10 Friday AM Reads

June 19, 2015 8:00am by

Cruise into your weekend with our algorithmically neutral morning train reads:

• Why Do Analysts So Rarely Drop Their Long-Term Commodity Price Forecasts? (Piera)
• Jack Bogle’s Great Insight (Morningstar) see also Long term investing is a superior strategy — except to the noisy internet (Fund Reference)
• Podcasting Blossoms, but in Slow Motion (NYT)
• This Year Is Headed for the Hottest on Record, by a Long Shot: Hottest May, hottest five months. It’s a scorcher. (Bloomberg)
• ‘Goodfellas,’ 25 Years On: Cast Members Reminisce (NY Times)

Continues here

 

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  1. theexpertisin commented on Jun 19

    Interesting graph displaying the amout of gun violence. It appears, generally, as though more homogeneous societies with a single culture fare very well in regards to not shooting each other. Perhaps the issue boils down to executing behavioral norms to respect the common good.

    If guns were available in equal measure within all of these countries, I don’t think the rankings would change significantly.

  2. rd commented on Jun 19

    Re: Gun Homicide Rates

    The best comparison on that chart is the US vs Canada. There are many fundamental similarities between the two countries (immigration-based population growth over the centuries, similar country age to create traditions, home-grown secession movements (Metis Rebellion vs Civil War, modern day Quebec vs Texas etc.)

    The huge difference was that slavery was virtually non-existent in Canada but a major economic driver in the US during the early years. So Canada never developed a Second Amendment, which was designed to allow the whites to maintain guns and militias to guard against the potential of a slave rebellion.

    So the echoes of slavery continue echoing today with racist killings, such as in Charleston, using guns guaranteed today to be available due to the anachronism of slave rebellions.

    • wally commented on Jun 19

      “…which was designed to allow the whites to maintain guns and militias to guard against the potential of a slave rebellion.”

      Say what?????

    • rd commented on Jun 19

      Read up on the history of the Second Amendment and the frequency of slave uprisings in the Caribbean and southern US in the 1700s. Most European countries had slave holding on Caribbean islands in the 1700s. Uprisings were fairly frequent. The Second Amendment has nothing to do with the Civil War since it predated it by 70 years and not even much to do with the American Revolution. It came mainly from the fears of whites that they would be murdered by their slaves in a revolt and they wanted to have local and state militias of white people who could put uprisings down. Blacks greatly outnumbered whites in many locales and you had to have weapons and organization to keep them subservient.

    • kaleberg commented on Jun 20

      The Second Amendment came from the British attempt to take the weapons from the Massachusetts militia armories. There was a highly organized militia in the Boston area. The volunteer soldiers were called Minute Men, because they were expected to get their pants on and get their musket ready on 60 seconds notice. The British government based in Boston was increasingly worried about colonial attitudes towards self government and wanted to remind the locals that they were living in a colony, not back in England, so they sent an army unit to seize the guns and ammunition in the various local armories. This led to armed resistance and the first shots of the Revolutionary War. The Second Amendment was designed so that local, organized militias could operate with citizen soldiers.

      A lot of the Americans involved had been soldiers fighting the Irish back when they or their parents were British, so they knew the kinds of tactics involved. That’s why they wanted to ensure local military units, prevent quartering of troops, and so on.

    • jmgregorio commented on Jun 20

      The idea that the 2nd amendment was created to prevent slave uprisings is a recent conjuration of law professor Carl Bogus. There is no evidence in the historical record for any such belief in the 18th, 18th, or 20th centuries. The aptly named Bogus has supplied exactly zero facts regarding any actual references to the 2nd amendment to support it. He simply engaged in the usual exercise in evidence suppression and circular logic that the 2nd amendment denialists have engages in for generations.

      In terms of racism and the 2nd amendment, it is the “states rights” interpretation (guffaw!) of the 2nd amendment that is most associated with racism. If you think the first time a state supreme court interpreted the 2nd amendment to have anything to do with states rights was 1859 – you’d guess right! If you guessed that opinion was all about African-Americans, you’d guess right again! ( counter-intuitively it was Massachusetts engaging in Negro Panic) If you guessed the first time a weapons regulation was upheld under the “stated rights” theory just happened to involve an African American carrying a gun – you’d guess right for a 3rd time! (1905 Kansas)

      Of course “Saturday Night Special” used to have the N-word tacked on the front of it, that’s why the gun control movement eventually started using the label “junk guns.”

      I’ll be the first to criticize gun rights scholars for laying it on a bit think with the racism=gun control schtick – and they have a far better argument than Carl Bogus has for the reverse.

  4. Molesworth commented on Jun 19

    Beware of the correlation=causation thing. And premises.
    https://historyandancestry.wordpress.com/2013/12/08/was-the-2nd-amendment-about-preserving-slavery/
    Watching Jon Stewart last night, you can see why he’s leaving.
    He’s fed up.
    Same old stuff and no one changes their minds. No one changes within. Nothing changes.
    We’re going to cling to our beliefs and guns. The media will suck the meme of the day dry.
    And nothing will change.
    If killing twenty little kids won’t do it, neither will another few adults regardless of their race.

  10. Jojo commented on Jun 19

    Jon Stewart is right – nothing will ever change. I think the Founding Fathers would view the current interpretation of the 2nd Amendment as an example of unintended consequences.
    ————-
    Gun Control: Where Each of the Presidential Candidates Stands
    President Obama said Thursday we must “reckon” with our nation’s gun culture
    By Lauren Kelley
    June 18, 2015

    The story of the tragic mass shooting at an African-American church in Charleston, South Carolina, Wednesday night continues to develop.

    One thing that is clear at this stage, however, is that the 21-year-old suspected shooter, Dylann Roof, had access to a gun – it was reportedly given to him as a birthday gift – and he used it to kill nine individuals in what is being investigated as a hate crime.

    Political leaders and gun control advocates were quick to point out that the tragedy fits into the larger problem of gun violence in America.

    “Someone who wanted to inflict harm had no trouble getting their hands on a gun,” President Obama said of the Charleston shooter Thursday.

    “At some point, we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other developed countries.”

    …

    http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/gun-control-where-each-of-the-presidential-candidates-stands-20150618

  12. lucas commented on Jun 19

    From the Bloomberg comments: “The chart on gun deaths is false and misleading because gun ownership is permitted in the US and in very few nations elsewhere. ” Whenever data puts the US in a bad light, someone is sure to counter that the data should be dismissed for some reason. Maybe unwittingly, the Bloomberg comment is actually correct. The US should get rid of gun ownership.

  15. intlacct commented on Jun 20

    Bogle’s greatest insight: severing the conflict of interest between the fund mgt company and the interests of the shareholders in the funds.

  16. intlacct commented on Jun 20

    John Rekenthaler = John Dollar COunter. Very funny.

  17. intlacct commented on Jun 20

    re Medicare: Oh to be an obscenely wealthy country that can cater to pharmacceutical kleptocrats. Now, 130 years after Otto von Bismarck, maybe everyone should have it…? Do ya think?

    Dumb.

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