Bureau of Labor Statistics Inflation calculator from 1913 to 2006 or any years in between. Saves you the trouble of looking up past inflation stats. Don't ask why I know this. Required spurious example of the power of compounding. $10,000 in 1913 = $204,949.49 today! or in other words 3.3%.
Posts filed under Global Economy
No-bid contracts, KBR
The latest contracting revelations came in a report issued Tuesday by the office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. The office reviewed records covering $1.3 billion out of the $18.4 billion that Congress voted for Iraq reconstruction two years ago. Reported overhead costs ran from a low of 11 percent for several contracts awarded to Lucent to a high of 55 percent for, you guessed it, the Halliburton subsidiary, KBR Inc
Now, no doubt KBR is doing rougher work than Lucent, but still... NY Times editorial page (free reg required)
Global Guerillas
It is rare that I find a whole blog worth recommending, but Global Guerillas is one. The author has a conceptual framework of what the future of warfare and security will be and, while no framework is complete, it seems to have some explanatory power. In particular:
- He believes we are entering a generation of “open-source†distributed insurgencies that can a) cause asymmetrical damage and b) prevent failed or weak states from ever getting on their feet (Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon) through systems disruption. The insurgencies are enabled by better information and communication tools.
- Due to #1 above, believes that events in the Middle East, that to some degree we have set in motion, might evolve in highly unpredictable directions
- Thinks security in the West into evolve into differentiated levels for rich, middle-class and poor, and ultimately go to an open-source, distributed model as well – as opposed to a centralized Federal model
His bio is impressive:
John Robb was a mission commander for a “black†counterterrorism unit that worked with Delta Force and Seal Team 6 before becoming the first Internet analyst at Forrester Research and a key architect in the rise of Web logs and RSS. He is writing a book on the logic of terrorism.
Note: At this stage he is writing for an audience that understands his concepts so you probably have to invest some time reading back into the blog before it starts to make a lot of sense. Over the next few weeks, I will pull out some of his greatest hits.