Heckuva of a way to start the week, with a giant rally — let’s see if it sticks. Meanwhile, our morning train reads:
• Want to avoid a bear market? (Irrelevant Investor) see also You won’t know the bull market is over until the bear is here (MarketWatch)
• China’s stock market sure looks like a bubble (Wonkblog)
• A Shrewd Oil Call Reverses Fortunes for Lucky Few (WSJ)
• Small investors blame losses on brokers they once trusted (Yahoo Finance)
• Now That Ben Bernanke Is Blogging, Here’s What He Should Write About (Upshot)
Oculus Chief Scientist: Why Virtual Reality Is About to Blow You Away http://bit.ly/1FdyMKh (Inc.)
Is p0ker a game of skill, or a game of l_ck? (The Guardian) http://bit.ly/1yg5Xg2 this is the better version
After a story is published, a minimum wage worker loses her job (WaPo) http://bit.ly/1NDfySj
Re: What should Helicopter Ben blog about
The question of inequality is really two separate questions. The first is about first generation wealth (Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Steve Jobs, Mark Cuban etc.) and how much that should be addressed, if at all. It is at the heart of the American Dream after all.
The second question, and to my mind the more important question, is inherited wealth. How much does it benefit society to pass the first generation wealth down to future generations that simply won the genetic lottery? Somebody recently posted the British stock market returns over the past century, which did much better than their bonds. How much would those returns have been if the land-based hereditary aristocracy (think Downton Abbey and Pride and Prejudice) in place at the beginning of WW I had not been taxed and otherwise disrupted over the subsequent decades? I think this is a fundamental question facing the US today.
Gates’ family was already wealthy old money. Buffet came from politics and wealth as well.
I think all of these examples came from privileged backgrounds and that’s the story so often elided from popular narratives.
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ADMIN: Gates comes from a wealthy family — Gates Senior dad was a lawyer — but they weren’t Bill Gates rich!
Some brilliant meta from Charlie Brooker: Every TV news report on the economy in one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN2iVe8_Ato
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ADMIN: Already queued for April 1
The latest reason why index investing is bad: “By following speculative cycles, managers of passive portfolio strategies have signed away their ability to help shape a healthy and sustainable economy.”
In other words, the end of civilization as we know it may be brought about by index investing.
http://www.institutionalinvestor.com/blogarticle/3440693/blog/why-passively-managed-funds-are-not-a-suitable-investment.html#.VRrzMczD_Z4
The real face of a radioactive disaster…
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The Boston Globe
The Big Picture
Radioactive Fukushima
March 30, 2015
Many residents of Okuma, a village near the stricken Fukushima Daiichi plant, are angry about government plans to dump some 30 million tons of radioactive debris raked up after the March 2011 nuclear disaster in a sprawling waste complex on their doorstep. Few believe Tokyo’s assurances that the site will be cleaned up and shut down after 30 years. In the four years since the disaster, Japan has allocated over $15 billion to lower radiation levels around the plant. Every day, teams of workers blast roads with water, scrub down houses, cut branches and scrape contaminated soil off farmland. That radiated trash now sits in plastic sacks across the region, piling up in abandoned rice paddies, parking lots and even residents’ backyards.–By Reuters (16 photos)
another example of how business has to deal with government intervention!
Here Are The Companies That Presented At Y Combinator Demo Day 1
Posted Mar 23, 2015
http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/23/here-are-the-companies-that-presented-at-y-combinator-demo-day-day-1/
47 Startups That Launched At Y Combinator Winter 2015 Demo Day 2
Posted Mar 24, 2015
http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/24/y-combinator-demos/
new threats from fracking?
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/03/frackings-new-nemesis-earthquake-lawsuits.html#comment-2424868
or to it. might also end home insurance in affected states too
Republicans See Obama as a more imminent threat than Putin
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/30/us-usa-threats-poll-idUSKBN0MQ0AV20150330
I always wondered if Republicans ever went back and looked at all the things the GOP said would happen due to Obama’s actions?
I now know, they haven’t.
I bet (I don’t iknow this) but I bet they think Bush was a great president.
GOP = low information voters