10 Sunday Reads

April 26, 2015 6:00am by

Good Sunday morning, Some fascinating material to round out your weekend reading:

• The puzzle in active investing (Pensions & Investments)
• Forget Buffett the investor. Follow Buffett the manager (Fortune)
• Glut of Capital and Labor Challenge Policy Makers (WSJ)
• Tangles of pathology (Interfluidity)
• The Unintended Twist of Tax Inversions (NYT)
• The Battle for The Wrist (Asymco)
• Misunderstanding War: War remains one of the most consistently misunderstood of human behaviors. (The American Interest) see also Does the return of the mercenary mean a world with more war? (Australian Broadcast Corporation)
• Pot Legalization Is Sweeping The Country (MoJo)
• Solar power will soon be as cheap as coal (Quartz) see also Solar Power Battle Puts Hawaii at Forefront of Worldwide Changes (NYT)
• How to Design a Roller Coaster That’ll Make You Beg For Mercy (Bloomberg)

What are you reading?

 

Investors Hunt Bargains in European Corporate Bonds


Source: WSJ

 

 

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Discussions found on the web:
    • intlacct commented on Apr 27

      Why the future tense?

  2. rd commented on Apr 26

    I think Josh Brown nails it on this one:

    http://thereformedbroker.com/2015/04/26/is-obama-the-most-deflationary-force-in-america-right-now/

    I have met with Congressional representatives and their staffs and heard others talk. There are quite a few Republican House members who believe in infrastructure investments etc. However, they quietly state that most of the caucus won’t consider voting for them because it would require spending and probably tax and fee increases to fund. Since this is something the Administration wants to do, the de facto position is that it can’t happen. This is slowly starting to change because the situation is getting so bad that it is actually impacting the state’s economies that are the heartland of the Tea Party and the business community is starting to push hard, similar to what happened in Indiana related to the religious freedom law. However, it is clear that it is still like rolling a boulder uphill.

    I personally know a number of people who simply hate Obama. If he says something, they disagree with him simply because he is saying it. I think a lot of people disagreed with Ronald Reagan’s policies and felt that the George W Bush Administration was simply incompetent with an over-layering of neo-conservative mindview thinking. However, most people that I know did not hate them in the same way that I see with Obama. (PS – I am not a big Obama fan but that is because I am disappointed that he has never shown the interest in actual governing that Bill Clinton did).

    My concern is that a Hillary Clinton presidency would provide a similar focus of hatred based on what I see on FoxNews and hear people say, so that we would get another 4-8 years of incoherent legislative action based on purely emotional responses. I think the biggest disaster that could befall the GOP politically would be an alternative Democratic candidate that would remove the unifying hatred focus. At that point the same internal tensions between the pro-business, anti-tax and entitlement, and evangelical right factions would start to come to the fore and tear much of the party apart, similar to what we just saw in Indiana.

    • cjb commented on Apr 26

      4 to 8 years of hell would be preferable to allowing a Republican to appoint justices to the Supreme Court.

  3. RW commented on Apr 26

    Kansas’ experiment in concentrated conservatism keeps getting grimmer

    Kansas Republicans have enacted massive upper-class tax cuts, with the idea that they would produce such an explosion of economic growth that the state would actually gain revenues. This makes no sense in theory and has been a catastrophe in practice. Revenues have cratered, while economic growth lags behind neighboring states. …

    Kansas Republicans certainly have no intention of taking responsibility for this disaster, which means a search for scapegoats. The targets should not be surprising: poor people, women, and gay people.

  4. Jojo commented on Apr 26

    12 Motivational Quotes That Aren’t for the Weak-Willed
    A collection of powerful quotes that don’t pull any punches.
    By Matt Ehrlichman
    Founder and CEO, Porch@mattehrlichman

    Sometimes we need someone to give us the hard truth–a dose of pure, distilled honesty–to shake up normal patterns and give us fresh perspective.

    Here is a collection of quotes that have the same effect as jumping into cold water–they are crisp, to the point, and not always altogether pleasant, but they are also undeniably refreshing in their candor.

    Let this give you the burst of honesty and motivation you need to get things done and make progress.

    1) “You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”–Winston Churchill

    2) “There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.”–Aristotle

    3) “People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing. That’s why we recommend it daily.”–Zig Ziglar

    4) “Don’t find fault, find a remedy. Anybody can complain.”–Henry Ford

    …

    http://www.inc.com/matt-ehrlichman/12-motivational-quotes-that-aren-t-for-the-weak-willed.html

  5. Jojo commented on Apr 26

    Bloomberg
    The Death of Cash
    Could negative interest rates create an existential crisis for money itself?

    JPMorgan Chase recently sent a letter to some of its large depositors telling them it didn’t want their stinking money anymore. Well, not in those words. The bank coined a euphemism: Beginning on May 1, it said, it will charge certain customers a “balance sheet utilization fee” of 1 percent a year on deposits in excess of the money they need for their operations. That amounts to a negative interest rate on deposits. The targeted customers–mostly other financial institutions–are already snatching their money out of the bank. Which is exactly what Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon wants. The goal is to shed $100 billion in deposits, and he’s about 20 percent of the way there so far.

    Pause for a second and marvel at how strange this is. Banks have always paid interest to depositors. We’ve entered a new era of surplus in which banks–some, anyway–are deigning to accept money only if customers are willing to pay for the privilege. Nick Bunker, a policy analyst at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, was so dazzled by interest rates’ falling into negative territory that he headlined his analysis after a Doors song, Break on Through (to the Other Side).

    In recent months, negative rates have become widespread in Europe’s financial capitals.

    …

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-23/negative-interest-rates-may-spark-existential-crisis-for-cash

    • barbacoa666 commented on Apr 27

      Perhaps a reason why gold is actually a popular investment during deflationary times.

  6. intlacct commented on Apr 27

    re: Rick Ferri: pregnant pause: At one point near the end Rick paused to contemplate before answering a question: I loved that. A sign of thought.

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