10 Thursday AM Reads

Hey, its Thursday. You are so close to the weekend, when you can start working on that summer reading list. Meanwhile, our morning train reads:

• How the Red Cross Raised Half a Billion Dollars for Haiti ­and Built Six Homes (ProPublica)
• Goldman Sachs to Companies: Stop Buying Back Your Stock (Bloombergsee also Why to Pay Attention to Today’s Buyback Boom (BlackRock)
• Oppenheimer’s Wald: What you need to understand about Dow Theory (TRB)
• Congress turns away from post-9/11 law, retooling U.S. surveillance powers (Washington Post) see also Everyone’s heard of the Patriot Act. Here’s what it actually does. (Vox)
• How a curmudgeonly old reporter exposed the FIFA scandal that toppled Sepp Blatter (Washington Post)

 

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Discussions found on the web:
  1. Robert M commented on Jun 4

    “The total number of people receiving unemployment insurance payments was the smallest in more than 14 years.”
    This is one that shows how innumeracy is among the chattering classes. It does not acknowledge the fact that the number of people whom have dropped off because their benefits expired. They are not on the jobless roles as unemployed or underemployed because you have to register for benefits in order to be counted, either.
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-04/fewer-american-workers-file-claims-for-unemployment-benefits

    • VennData commented on Jun 4

      So how many dropped that way? Do the commenting classes have to use links that don’t support their commenting?

  2. Robert M commented on Jun 4

    In the article on cars the one “cypher” that is being analyzed backwards is the self driving car. The real need is for the self driving bus in the equivalent of HPV lanes. Getting on the bus in SF means going to the Valley. If there was ever a place for self driving buses this is it. the same for almost any large city where work is still in the city.

  3. hue commented on Jun 4

    A reminder that your Instagram photos aren’t really yours: Someone else can sell them for $90,000 http://wapo.st/1Kc78ky we’re all writers & shutterbugs

    Guess Who Doesn’t Fit In at Work http://nyti.ms/1M7BOlp

    PuffHo in Limbo at Verizon http://nyti.ms/1Kc7Eil will the world miss the eNationalInquire when it disappears? // More than 1 million people have now worked as an Uber driver http://read.bi/1BLYpyr Is the Ubes a tech co. or transportation co.? lol 3,000 employees for 311 cities. Uber is facebook instagram netflix, it adds servers not people. the future of work, email only support lol

    • hue commented on Jun 4

      Caitlin Jenner to face Renee Richards in tennis death match, it will be on a Wheaties box

    • Jojo commented on Jun 4

      Re: Guess Who Doesn’t Fit In – “Crucially, though, for these gatekeepers, fit was not about a match with organizational values. It was about personal fit. In these time- and team-intensive jobs, professionals at all levels of seniority reported wanting to hire people with whom they enjoyed hanging out and could foresee developing close relationships with. Fit was different from the ability to get along with clients. Fundamentally, it was about interviewers’ personal enjoyment and fun”
      ————
      Sort of like meme about how George W. Bush was someone you’d like to have a beer with somehow morphing into therefore he would make a good president. Not!

      Some years back I was rejected from a job in the tech industry because of “lack of cultural fit”. No lie. Turns out I would have been a lot older than everyone else in the company, when I pressed the rejector for an explanation. Other than that, they really thought my background and skills were super. [lol]

    • hue commented on Jun 4

      Is a Meritocracy really fair, I wasn’t born w/ a tech talent inclination like you LOL

      In the end don’t we all use whatever advantage we have whether we are a dipshit legacy at Harvard who don’t need money from Paulson or we are a minority w/ excellent grades and SATs.
      Which on do I want to be? Can I pick my parents lol

  4. James Cameron commented on Jun 4

    Our drug war.

    “‘After they breached my door, at gunpoint, with masks,’ she said, repeating what her family told her, ‘they proceeded to take every belonging in my house. And when I say every belonging, I mean every belonging.’ That included, she said, her husband’s tools, the lawnmower and a bicycle. They took credit card statements, tax returns, and the public assistance card Shattuck used to help feed her family. They even took $90 worth of birthday money out of her daughter’s ‘pink bedroom,’ as it’s listed in a summary of seized property compiled by the police.”

