1) The prices for online currencies for MMORPG's (look it up) such as World of Warcraft or Second Life (the one where all the politicians are setting up virtual versions of themselves to hold digital town hall meetings...or were a year ago atleast) have secondary markets on the internets and it has graphs!
2) Anyone heard of the book Global Trade and Conflicting National Interests? I was reading an old article and thought it was up our alley.
If the firm is locating low-skilled industrial production in a very poor country, Americans get cheaper goods, trade expands for both sides and the result is "mutual gain." But the trading partners enter a "zone of conflict" if the poor nation develops greater capabilities and assumes the production of more advanced goods. Then, the authors explain, "the newly developing partner becomes harmful to the more industrialized country." The firm's self-interested success "can constitute an actual loss of national income for the company's home country."American multinationals, as principal actors in this transfer of wealth-generating productive capacity, are distinctively free to make the decisions for themselves without interference from government. They want profit and future consumer markets. Their home country wants to maintain a highly productive high-wage economy. Without recognizing it, the two are pulling in opposite directions--the "divergence of interests" most US politicians ignore, evidently believing church doctrine over visible reality.
3) This is random, but who wants to help me speculate on where this graph is going...with the recent 10-yr note fluctuations and all that jazz. If any influence at all there is. (tribute yoda). Mortgage rates are popping, and there's a growing whine from the rest of the country as we begin to see some bank failures popping up here and there. (graph below is from wsj article pulled from proquest or here if anyone actually has WSJ access)
It's 97 at home, time to go grab some ice coffee!
