Power Pal

I read an interesting article in USA Today a couple weeks ago while traveling. USA Today actually is pretty fun reading. Anyhow, the article was about the Argentine wine industry and how it has grown over the last 30 years or so. Sue and I have been trying out Malbec's from Argentina lately (including the Norton winery they mention in the article), so I thought it was interesting to read the background on the whole industry. Apparently the wine industry was already pretty big in Argentina, but they generally only sold their wines locally. But a part-time UC Berkeley economics professor put the lesson from Napa Valley into action. Napa was able to elevate their wines to be competitive with those from Europe. He figured, why not do that in Argentina? So he did. And he made an interesting decision in pricing the wine that demanded people respect Argentina's product. Here's an excerpt: By 1990, Catena had returned to Argentina and begun producing wines for sale abroad. As he ...

I read an article in the WSJ about a month ago about how Silicon Valleny should be able to withstand the next bust period. Apparently in the last bust between 2001 and 2005, one in five (or 20%) of people in the valley lost their jobs. That's a lot. Things have been picking up lately (the traffic keeps getting worse) and a bust period is likely in the next few years. Apparently this time, though, it shouldn't be as bad as last time. A couple reasons the articles sites for that: Start-ups are running leaner these days: It's cheaper to operate web start-ups because of cheap technology, "open source" software, and offshoring. Most companies aren't going public: A bunch of profitless Internet companies went public in the last bust, but they aren't this time around. So the common investor won't be affected. The downside of that last point is that most companies aren't going public but instead holding out for an acquisition by a big player like Microsof...