Here are our Two-fer Tuesday morning train reads:
• The Big AlphaBet (Om Malik) see also Here’s the Hidden Joke in Google’s Letter Announcing Alphabet (Bloomberg)
• The new Obama rule that’s making stockbrokers swear: Whose interest is a retirement adviser supposed to serve? (Politico)
• Publicly traded money managers not seeing asset growth (Pensions & Investments) see also An outburst of outrage about private equity fees (FT)
• Three Edges to Beat Mr. Market (Seeking Wisdom) see also Is Momentum Misunderstood? (Irrelevant Investor)
• Microsoft Exec’s Investing Answer: Charlie Munger. Tren Griffin says Munger’s approach is what investors need (WSJ) see also Charlie Munger on The Psychology of Human Misjudgment (ContrarianVille)
Sorry guys let me get this straight for you.
http://money.cnn.com/2015/08/11/news/economy/greece-bailout-deal/index.html
Greece has never been bailed out. It is the German, French and other banksters that have been bailed out by a never ending stream of European tax payer money. Greece on the other hand has been left in horrible conditions with its economy shut down and 50% unemployment among its young people. That is not a bailout its a smack down. Greece would have been much better off if it had defaulted on its debt at the first indication of what its plutocrats and Goldman Sachs had done to its people.
Ultimately, a full-blown “bailout” of Greece can’t be done without the IMF. The IMF has said they won’t participate without large writedowns of debt which the Europeans have said ain’t going to happen. So the circular firing squad remains unbroken.
Another example of the quagmire the Middle East has turned into after the 2003 Iraq invasion. When you come right down to it, the Middle East is largely divided up valley by valley into tribes and most of them don’t like each other.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/08/10/turkey-strikes-on-kurds-could-drag-us-into-new-front-military-sources-fear/
and most of today’s nations in the middle east didnt exist before ww1. they were made from whole cloth by the english and french. and mostly there made to just make it easier to administer. not because the residents like each other. or had any thing in common.
Same problem pretty much all over the world. When the old european empires carved “countries” out from their conquered lands, they were either indifferent or unaware of the tribal borders, animosities and alliances. The tragic outcome has been a century of malfunctioning countries and wars.
Having groups within an overall boundary that don’t like each other actually made it easier for countries like Britain to administer because they could use one group to do local administration without worrying about them banding together. So what is a bug today was a feature a century ago. The remnants of this are still in place today with Assad’s Shiites dominating a larger Sunni population while Saddam’s Sunnis dominated a much larger Shiite underclass. Once that flipped over, centuries of hate took over policy.
Just to play devil’s advocate, creating states in a manner that preserved tribal alliances might make large-scale wars more frequent and brutal (meaning genocidal). Of course, we still have intrastate dynamics like this anyway, but states would be better able to organize and deploy force in the cause of their feuds. I’m not sure an alternative set of boundaries would necessarily improve things. It’s not like the underlying vendettas would respect legal boundaries anyway.
@noncist;
The most common wars between bordering countries are of the “this is our ancestral tribal land and people of our tribe is living on it – so give it back”. Yes the tribal hostilities would remain. But the ability to whip up the populations to accept making the sacrifices needed for a conquest war would be reduced.
Another interstate highway that turns out to be unnecessary.
http://www.jconline.com/story/news/2015/08/10/-65-still-closed-indot-developing-bridge-plan/31406453/
or is it because we dont have the money to repair them? i guess we arent as well off as we thing we are, since they stated building the interstates…in the 1950s
more on that alphabet thing
http://baselinescenario.com/2015/08/11/alphabet-less-than-meets-the-eye/
you mean to tell me that brokers would do stuff in their best interest as opposed to their customer? and forcing them to do this would just impact their customer? maybe they the ones impacting their customers already? and not in a good way, by costing them a lot of money, and maybe their lives in retirement?
not sure how this is suppose to work, but higher growth in China is suppose to be good the US>?
http://www.ibtimes.com/dow-jones-industrial-average-plunges-200-points-after-chinas-surprise-yuan-2048449
Growth in China helps keep prices up for commodities and goods. Key point right now is oil prices and impact on oil-producing states in the US. For the average consumer in places like NYS, it will likely mean lower prices for everything which is not necessarily bad.
