10 Jun

Posted at 11:24h in Credit Spectrum
Over the last few weeks, much ink has been spilled in an attempt to refute, undermine and marginalize the book “Capital in the 21st Century” by Thomas Piketty, a French economist. In some, unsurprisingly British quarters it has even reached the level of “the lady doth protest too much, methinks.” You cannot convince people of your viewpoint by just silencing the opposition. It’s a safe bet that, had a British economist said the same things or reached similar conclusions, no British institution would have attacked him so publicly. But who knows, perhaps “Le Monde” would have done so with gusto and joie de vivre! It’s clear that the Financial Times is not a proper forum to argue about economic time-series with any seriousness. Although one can find fault with the Mona Lisa, doing so does not take anything away from its value as a work of art.

04 Apr

Posted at 17:18h in Film Fundamentals

Science has an important place in the study of movies at virtually every stage of the film-making process. But movies are also about illusion, a shadow box of dreams. Perhaps that is why a lot of the science that gets applied to film is sometimes...

22 Mar

Posted at 15:08h in China
Can securitization work in China? Securitization was invented in the 1970s to resolve a U.S. systemic financial crisis. It can work anywhere, provided that (i) the legal system supports the market’s custom and practice; and (ii) the system of risk measures reflects true security risk and value. Twenty years ago, securitization could not work in China. The law did not expressly allow asset purchases and sales. But in the last two decades, China’s central government has shown considerable will to foster securitization.

21 Mar

Posted at 13:10h in China, Credit Spectrum

Two days ago, Business Insider published a good summary of little known facts about Alibaba. Several facts highlight how the mega trade-web dwarfs competitor e-commerce platforms in the U.S. and in China on several critical measures, including employees, registered users, web visits, sales throughput (on track...

15 Mar

Posted at 16:16h in Film Fundamentals

Having spent many articles pounding on the issue of metric measurement and film finance and production, I need to take a moment to admit that not everything is about measurement. I have to make this admission. Otherwise, I end up sounding like one of those...

24 Feb

Posted at 18:06h in Film Fundamentals

The first step toward metric measurement with issues concerning the film business is determining what elements within the process can be quantified. In other words, what can be measured, and what sort of parameters are you using for these measurements. Easier said than done. The film-making process...