From Gold to G-20: Flexible Currency Rates and Global Power
When British author Ian Fleming published the James Bond spy novel, Goldfinger in 1959, the world was locking into a new framework for managing global trade and foreign exchange transactions. The New Deal’s Bretton Woods agreements tied participating currencies into a fixed exchange rate with the US dollar that itself was tied to $35 for […]
Apple’s GUI and the Creation of the Microsoft’s Excel Spreadsheet Application
Microsoft’s famous spreadsheet application, Excel, was originally designed for Apple’s Macintosh personal computer. This post explores the beginning years of the personal computer and its transition to its more modern interface pioneered by Apple and its Macintosh computer. This transition opened the way for new software innovations, particularly the development of the Excel spreadsheet application […]
The Cyberpunk Genre as Social and Technological Analysis
I once taught a Freshman seminar at New York University in Information System Management (ISM). The course was introductory and only two credits so I felt we needed a focused, yet comprehensive set of analytical concepts to shape our discussions and assignments about ISM in the modern world. I decided to use the “cyberpunk” genre […]
THE EXPERIMENT, Part I: NEW ZEALAND AS THE WORLD MODEL FOR DIGITAL MONETARISM
Starting “Down Under” One of the first “guinea pigs” for the new system of digital monetarism was New Zealand. A one time a leader in the development of the “welfare state,” the small two-island nation-state in the deep Pacific Ocean had run into economic problems by the early 1980s. It had borrowed heavily during the […]
Characteristics of Economic Goods and their Social Implications
In a previous post, I wrote about how media products can be considered “misbehaving economic goods” because most don’t conform to the standard product that is individually owned and consumed in its entirety. Economics is mainly based on the assumption that when a good or service is consumed, it is used up wholly by its […]
Assessing Digital Payment Systems
In digitally-mediated environments, new forms of currency and payment systems continue to gain public acceptance. Changes in technology, contactless options, and the ease of electronic payments make cash less desirable. While credit cards remain the most popular form of payment with some 70% of the market, other systems are emerging. PayPal, for example, is used […]
Digital Spreadsheets – The Time-Space Power of Accounting, Part 1
The digital spreadsheet was designed as an electronic document in which data was arranged in the rows and columns of a matrix and could be manipulated and used in calculations. It combined listing, tabling, and other formulaic calculations to create a new imaginative technology that transformed modern finance and the management of organizations. While the spreadsheet handles various types of information, accounting information is some of the most effective and its power is accelerated by an organization’s information technology.
Origins of Currency Futures and other Digital Derivatives
Thus, it was fitting that Chicago emerged as the Risk Management Capital of the World—particularly since the 1972 introduction of financial futures at the International Monetary Market, the IMM, of the CME. – Leo Melamed to the Council of Foreign Relations, June 2004 International currency exchange rates began to float in the post-Bretton Woods environment […]
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About Me
Professor and Associate Chair at State University of New York (SUNY) Korea. Recently taught at Hannam University in Daejeon, South Korea. Moved to Austin, Texas in August 2012 to join the Digital Media Management program at St. Edwards University. Spent the previous decade on the faculty at New York University teaching and researching information systems, media economics, and strategic communications.
You can reach me at:
anthony.pennings@gmail.com
anthony.pennings@sunykorea.ac.kr