It is also a growing market for exports. Since the big companies decided to layoff and cut the pay of their US consumers, they are relying on other countries like China to provide revenue.
except China doesnt want to have imports if they can help it, and they dont have to work hard to avoid them. the 99% there dont have much to buy with. but that does like 100 million who do right? but they still seem to avoid it
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2015/0811/Rick-Perry-stops-paying-his-staff-Is-he-in-serious-trouble
No like all Texas, he’ll just make the Federal government cover the shortfall in state funds from their third highest sales tax in the nation behind New Jersey and New Hampshire.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2015/03/21/cheat-sheet-high-property-taxes/2499014
Give the rest of the country super high property taxes like Texas. That will get people to buy homes.
course people move here for the low prices of homes. but thats probably because of the low average income. which does come back to bite you because at some point they are either your customer or a customer of some one that is.
U.S. wholesale inventories up solidly, signal upward GDP revision
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/11/us-wholesale-inventories-idUSKCN0QG1IF20150811
It’s time for the Republicans to apologize to Obama for everything.
Hard to believe Google did such poor due diligence prior to transitioning to the Alphabet company name.
———–
Google Creates Alphabet, but Runs Into BMW
By JACK EWINGAUG. 11, 2015
One can only assume that before Larry Page and Sergey Brin chose Alphabet as the name for their new holding company, they Googled it.
If so, they would have discovered that the Internet domain alphabet.com, as well as the trademark Alphabet, already belonged to someone else — namely, the German automaker BMW.
And if they had dialed BMW headquarters in Munich, they would have discovered something else: BMW does not want to sell.
….
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/12/technology/google-creates-alphabet-but-runs-into-bmw.html
Obama’s Failure to Fail
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/08/10/opinion/paul-krugman-gop-candidates-and-obamas-failure-to-fail.html
Republicans are drowning in their own predictions. The political party the cried wolf
but they just know that if they keep predicting it, at some point it will come true
US Senator Schumer: If US quits deal, US sanctions still will hurt Iran
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4689920,00.html
At a time of dollar strength, US-only sanctions will hurt US BUSINESS You fucking moron Schumer.
This clown does not belong in a place of responsibility in the Democratic party.
Jeb Bush Says Hillary Clinton ‘Stood By’ as Iraq Descended Into Violence
http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/08/11/jeb-bush-says-hillary-clinton-stood-by-as-iraq-descended-into-violence
Let’s hear more expert though on Iraq from another Bush.
Tea and Trumpism
”…Memo to pollsters: while I’m having as much fun as everyone else watching the unsinkable Donald defy predictions of his assured collapse, what I really want to see at this point is a profile of his supporters. What characteristics predispose someone to like this guy, as opposed to accepting the establishment candidates?…”
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/11/tea-and-trumpism/
The Krug’s hitting it out of the park today.
“… I think the Trump phenomenon is much more grounded in fundamentals than the commentariat yet grasps…”
They’re racists. They hate Obama. They especially hate Obama because he’s half black.
And all the DATA proves that Obama is smarter, more effective and better for America and the world than the rest of them
Think Netanyahu who’s built an entire nation on racism and you have the Trump Coalition. I hope The Donald makes tons of money off of them.
isnt it odd Fidelity rates growing wages the number 1 risk? but ignore that if they dont grow much better than inflation that deflation will stick around? and probably become even stronger?
Rand Paul’s eye roll on 9/11. More aggression is insane.
Christie hugging family member will not sell lmore US aggression.
The republican weak democrats’ response to 9/11, unfettered aggression, is open for debate when they talk Iran ‘as dangerous as Bush’s WMD scam’.
The US cannot afford aggressive war in the middle east.
That means stop whining about Taliban, more of the same won’t change them.