Let’s not pretend the last 8 years were capitalism. Capitalism is pro-business, pro-middle class.

If you’re new here at 2thinknow, and you’re interested in the latest ideas on trends, companies and innovation, subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for your visit!ANALYSIS, USA — According to The Age newspaper online:
“The economy suffered its biggest decline since 2001 in the third quarter, ushering in what may be the worst recession in a quarter-century … Gross domestic product contracted at a 0.3% pace from July to September, according to a Commerce Department report.
“The crisis really kicked up in late September,” Ethan Harris, co-head of US economic …

ANALYSIS, Melbourne — 2thinknow have predicted an Australian recession since 2007.
In October 2007, I indicated 2thinknow’s concerns of recession, in December 2007 I made clear predictions of recession and in February foresaw nationalisation of banks & various other consequences.
It’s worth noting that most commentators using economic predictions were wrong in October 2007-February 2008. None raised nationalisation, nor believed the ASX would go as low as 4500. 2thinknow was a lonely voice in specific correct prediction.
2thinknow take a different view, because we have foresight based on proprietary nascent trend analysis.
And, in …

REVIEWS — SlideShare has created a contest on the Economic Crisis. Tell the crisis in 30 slides, it has over 200 entries. A few entries are good summaries from different views.
Of course 2thinknow entered, given the positive feedback we have been receiving on our  predictions of the crisis.
Today, our “Credit Crisis. The Short Explanation.” slides were spotlighted on the main page of the slideshare.net website.
Pretty nifty profile for a set of slides, we thought. Even better in PowerPoint with the animations. You can download them!
Another one I really liked was …

Please vote.
World’s Best Presentation ContestWorld’s Best Presentation ContestWe thought this was a pretty concise, accurate description of the economic crisis.
If you liked our work so far, in accurately predicting the crisis, please logon to Slideshare & vote for our entry. You only have until Monday!
And your vote helps quality rise-to-the-top. Not just those with voting-circles!
2thinknow correctly predicted the current market crisis in 2007. Using our propietary nascent trend analysis techniques, we were able to predict a September 2008 shock event (specifically) in October 2007.

COMMENT — Across the Western world increasingly large chains dominate most products you buy. Groceries. Petrol or gas. Liquor. Books.
In difficult times,  support independent stores not large chain stores. Not mega-supermarkets.

Cheaper Groceries & Fuel.
Genuine competition means we pay less. Smaller players create competition.
Small independent stores are friends of the family.
Consumer choice is one of few weapons we have to create competition. Sometimes, we can sell our shares in such monopolies.
The only two forces controlling many industries are:
a) consumer choice and
b) shareholder activism.
Especially since, any Govt regulation or constraint on market …

ANALYSIS, Global – Salaried employees in the C-Suite being paid obscene sums of money they ill-deserve, is an inflationary disease that has spread to executives in most Western countries.
Kevin Rudd is one of a chorus of international leaders to draw our attention to this short-termism & greed as a philosophical cause of the international economic crisis.

Pay Solutions.
How can we simply link executive pay & control it? Without something as unwieldly as a black-letter figure…
Simple. The 2thinknow view is that we set executive pay based on a market capitalisation and a …

ANALYSIS, Australia — Tonight, in Australia, Wayne Swan as Australian Treasurer delivered the first budget of the new Rudd Centre-Left Labor Government.
The budget was solid, economically and fiscally-responsible according to ABC commentators like Alan Kohler. The budget was also politically astute, delivering on the promises made in the last election.

2thinknow Building Innovation Textbook
The budget read from the 2thinknow textbook on economic growth in challenging times, and nation-building of innovation cities and regions:
1) Infrastructure investment – ports, rail, institutions, broadband and roads
2) Productivity driven economics – childcare, flexible industrial relations, education
3) …

COMMENT, Australia – The International Monetary Fund have just said that property prices in Australia, like the UK, are so intrinsically overpriced as to be a high risk to fall.
Long-time readers will know that I have been predicting this fall for some time. Friends will recall I have held the belief that Australian property has been strongly overvalued in recent years.
Why will house prices fall in Australia?
Property in Australia is globally overvalued. It is simply more expensive to purchase or rent an equivalent home here than most other cities …

COMMENT, EU, USA — Most of the focus in the recent crisis has been on the USA and Federal Reserve.
But the banking crisis is far broader than the USA. The German economy in Europe is in a few key ways closest to the US model. And German investment banks are close to collapse, according to De Spiegel.
“(Dusseldorf bank) IKB was on the verge of bankruptcy, with its supposed wonderful US investments worth little more than the paper it was printed on.”
De Spiegel International, 20th February 2008

German bank CEOs are not …

ANALYSIS, USA — Wealthy white people with academic economic dogma are a plague on all our wallets, let alone houses.

The economics brains trust of our last 8 years or so of US (and British & Australian) economic policy have been a few rich white guys, right-wing academic economists from big universities like Harvard. These folks theories are to blame for severity of the coming US recession.
Why?
Most universities (like Harvard) have a fair mix of dissent; but the current US administration selected all economists (and think-tanks) with far-Right free market views.
Clinton, …