David's Macro Blog

Mark Zuckerberg at Web 2.0 Summit: Facebook’s Plan to Build out the Social Internet Ecosystem

David Overfield — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 23:12:53 +0000

Over the next five years almost every major product vertical will be rethought to be social. GET ON THE BUS! The bottom line we found was that you make something social and that rethinks the whole space. The social version of anything can always be much more engaging and outperform non-social versions. There are just [...]

Khan Academy: Radical Education Change that Actually Works

David Overfield — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 21:46:29 +0000

Could one guy making free education videos in his closet alter the entire multi-billion dollar educational landscape forever? YES! Salman Khan left his lucrative hedge fund career in his 30′s to spend full-time making educational videos for Khan Academy. Now with grants from entities like Google, Microsoft, and Kleiner Perkins, his short-term goal is to [...]

C-SPAN Interview of Michael Lewis on The Big Short

David Overfield — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 22:42:12 +0000

When did Wall Street become the dumb money? Why did traders who lost on their bets still earn millions (sometimes tens of millions) in income? Author Micheal Lewis (Liars Poker, Moneyball, The Blind Side) explains the answers to both of these questions in his best-selling book, The Big Short. He writes so that even his [...]

Municipal Bond Failures: Meredith Whitney Says Inevitable

David Overfield — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 20:53:28 +0000

Municipal bonds are supposed to be one of the safest investments, especially for small private investors saving for retirement or using the interest income for their living expenses. Unfortunately states and other local municipalities have borrowed more money than they can pay back. Wall Street analyst Meredith Whitney says muni bond failures (i.e. a default [...]

SEAL Training – Train the Best, Discard the Rest

David Overfield — Fri, 27 May 2011 22:58:08 +0000

SEAL Team 6, whose existence has never been officially acknowledged, is the group of men who entered Pakistan and killed Usama Bin Laden at his home. They are just like the super quiet helicopters used to fly into Pakistan undetected, just 1 hour from its capital city. Vanity Fair has an excellent article with excerpts [...]

Jon Stewart Interviewed by Rachel Maddow

David Overfield — Sat, 21 May 2011 01:45:54 +0000

Jon Stewart of the Daily Show was interviewed for about an hour by Rachel Maddow regarding his perception in the media, The Rally to Restore Sanity, media biases, and politics. Why is one of our most insightful social commentators a comedian? Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy Best quotes [...]

Why Lehman Failed and Filed for Bankruptcy

David Overfield — Sat, 14 May 2011 00:04:55 +0000

During the height of the 2008 credit crunch, Lehman Brothers, led by CEO Dick Fuld, was not bailed out by the government. Instead, it was allowed to fail and become the largest bankruptcy in history. How did this 150-year old firm that survived the Civil War and the Great Depression fail? The short answer is, [...]

Zappos – A Bad Idea Turned into a Billion Dollar Business

David Overfield — Fri, 06 May 2011 22:54:56 +0000

Startup businesses are often toughest on the owners because they have to overcome so much adversity on the road to eventual success. Online shoe retailer Zappos, led by Tony Hsieh, endured about a decade of failures before its successful acquisition by Amazon Inc. Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with [...]

Flipping Houses on TV – Not Profitable

David Overfield — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 23:07:21 +0000

Reality TV is entertainment. Remember the halcyon days in the mid 2000′s when everyone thought they could make money flipping real estate for profit after watching shows like Property Ladder and Flip This House? Richard Davis, host and inventor of real estate reality television series Flip This House, sued distributor A&E Television Networks for his [...]

Yosemite Frazil Ice – Nature’s Beauty

David Overfield — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 21:38:01 +0000

In Yosemite Nature Notes – Episode 9 – Frazil Ice (video below), you see the shifting, natural melting process of frazil ice produced by Yosemite Falls. The water freezes on its descent from the river down to the base of the falls, forming something similar to a giant snow cone. This “frazil ice”, small crystals [...]