10 Friday AM Reads

July 17, 2015 8:00am by

Finish your week strong with our free range morning train reads:

• A Visual History of Market Crash Predictions (Fund Reference)
• Luck vs. Skill in Active Management (WOCS)
• The technical experts weigh in, and they’re pretty impressed with the Iran deal (MoJo) see also Iran deal: The best worst option (Judith Miller)
• Interview: David Byrne: The man who chased the sounds of the future as Talking Heads’ frontman is curating London’s Meltdown festival this year. (FT)
• The 10 Best Craft Breweries to Hit Up in New England This Summer (Bloomberg)

Continues here

 

 

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  1. swag commented on Jul 17

    lol Judith Miller.

    Well, Scooter Libby was taken with her enough to write poetry like ” Out west, where you vacation, the aspens will already be turning. They turn in clusters, because their roots connect them.” to her.

  2. catman commented on Jul 17

    Craft breweries are thick as ticks on a dog here in the midwest as well. The question is who the hell is drinking all that Sam Adams swill.

    • BillG commented on Jul 17

      I used to rag on Sam Adams all the time for being faux-craft beer or whatever. But I picked up one of their variety packs for a party a year or so ago and honestly they put out some quality stuff. I would guess most people get it because its a known level of quality whereas craft beers are unknown and are a crapshoot.

  4. RW commented on Jul 17

    The first step in analysis is check your assumptions first: The NYT writer clearly did not and thus serves his audience poorly.

    How Did the NYT Determine that the Social Welfare Systems in France and Italy Are Too Generous?

    It’s hard to see the basis for this assertion. According to the I.M.F., France has a structural budget deficit of 2.0 percent of GDP, Italy’s structural deficit is just 0.3 percent of GDP. Deficits of this size could be sustained indefinitely.

    Both countries are running larger actual deficits at present because their economies are operating below full employment, even by the I.M.F.’s measure. … This suggests that the main source of budget problems for France and Italy is the contractionary fiscal policies being imposed on the euro zone by Germany and the European Central Bank, not excessive welfare state spending.

    “If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about answers.” –Thomas Pynchon (Gravity’s Rainbow)

    • Iamthe50percent commented on Jul 17

      To Conservatives any Social welfare spending is too much. Remember Pat Buchanan calling for a return to workhouses?

    • willid3 commented on Jul 17

      unless its the welfare spending they depend on of course

  5. VennData commented on Jul 17

    Why is it that the people that entrust firearms to everybody can’t abide by the idea of trusting Iran under such strict controls at all?

    • ilsm commented on Jul 17

      The military industry complex sees more money in fighting for Saudi Sunni in the war between Shia and Sunni.

      Opting for peace vice bombing….. Or occupying is not war business friendly.

  6. CD4P commented on Jul 17

    Time for a bounce in the Canadian Dollar? From on-par with the U.S. Dollar to 1.30 in just a couple of years…

  7. DeDude commented on Jul 17

    Sort of sad and hilarious at the same time

    http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/17/eternal-greece/

    It doesn’t really matter that something has been debunked to the n’th degree. In certain circles it still is used because it reaches the right conclusion. I guess it is only in academic circles that evidence makes a difference. Think tanks like Heritage don’t care about evidence as they reach out for any straw that can “support” their preconceived notions and conclusions.

    • ilsm commented on Jul 17

      Heritage humbug….

      Diverse educational research, the new buzz word for humbug that tortured the data to confess to the faith.

  10. Jojo commented on Jul 17

    ‘Most workers are employees,’ says U.S. Department of Labor
    Analysis: New guidance clarifies the exceptional, limited nature of ‘independent contractor’ status
    July 15, 2015 6:00PM ET
    by E. Tammy Kim @etammykim

    The federal Department of Labor has signaled its concern that workers are being unlawfully excluded from key protections on the job. On Wednesday, the agency’s wage-and-hour division released a 15-page document clarifying who should be considered an “independent contractor” versus an “employee.” It was widely read as addressing the gig-based “sharing economy” and sharp anxieties over labor, income inequality and the changing nature of work.

    Using concrete examples from nursing, construction, publishing and cleaning, the guidance clarifies that it’s the “economic realities” of one’s work that matter, “not the label an employer gives it” or what’s listed on a 1099 tax form for non-employees. The legal factors seem technical but are fairly commonsensical: Does the worker play a key role in the employer’s business? Is the work entrepreneurial? Does the employer control what she does?

    Since the early 20th century, what are generally assumed to be basic workplace rights — a minimum wage, social security, unemployment and workers’ compensation — have depended on having status as an employee. This system arose in tandem with large corporations that hired people for life, sometimes generation after generation. As exemplars of welfare capitalism, firms like Kodak and General Electric paid steady wages, provided time off, health care and pensions, and created a quasi-familial environment for workers.

    …

    http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/7/15/most-workers-are-employees-says-us-department-of-labor.html

  11. Jojo commented on Jul 17

    Businessweek
    Satellite Images Show Economies Growing and Shrinking in Real Time
    Cheap orbiting cameras and big-data software reveal hidden secrets of life down below
    July 8, 2015
    by Jeff Kearns

    Some 250 miles above the Earth, a flock of shoebox-size Dove satellites is helping to change our understanding of economic life below.

    In Myanmar, night lights indicate slower growth than World Bank estimates. In Kenya, photos of homes with metal roofs can show transition from poverty. In China, trucks in factory parking lots can indicate industrial output.

    Images from these and other satellites, combined with big-data software, are helping to create what former NASA scientist James Crawford calls a “macroscope” to “see things that are too large to be taken in by the human eye.” Aid organizations can use the results to distribute donations. Investors can mine them to pick stocks.

    “This is one of those really rare game changers that come along very infrequently but has the ability to remake the whole stock- and economic-research industry,” said Nicholas Colas, chief market strategist at Convergex Group, a New York-based brokerage. “We still make monetary policy in this country based on surveys of a few thousand households and businesses.”

    …

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2015-07-08/satellite-images-show-economies-growing-and-shrinking-in-real-time

  12. willid3 commented on Jul 17

    why companies just cant disclose what CEO pay to worker pay
    http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/07/the-3-most-ludicrous-corporate-arguments-against-ceo-worker-pay-disclosure.html

    makes one wonder why investors are concerned about these companies. course that would depend on investors being invested in that company for longer than a few minutes, and that they actually researched the company first as opposed to the stock , and that the investment wasnt done by a stock fund

    • VennData commented on Jul 17

      Stop waiving those Confederate flags or we’re gonna come down their and kick your ass again.

    • Jojo commented on Jul 17

      Too bad they didn’t map income gains on that chart!

  20. VennData commented on Jul 17

    Hey Ted Cruz! Hey Boehner! The World Still on Fire?

    ROFL. And half you Republicans think Trump is crazy! ROFL

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