from $6,649 per person in 2005. … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Economics, Health care | Tagged economic data, Health care | 5 Comments

Popular Mechanics: Made in the USA

Posted on February 19, 2008 by John Hunter

Five American Manufacturers Doing It Right America’s manufacturing sales stagnated at the $4 trillion mark in the late 1990s. But then something surprising happened. America started selling again—finding more customers for tractors, steel, plastics, knives and medicines than ever before. … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Management, Manufacturing | Comments Off

Creating Jobs

Posted on January 19, 2008 by John Hunter

Do Lean Companies Create Fewer Jobs? No, they create more. If you assume the lean company grows sales at the same rate as some poorly management company then it may well be that the lean company creates fewer jobs. However … Continue reading →

Posted in Career, Deming, Economics, Lean thinking, Management, Popular, Systems thinking | Tagged Deming, economy, jobs, lean manufacturing, Manufacturing | 5 Comments

Top 10 Manufacturing Countries 2006

Posted on January 15, 2008 by John Hunter

Here is updated data from the UN on manufacturing output by country. China continues to grow amazingly moving into second place for 2006. I plan to write more on this data in the Curious Cat Investing and Economics Blog. UN … Continue reading →

Posted in China, Economics, India, Manufacturing, quote | 4 Comments

Prediction Markets with Google Employees

Posted on January 10, 2008 by John Hunter

Another interesting experiment from Google: Using Prediction Markets to Track Information Flows: Evidence from Google In Google’s terminology, a market asks a question (e.g., “how many users will Gmail have?”) that has 2”5 possible mutually exclusive and completely exhaustive answers … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Data, Economics, Google, Psychology, Statistics, Systems thinking | Comments Off

Measuring the Health of Nations

Posted on January 8, 2008 by John Hunter

Measuring the Health of Nations: Updating an Earlier Analysis In a Commonwealth Fund-supported study comparing preventable deaths in 19 industrialized countries, researchers found that the United States placed last. While the other nations improved dramatically between the two study periods … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Health care, UK | Tagged economy, France, Health care, Japan, USA | 5 Comments