10 Weekend Reads

June 20, 2015 6:00am by

Good Saturday morn! Pour yourself a mug of French roast, settle into your favorite chair, and enjoy our longer form weekend reads:

• The $5 Billion Battle For The American Dinner Plate (Fast Company) see also Food flavor safety system a ‘black box’: But industry says self-policing poses no threat to consumers (Center For Public Integrity) see also ‘The Dorito Effect,’ by Mark Schatzker (NY Times)
• Fat Tails, Thin Ice (Jason Zweig)
• Inside Obama’s Stealth Startup: The President has quietly recruited top tech talent from the likes of Google and Facebook. Their mission: to reboot how government works. (Fast Company)
• How theme parks like Disney World left the middle class behind (Washington Post)
• When You ‘Literally Can’t Even’ Understand Your Teenager (NYT Mag)
• The Blight of the Honey Bee: They’re dying of stress, which is stressing us out. But we’ve only got ourselves to blame. (New York Mag)
• How Maria Sharapova Became the World’s Wealthiest Female Athlete (Bloomberg)
• Release of encyclical reveals pope’s deep dive into climate science (Washington Post) and also check out Laudato si’ (24 May 2015) (The Vatican)
• Has the Internet Killed Deep Engagement With Books—or Are We Nostalgic for a Reading Eden That Never Was? (Slate)
• Comedy Central in the Post-TV Era (NYT Mag)

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with tech entrepreneur, venture capitalist and philanthropist Nick Hanauer.

 

 

Net Outflows Befall 401k Plans

Source: WSJ

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  1. Robert M commented on Jun 20

    The president stealth attempt to recruit for government is downright funny. Here is a man who used the highest level of program analytics to become elected President and re-elected but did not care a wit to watch his signature piece of legisation work on an operational level. Now he cares………

    • DeDude commented on Jun 20

      Someone who will learn from his mistakes, rather than practice self-denial and be condemned to repeat them. Outrageous – how could anybody consider that to be leadership??

  2. RW commented on Jun 20

    Mergers Might Not Signal Optimism

    A boom in mergers and acquisitions usually signals confidence in the economy …

    So far this year, deal-making activity in the United States has topped $775.8 billion, up nearly 50 percent compared with figures in the period last year, just behind deal volume in 2007 …

    But in contrast to previous merger booms, this recent spate of deals shouldn’t necessarily be considered a barometer of a healthy economy. ….

  3. farmera1 commented on Jun 20

    Obviously the Pope doesn’t understand that Global Warming is Al Gore’s fault.

    • willid3 commented on Jun 21

      yea, just how likely was any one to actually be able to defend them selves, when the killer has been in your midst for over an hour, and hasnt shown any threatening activity? and most of this if they had a gun is just fantasy, cause its not like we have seen armed police officers get killed by guns, even though they have been fully trained and have a weapon on their hip. and considering how on edge they are, its not like they arent on high alert all the time

  5. Molesworth commented on Jun 20

    Has the Internet Killed Deep Engagement With Books?
    I find using an electronic reader has changed my reading habits. I’m easily distracted and electronic reader attached to the internet enables me to go off on tangents.
    Example: Reading House of Seven Gables, see the word “tautag” which based on context is a food, but it’s so easy to stop and google “tautag” to find its a fish and then look to see if it’s still being fished and why I haven’t heard of it (Is it called something else?) and then look to see what it tastes like and how it’s prepared and then go back the book to find a mention of Juno madeira and then go off to google it to see if its still made, when it stopped productions and then note the time to see that markets have opened and just check to see how they’re doing and see they’re way up and so check news so see if something has happened with Greece and a headline catches my eye so I click it, and on it goes.
    If I was reading a paper version, I’d be done by now.

  8. willie commented on Jun 21

    Your blog is dedicated to exploding the myths propagated by too many elements in the financial industry. The Fat Tails, Thin Ice article reflects a skepticism that I share with you regarding prediction, especially with statistically based regression models. My background in econometric and statistical modelling makes me skeptical of the ability of models which attempt to over-reach in their conclusions. I have the same concern and skepticism regarding climate change models, hopefully, we will come to an agreement on this perspective in the future.

    • DeDude commented on Jun 21

      Any parameter that is substantially affected by human psychology is pretty much impossible to model with any accuracy because you have to add huge “random chaos” elements. Climate is based on simple physics that can be measured (greenhouse effects of certain gases are facts, those gases can be measured precisely, as can the outcome parameter of temperatures). The main problems in modeling climate has been to gather all the parameters that needs to be included, not that those parameters were of the “random chaos” type. A lot of the unaccounted heat appears to have been found after we got better data from all layers of the ocean. So current models are actually pretty solid and in contrast to markets, the climate is based on physics so new unpredictable crazy stuff doesn’t just pop out based on the latest fad or “innovation”. Physics is a different kind of science than psychology.

    • willid3 commented on Jun 21

      the confusion of economics with science continues!

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