10 Tuesday AM Reads

April 7, 2015 8:30am by

Its a Blue Devil morning! Our come from behind, morning train reads:

• The Real Point of Active Investing (Think Advisor)
• How Rich and Poor Spend (and Earn) Their Money (Real Time Economics)
• Greening Your Portfolio (Slate)
• Will China’s Infrastructure Bank Work? (Project Syndicate)
• Our gambling culture: The craving for immediate gratification has spread well beyond Wall Street. (McKinsey)

Continues here

 

 

 

 

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  1. hue commented on Apr 7

    Stop Taking Dick Pics, But Not Because of the NSA (the message medium) http://bit.ly/1IEhmHd need i say more? lol quinn norton also wrote this must ready Everything is Broken http://bit.ly/1pd7r24

    The “Food Babe” Blogger Is Full of Sh_t (gawker) http://bit.ly/1IFX2oV A French blogger perfectly captured the ridiculousness of the gluten-free craze (vox) http://bit.ly/1G90TNA

    The Crash-Proof Car in the Works at BMW (bloomie vid) http://bloom.bg/1InIm0O look ma, no hands yeah but does it protect you from being rear ended. it’s the other drivers

  4. RW commented on Apr 7

    It ain’t just in politics and it ain’t just climate change skepticism (but I repeat myself). Selling bullshit has been a viable business model for millennia but selling bullshit as valid science skepticism is relatively new and it really seems to be taking off in the U.S. in an alarming way; it is also not confined to the right-wing echo chamber; e.g.,

    The “Food Babe” Blogger Is Full of Shit

    Vani Hari, AKA the Food Babe, has amassed a loyal following in her Food Babe Army. …She and her army are out to change the world.

    She’s also utterly full of shit.

    I am an analytical chemist with a background in forensics and toxicology. Before working full-time as a science writer and public speaker, I worked as a chemistry professor, a toxicology chemist, and in research analyzing pesticides for safety. …Reading Hari’s site, it’s rare to come across a single scientific fact. Between her egregious abuse of the word “toxin” anytime there’s a chemical she can’t pronounce and asserting that everyone who disagrees with her is a paid shill, it’s hard to pinpoint her biggest sin.

    NB: As long as it is legal everybody including the Food Babe has a right to make a living whether I like the way they do it or not but what bothers me about sites like hers is twofold: First its sheer crudity, the lack of even enough knowledge to bury bullshit out of sight the way most climate-change deniers have learned to do, and second the way inadequate knowledge and research posing as expertise poisons the public well so that reasonable skepticism and questions regarding food safety simply become buried in the screaming heap.

    Public policy aside and just speaking as an investor and consumer it’s worth noting that it may take some extra effort these days to find reliable sources but it’s not really all that hard unless you are paranoid or predisposed to conspiracy theory and reluctant to trust accredited sources of expertise; fear is a great promoter and you may be ripe for a con then.

    I guess I should add as someone who has been involved in STEM education for many years the success a lot of stuff from anti-evolution to anti-vaccination is also just plain discouraging.

    • rd commented on Apr 7

      Science, math, and statistics/probability are hard. Life is much easier when you can simply ignore them.

  5. VennData commented on Apr 7

    Jeb Bush Flip Flops on Discrimination over the weekend!

    Two days after he unequivocally backed Indiana’s controversial “religious freedom” law as not “discriminatory at all,” former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said Wednesday at a private Silicon Valley fundraiser that Indiana could have taken a “better…more consensus-oriented approach

    http://m.dailykos.com/story/2015/04/03/1375296/-Jeb-Bush-Designated-Driver-Of-GOP-Klown-Kar-Does-A-U-Turn-At-The-Corner-Of-Bigotry-Pence

    You think W’s illegal wars and thrashing of the economy will turn GOP Rock Ribbers off Jeb? Well did “Read My Lips” turn them off W?”

    GOPers thoughtful, analytic, and seething with irrational hate for Democrats.

  8. Jojo commented on Apr 7

    Why job growth and cheap gas aren’t doing what they should
    By JOSH BOAK , Associated Press
    Apr. 4, 2015 9:08 AM ET

    WASHINGTON (AP) — Steady hiring is supposed to fire up economic growth.

    Cheap gasoline is supposed to power consumer spending.

    Falling unemployment is supposed to boost wages.

    Low mortgage rates are supposed to spur home buying.

    America’s economic might is supposed to benefit its workers.

    Yet all those common assumptions about how an economy thrives appear to have broken down during the first three months of 2015.

    The economic benefits that normally would flow after a full year of solid hiring have yet to emerge. Just 126,000 jobs were added in March, the government said Friday. Average weekly paychecks fell.

    …

    http://www.apnewsarchive.com/2015/Why-US-job-growth-isn-t-boosting-the-economy-and-cheap-gas-isn-t-powering-spending/id-79a31ba2a22b48c8bee5f34396a08f91

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