My partner Greg Galanos forwarded me a great article from the Philadelphia Inquirer titled “The Economy Revealed: Why understanding economics is hard” that builds on the more difficult to digest but equally interesting essay / research by Alan Page Fiske titled “The Inherent Sociability of Homo sapiens.”  Fiske’s theory is based on the conclusion that all human relationships are built from four types of interactions: communal sharing, equality matching, authority ranking, and market pricing.  In Fiske’s theory, these four building blocks (which he calls “relationship models”) result in the entire range of the very complex and diverse social life of humans.

While I’m not going to dig another layer into the theory and the research to decide if I believe that it’s true / valid / complete, it’s very provocative and stimulating, especially when you start applying it to a wide range of situations – especially ones that are filled with conflict or behavior between two people that are operating at cross purposes.

Start with the summary article in the Philadelphia Inquirer.  If you are interested, read Fiske’s essay.  If you are really ambitious, take it a step further and then use some “communal sharing” and post your discoveries here for all to see.

Oh – and why is economics difficult?  Actually, I never had too much trouble with the IS-LM curves.  It was all that supply side stuff that confused me.

Jeff Jarvis has a superb post up called New News: Deconstructing the newspaper. 

A week ago I spoke at a the Metzger Associates First Annual New Media Summit – a great example of a “local” event (local = Boulder).  It was moderated by Matt Branaugh – the Business Editor of the Daily Camera (our local paper.)  Fortunately, Matt is a good humored soul so when I asked the audience the question “how many of you read the stock tables in the newspaper” and not a single hand went up, Matt didn’t throw me out of the room when I looked at him and asked “why the fuck do you guys still print those things?”

Jeff – who knows newspapers and the newspaper business infinitely better than I do, goes through the question of “why stock tables” and much, much more in his post.

My friend Larry Nelson who runs w3w3.com just put up a short interview he did with me last week.  Per Larry’s description:

Here’s some candid straight talk about access to VC capital in Colorado. Brad Feld, Managing Director of Mobius Venture Capital didn’t have much good news to talk about when w3w3.com interviewed him two and three years ago. Brad gives some specific examples and offers some interesting advice for the coming year. For some, it is going to be a very good year and others will struggle. Brad points out that mid-stage and later-stage activity is very healthy.

Have you ever made an error as a result of a formula problem in a spreadsheet.  Nope – I haven’t either <g>.  A long time friend and uber-accounting-dude Frank Lincks sent me this somewhat painful story of Eastman Kodak’s recent SEC non-reliance 8–K filing due to a spreadsheet error.  Quoting from the 8–K:

 “…the Company has concluded that the severance error that occurred in the second quarter, as described above, was primarily the result of a failure in the operation of … the existing preventive and detective controls surrounding the preparation and review of spreadsheets that include new or changed formulas. The Company has concluded that this situation constitutes a “material weakness,” as defined by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board’s Auditing Standard No. 2. The Company believes that this material weakness will be remediated by December 31, 2005.”

Oops.

Jim Collins has an outstanding short essay titled “Lessons From A Student Of Life” as a tribute to Peter Drucker in the 11/28/05 Business Week.

Tom Barrack is a legendary real estate investor that few people know about.  The 10/31/05 Fortune has a good profile on him titled “I’m Tom Barrack and I’m Getting Out.”  Barrack’s lead quote concerns polo, of which he is an avid player.

“I feel totally safe playing polo on a field full of pros, but when amateurs are all over the field, someone can get killed.  They have more guts than brains.  They charge after every ball and don’t know when to hold back.”

Of course, this applies broadly.  Be careful out there – make sure you know who else is on the field with you.

As I’ve said in the past, I’m a long term fan of Warren Buffett.  Many of you are also as I’ve received over 500 requests for the Annual Letters of Buffett Partnership, Limited, 1957 – 1970 over the past few months. As the Q205 filings roll in, I happened to notice the disclosure for the stock holdings of Berkshire Hathaway, which are as follows.

Company                 Class        Value               Shares
Coca Cola                Com          $8,350,000,000      200,000,000
American Express Co.     Com          $8,070,237,000      151,610,700
Gillette Co.             Com          $5,112,617,000      100,980,000
Wells Fargo & Co.        Com          $3,476,090,000       56,448,380
Moody's Corp.            Com          $2,158,080,000       48,000,000
Wesco Financial Corp.    Com          $2,053,111,000        5,703,087
Washington Post Co.      Cl B         $1,442,736,000        1,727,765
M&T Bank Corp.           Com            $705,493,000        6,708,760
Shaw Communications Inc. Cl B           $456,940,000       22,000,000
American Standard Cos.   Com            $440,072,000       10,497,900
First Data Corp.         Com            $346,208,000        8,625,000
Gap Inc.                 Com            $304,826,000       15,434,243
Comcast Corp.            CLA SPL        $299,500,000       10,000,000
USG Corp.                Com            $276,250,000        6,500,000
Gannett Inc.             Com            $245,228,000        3,447,600
Costco Wholesale Corp.   Com            $235,011,000        5,254,000
Sun Trusts Banks Inc.    Com            $231,500,000        3,204,600
Nike Inc.                Com            $214,300,000        2,474,600
Iron Mountain Inc.       Com            $155,100,000        5,000,000
Tyco International Ltd.  Com            $146,000,000        5,000,000
Pier 1 Imports Inc.      Com            $113,520,000        8,000,000
Outback Steakhouse Inc.  Com             $82,283,000        1,818,800
Servicemaster Co.        Com             $75,195,000        5,611,600
Lexmark International    Cl A            $64,830,000        1,000,000
Sealed Air Corp.         Com             $55,431,000        1,113,300
Petrochina Co Ltd.       ADR             $48,404,000          659,000
Home Depot Inc.          Com             $36,760,000          945,000
Proctor & Gamble Co.     Com             $33,232,000          630,000
Mueller Industries       Com             $23,084,000          851,800
Comdisco Holding Co.     Com             $22,784,000        1,518,978
Lowe's Cos.              Com             $22,706,000          390,000
Dean Foods Co.           Com             $13,233,000          375,500
Total Value                          $35,310,761,000

While the old mainstays are predictable (and make up the majority of the value), the holdings in the $100m to $1b range are fascinating.