Good morn! Have a cup of fresh brewed Sumatra, kick back, and enjoy our Sunday morning reads:
• They also served: How statisticians changed the war, and the war changed statistics (The Economist)
• Jeffrey Gundlach’s Surprising Forecast: The bond titan thinks the 10-year could potentially take out its modern-era low of 1.38% (Barron’s)
• My Expected Investment Changes in 2015 (Rick Ferri) but see Don’t Interfere With Your Investment Strategy (Irrelevant Investor)
• The best investing tidbits of 2014 (Vanguard)
• Knowledge Doubling Every 12 Months, Soon to be Every 12 Hours (Industry Tap)
• Good Times Run Out for Sand Producers: Fracking Boom Pushed Up Demand, but Oil-Price Collapse Alters Outlook (WSJ)
• My Favorite Graph of 2014: The Rise and Rise of the Top 0.1 Percent (Slate) see also Joseph Stiglitz: Thomas Piketty gets income inequality wrong (Salon)
• How the technology industry is beginning to rethink Moore’s Law (Venture Beat)
• 5 Things We Learned About The Brain In 2014 (HuffPo)
• How a false witness helped the CIA make a case for torture (Al Jazeera America)
What are you reading?
Good Times Run Out for Sand Producers
Source: WSJ
Gundlach’s forecast shouldn’t be surprising…two biggest contributors to US job and Capex growth are going into reverse in 2015
Bad luck, bad journalism and cancer rates
http://www.theguardian.com/science/grrlscientist/2015/jan/02/bad-luck-bad-journalism-and-cancer-rates?CMP=share_btn_tw
How to Save Like the Rich and the Upper Middle Class (Hint: It’s Not With Your House) (ht AR)
The research helps explain part of why the recent recession, which hinged on a housing bust, was so much more difficult for the middle class than a typical recession. It also helps explains why the recovery has been so disappointing to many. Housing has regained its ground only slowly while corporate profitability has boomed. In other words, we’ve seen slow growth in the major middle class asset, but substantial growth in the assets held by the wealthiest.
NB: AR more accurately titles the link to the article, “The 1% own a different asset mix than everyone else. (wsj.com);” i.e., the article summarizes the research data reasonably well but its tone-deaf title is actually no more (or less) explanatory than its bare outline of limited mechanism.
The primary conclusion from the pie charts is that you need to start your own business or be a partner in one in order to get very wealthy.
More potent pot may show that it really can be an addictive drug.
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New marijuana trend sends smokers to burn units
A burn doctor who struggles to treat “dabbers” believes that they’re suffering from cannabis withdrawal
January 2, 2015
by Serene Fang @fangsey & Lori Jane Gliha @ljgliha
Next week, America Tonight examines Colorado’s experiment to legalize and regulate recreational marijuana in a special three-part series. Join Lori Jane Gliha for part one Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET/6 PT.
For marijuana enthusiasts in Colorado, 420, a common nickname for pot, is old news. The new code number is 710. Flip the digits upside down and you get “oil,” a reference to oil-based cannabis concentrates. This wildly potent wax-like substance is one of the fastest growing segments of the marijuana industry.
The psychoactive component in pot is tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC. The THC content of pot has been steadily rising for decades, from around 3.5 percent in 1985 to 13 percent today. But these new concentrates can reach a staggering 90 percent THC. The high from smoking them or “dabbing” is so intense, High Times magazine called it a “quantum leap forward” in getting stoned. Concentrates are worth more per gram than gold.
That dizzying concentration also means a higher risk of addiction. Cannabis isn’t usually associated with physical dependency. But Denver’s only burn unit is seeing a rising number of patients burned in dabbing-related explosions, and many of them appear to be in the throes of withdrawal.
Cured by THC
….
http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/america-tonight/articles/2015/1/2/thc-burn-victims.html
When I see someone smoking these days, I don’t think “cool”, “happy”, “sexy”, etc. I think “drug addicted” and feel pity for them.
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Cigarettes flame out as more Americans quit smoking
By Editorial Board
December 30, 2014
Millions of Americans are mulling New Year’s resolutions this week. Some will be made — and broken — before sunset. But thousands will resolve to quit smoking and … stick to it.
We know that because the proportion of Americans who smoke cigarettes has cratered to a new low, according to a recent survey from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
About 42.1 million people — 17.8 percent of American adults — smoked in 2013, the survey said. That’s down from 21.6 percent in 2003 and the lowest percentage since the federal government began tracking smoking rates in 1965.
…
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-smoking-rates-edit-0101-20141230-story.html
SundayReview | Opinion
The Liberation of Growing Old
By ANNE KARPF
JAN. 3, 2015
LONDON — WHY do we have such punitive attitudes toward old people? Granted, the ancients did hideous things to elders who were unable to work but still needed food and care, but in more recent times, that had changed: In 18th-century New England, it was common for people to make themselves seem older by adding years to their real age, rather than subtracting them.
Once upon a time, “senile” just meant old, without being pejorative. Even “geriatric” was originally a value-free term, rather than part of the lexicon of contempt toward old people.
Yet today, the language used to describe the changing age composition of the population is little short of apocalyptic. We’re told that the “graying of America” is an “agequake” or a “demographic time bomb.”
Older people are likely to be seen as a burden and a drain on resources, rather than a resource in themselves. Their only contribution, it seems, is to make worse the “dependency ratio,” a term that enshrines dubious assumptions about who will be financially dependent on whom.
In 2050, Americans age 65 and over are predicted to almost double in number to 83.7 million, one-fifth of the population.
…
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/04/opinion/sunday/the-liberation-of-growing-old.html
“Now, as it has become very clear that technology cannot really support any further “speed” improvements, the industry looks to improve on the creature comforts that airline passengers have come to expect — from overall cabin design, like the 787 Dreamliner, to gourmet food options and personalized services.”
I don’t think this guy and I live on the same planet. Airline service is a poster child for the anti-Moore’s Law, aka crapification.