    Why armed drug cops took ‘every belonging’ from a Michigan soccer mom

    http://goo.gl/bkaZRE (WAPO)

    • VennData commented on Jun 4

      Republican hero Rick Snyder who turned Michigan into Singapore in spite of Obama has nicely smashed these medical marijuana nurses in the face.

      These doper whores knew what they were getting into taking in real man Rick Snyder and his GOP Pot police.

  5. Molesworth commented on Jun 4

    There must be something about being powerful for too long that overruns benevolence.
    Red Cross used to be the best of the best charity.
    When did it run off the rails?
    Our founding fathers weren’t perfect but the majority were statesmen, aiming to create a structure to benefit the population ( OK white men but different times) compared to now when those who care for the people and not their donors are rare.
    FIFA.
    Bernie Ecclestone.
    Enron.
    Lance Armstrong.
    Even avocados. By all accounts Mark Affleck started out clean, talented and eager to help and it evolved into entitlement.
    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/us/11avocado.html
    http://www.jimprevor.com/articles.php?m=8&id=57
    http://www.irs.gov/uac/Examples-of-Public-Corruption-Investigations-Fiscal-Year-2015
    It must be tough to be powerful and rich and stay humble.
    Hubris must feel awesome.

  6. farmera1 commented on Jun 4

    Goldman Sachs to Companies: Stop Buying Back Your Stock

    Hum, I think this is another example of companies being managed for the benefit of management (Managerial Capitalism) as John Bogle calls it. Managerial capitalism has replaced ownership capitalism per Bogle.

    When the CEO can get rich by borrowing money to buy back shares, he will do it. Since the CEOs get paid based on short term (quarter to quarter incentive stock options is where their big money comes from) share price there is a real incentive for them to maximize the short term share price. What happens in 5 years which is the kind of time frame your talking about for a capital investment isn’t their worry since they’ll be gone, cashing out and living the high life in a very nice gated community in a warm clime.

    • VennData commented on Jun 4

      Jaime Dimon became a billionaire running a company, a bank. Gripes about Index funds voting down his raise, and slows the adoption of epayments to protect it all.

  7. Jojo commented on Jun 4

    Re: Meet the New Generation of Robots for Manufacturing – “Even if robots allow manufacturing to relocate, the impact on the workforce itself will be mixed. Greater use of robots means fewer people are needed on factory floors; those doing routine tasks requiring little education are most vulnerable. Yet even highly automated factories create or sustain jobs in design, engineering, machine maintenance and repair, marketing, logistics and other services.”
    —————
    Note how in the last sentence above, this WSJ story brushes over robot driven job losses by alluding to losses being matched by gains in other parts of the supporting industry for factories. However, what isn’t mentioned is that the job gains to losses ratio is 10 to one or greater!

    Technology advancement tends to destroy many more jobs than are created.

  8. RW commented on Jun 4

    This will probably remain timely and germane until humanity becomes extinct or thereabouts.

    The strong demand for charlatans

    In the improbable event of ever being invited to give a commencement address, my advice to graduates wanting a lucrative career would be: become a charlatan. There has always been a strong demand for witchdoctors, seers, quacks, pundits, mediums, tipsters and forecasters. There has always been a strong demand for witchdoctors, seers, quacks, pundits, mediums, tipsters and forecasters. A nice new paper by Nattavudh Powdthavee and Yohanes Riyanto shows how quickly such demand arises.

  9. Jojo commented on Jun 4

    Ha ha ha. Take that ISIS.
    ————-
    US Air Force Targets and Destroys ISIS HQ Building Using Social Media
    by Mike Hoffman on June 3, 2015

    Much has been made about the ability of ISIS to master social media to recruit and broadcast their victories. But the U.S. Air Force is turning the militant group’s eagerness to share on social media into that intelligence that produces targets.

    Air Force Gen. Hawk Carlisle, head of Air Combat Command, described Monday how airmen at Hurlburt Field, Florida, with the 361st Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Group, recognized a comment on social media and turned that into an airstrike that resulted in three Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) missiles destroying am Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) headquarters building.

    “It was a post on social media to bombs on target in less than 24 hours,” Carlisle said. “Incredible work when you think about.”

    http://defensetech.org/2015/06/03/us-air-force-targets-and-destroys-isis-hq-building-using-social-media/

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