Welcome back to the festival of foreign affairs. China, Greece, Iran and Russia are on the agenda for the week – and that’s before we even get to a little thing called earnings. Oh, and our free range morning train reads:
• Why Investing Is So Complicated, and How to Make It Simpler (NYT)
• Beware: 10 Scams in China To Watch Out For (What’s On Weibo)
• The Global Creativity Index 2015 (Martin Prosperity Institute)
• One Million Miles to Go; Pluto is More Intriguing than Ever (Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory)
• Our deadliest problem? Not terrorism. ‘Terrorists killed nearly 18,000 people in 2013 — 1.5 per cent of those killed by traffic’ (FT)
Traffic – smaffic. I still go with tobacco – .5 million dead a year in US, 6 million plus a year worldwide. If traffic stopped tomorrow, no more deaths. Tobacco is a death gift that keeps on giving…
And it is criminal how many magazines still accept tobacco advertising, whether smoking or chewing varieties . Magazines like Popular Science and Wired, both of which are read by many young people, regularly feature tobacco advertising. Such magazines have no social conscience. Anyone up for a boycott?
pluto link is broken
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/
Deal on Greek Debt Crisis Is Reached, but Long Road Remains
Greece and its European creditors announced an agreement here on Monday that aims to resolve the country’s debt crisis and keep it in the eurozone, but that will require further budgetary belt-tightening that Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras could have trouble selling back in Athens.
NB: Since the deal apparently does not include debt any debt forgiveness it virtually guarantees that, whatever length the road may be, the next crisis is as close to certain as such can be.
You’d think Germany at least would recall how many times its debt overhang has been forgiven (after crimes far worse than feckless profligacy) and display a bit more gratitude or community spirit …ah well, perhaps the oligarchs decided they just needed to get a few more petroleum refineries and Mediterranean island hideaways at their usual government discount.
Whatever, at least the markets seem to like it, for now.
really just kicks can down the road, and doesnt fix any thing. does lead to continued depression (which petty much was given, no matter what the choice was. so far all of the ‘predictions’; from the troika have been wildly and tragically wrong)
Yanis Varoufakis full transcript: our battle to save Greece
The full transcript of the former Greek Finance Minister’s first interview since resigning.
Shorter version: The EU Commission stalled for five months and then delivered its ultimatum after it was too late to do anything but accept it or become a failed state (not that the latter is avoidable under the conditions the Commission set); Catch 22
The Greeks blinked.
How I miss the annual presentations I used to give on our Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity plan when I was IT Director at a Portland investment firm. The discussion of Cascadia Subduction earthquakes would put the entire staff into a funk for weeks.
The Really Big One
An earthquake will destroy a sizable portion of the coastal Northwest. The question is when.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big-one
New Madrid could run the upper Mississippi valley through a blender before Cascadia hammers the PNW but I’d rather not be anywhere in the neighborhood regardless.
what are the odds that a coup happens in Greece? based on the revulsion that the Greeks demonstrated in that vote, you would think that the government would fall because parliament votes no confidence or the military has had enough.
Looks like that to me too. Did Tspiras wake up with a horse’s head in his bed?
The “rapper” 50 Cent files for bankruptcy.
Could it be that his “product” is of poor quality?
He should get that Texas Economics Professor Varoufakis to offend 50’s judge and toss him in the can.
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ADMIN: Looks like it was a prophylactic BK to protect assets from litigation.
I dunno $22M in three days. Dude better have a big ole condom from his attorney.
“…Too much of our economy has become focused on making a quick buck instead of building real value…”
http://www.bradford-delong.com/2015/07/cargo-cult-economic-policy-vs-people-who-actually-have-clue-jeb-bush-vs-hillary-rodham-clinton.html
So movies are bad? Literary works, TV and consulting work is bad in Hillary Clinton’s economy? Arrive industry jobs that focus on doing something now, promotions, pro sports are evil?
I disagree.
it used to be that tech was the ‘white’ hat (say as opposed to big oil who are the ‘back’ hats). but now that more jobs are disappearing from technology than eve before (with so many that never would have been under threat from MDs to lawyers to journalists to software engineers to plant workers), and the cuts in wages and new jobs to replace the above, its hard to see how silicon valley will get its ‘good guys’ image back
http://www.newsweek.com/behind-fear-technology-dooming-us-all-352699
the largest more profitable criminal enterprises ever?
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/07/bill-black-libor-historys-largest-financial-crime-that-the-wsj-and-nyt-would-like-you-to-forget.html