Over the last few days, I’ve been asked a few times where I get my information, eg. on the financial system’s current problems. Essentially it’s just listening to smart people whenever I get the chance (eg. university, industry body and professional body presentations), talking with people I respect (of various backgrounds and political hues) and, especially, reading physical and online articles and books. And every now and again, I come up with my own thoughts too.

The internet gives me access to many more publications than I’d buy from Carries (the newsagent over the road from my apartment).  The Economist is always worthwhile (the print edition works far better than online), I subscribe (for free) to several financial, economics, business, and technical weblogs, and I get news feeds from leading newspapers and broadcasters around the world (quite a few more than I’ve listed in my blogroll links on the lower right of this webpage).  I include some sources which tend to take a different line to my usual prejudices, to hear alternative opinions and evidence (which I do occasionally take on board).  I subscribe to one or two political blogs but not many - they are generally too partisan and prejudiced for my rationalist taste.

All this is delivered to my “reader” - a Google service which aggregates all this stuff for me. Of course, one has to be disciplined about setting aside and limiting time slots for reading - it can absorb every waking minute if you let it.

Here’s a sample of recent stuff worth reading:

• “These are nervous times, but our banks are much safer than US and UK banks“, from Bernard Hickey’s Show me the money blog on Stuff, the Fairfax NZ news site.
• “Lessons to be learned from American financial meltdown”, by Roger Kerr in the NZ Herald.
• Three articles by Gareth Morgan in the Dominion Post:
  Gluttons table set by central banks; Great party, now for the hangover; Investors lose zest as loans become lemons.
• “A user’s guide to credit ratings” (.pdf file), from the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (alerted to me by Glenn Wilson at First NZ Capital).