10 Thursday AM Reads

April 30, 2015 7:30am by

Some days the news flow is just weird. Like today. Our morning train reads:

• The Great Inflation Conundrum: How do you hedge a risk when the tool box is so small—and everyone wants to use it? (Chief Investment Officer) but see Some Investors Can’t Wait for the Fed to Raise Rates (WSJ)
• Easy Money? This Was Never Easy (Motley Fool)
•  Senator Elizabeth Warren is Not Impressed with Your Diamond-Encrusted Ring, blasts kickbacks for brokers (Medium)
• Bill Gates made these 15 predictions in 1999 — it’s scary how accurate he was (Business Insider)
• Winners of the 2015 Sony World Photography Awards (The Atlantic) see also How Sony Makes Money Off Apple’s iPhone (WSJ)

What are you reading?

Continues here

 

 

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  2. Molesworth commented on Apr 30

    Nice juxtaposition Wien followed by Housel.
    What would that chart look like if they’d included alcohol as a drug?

  3. howardoark commented on Apr 30

    Regarding Bill Gate’s predictions, the Motley Fool message boards started in June 1997, so I wouldn’t classify his 1999 predictions as amazing.

  4. hue commented on Apr 30

    the association edition: BR’s top 3 most popular posts are culture, not finance lol

    harabob bsing about playoffs (bs report http://es.pn/1zu11FL) i actually don’t watch bball, just listen to podcasts, these guys don’t watch the same game that i do. the things they notice

    repost: kawhi’s quiet drive (one of few good reilly’s http://es.pn/1oUdDvo) altho i read the details somewhere else i think … car wash and sports discipline. nick saban’s dad owned a car wash and he too had to rebuff. what is it about yugoslav coaches? saban belichick poppovich

    best game this year, spurs cav, kawhi going at lediva on D, matching him.

    you need to see some 2nd string guard bringing the ball upcourt, kawhi eyeing him and taking the ball like candy from a baby

    • hue commented on Apr 30

      The Fastest Mouth in the West (grantland http://es.pn/1DN24gc) did steve kerr luck out or choose correctly

      kawhi is a product of ferguson, baltimore america

    • intlacct commented on Apr 30

      Kawhi = San Diego State grad. woohoo!

  6. farmera1 commented on Apr 30

    Big day for Tesla. Will it be a game changer or just a ripple, nobody knows. Solar costs are dropping fast and will soon challenge the cost of coal. Wind costs are pretty much competitive with coal now. The big problem remains storage when the sun doesn’t shine or the wind doesn’t blow. Tesla has an earth shattering announcement today to change the world, maybe.

    http://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-april-30-battery-announcement-2015-4

  7. rd commented on Apr 30

    Noah Smith is wondering why people pay fat expense ratio percentages on mutual funds instead of just low flat fees. I am surprised that his piece didn’t cite the Vanguard model with relatively low percentages for smaller accounts with a flat annual fee for accounts below a certain size to cover administration and paperwork. Meanwhile, if you have a fair amount of money in one fund, you can upgrade to “Admiral” shares which are typically significantly lower percentage fees because Vanguard recognizes that running much more money in fewer accounts doesn’t cost as much.

    I think he is also missing the fact that one of the biggest changes occurring in the financial industry in this two-decade lull in the markets is a steady reduction in investing costs in mutual funds and ETFs, with index funds leading the way. The 1970s-early 80s lull in the markets brought on the rise of the discount broker while low-cost index funds were created and began to gain traction. The 1930s-40s lull created the SEC and the concept of regulation of the markets and the protection of investors. Subsequently, mutual funds took off as a primary investing vehicle.

    http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-04-30/how-fund-managers-take-a-yearly-cut-of-your-savings

  8. VennData commented on Apr 30

    The WSJ weeping for the rich, fat white old people who suffer, “..Mr. Raatz, 59, said he and his wife are at the stage of their lives where they’re trying to avoid the extreme ups and downs of stocks…”

    Oh I see, they want capitalism for everybody else but not for themselves. I bet they’re pining for another Bush to get us a $1T deficit , wars and highly leveraged financial sector that process them “safe” returns.

    Bet they hate Social Security and GOVERNMENT CONTROLLED health care coming down the pike their way.

    Republicans ladies and gentlemen.

  9. rd commented on Apr 30

    Re: Baltimore, Ferguson etc.

    My wife reminds me frequently that the problem in her classroom is poverty, not race. The poor kids, especially immigrants from homes where no English is spoken, really, really struggle. Many of the poorer kids are also the source of the disruptions in the classroom (several teachers have been physically injured by elementary kids over the past several years in her school).. There is clearly an undercurrent of race impacts for the kids when they are outside the classroom but that appears to be a much bigger issue at the high school level than elementary. If poverty were resolved, then we would probably see the race issues go away over time.

    • intlacct commented on Apr 30

      rd: mostly agree but the American experience with race is pretty unique and toxic. Some say, the history of America is the history of race. The last 6 years of not so subtle bigotry and race-baiting make this point quite well.

      In any case, I suspect it will take 400 years – same amount of time it took to get to this point.

  10. RW commented on Apr 30

    For the beware Greeks bearing gifts file:

    Meet the company that wants to put a bitcoin miner in your toaster

    The company in question is called 21 Inc. Its business plan has hitherto been a closely guarded Silicon Valley secret. But we can now reveal how it plans to monetise the future of money. …embedding ASIC bitcoin mining chips into everyday devices like USB battery chargers, routers, printers, gaming consoles, set-top boxes and — the piece de resistance — chipsets to be used by internet of things devices.

    …The only way the economics can work is if the data carried through the bitcoin network ends up being attached to meaningful information about the identity and behaviours of the nodes (a.k.a. people) themselves. …an excellent data-mining resource for almost any corporation, hacker or government.

    NB: Part of the This is nuts. When’s the crash? series.

  12. rd commented on Apr 30

    The Bernank just fired a broadside at the Good Ship Lollypop (WSJ Editorial Page) but I think his real target is the SS Tea Party lurking behind the WSJ Editorial Page. I sense he has years of pent-up frustration in the studied inaction of Congress on infrastructure etc. He may be moving beyond his need for an anger interpreter now that he doesn’t have to parse the meaning of every comma in case it causes the collapse of every financial market on the planet.

    http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/ben-bernanke/posts/2015/04/30-wsj-editorial-slow-growth-fed

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