10 Wednesday AM Reads

October 14, 2015 7:14am by

My midweek, free range, hand curated, corn fed, morning train reads:

• On Apple’s Insurmountable Platform Advantage (Steve Cheney)
• Don’t let the Nobel prize fool you. Economics is not a science (The Guardian)
• What’s the Difference Between Data Science and Statistics? (Priceonomics)
• The world is a complicated place and that reducing it to simple theories is almost always dangerous (New Yorker)
• Pondering the ‘Star Trek’ Economy with Paul Krugman and Brad DeLong  (Speakeasy)

Continues here

 

 

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Discussions found on the web:
    • rd commented on Oct 14

      “Senior bankers should not be jerks.”

      This does not make sense. I thought that personality trait was a requirement in the job description provided to HR during the hiring process.

    • willid3 commented on Oct 14

      well it fits in well with their other trait, sociopaths

    • BTUR commented on Oct 14

      They work twice as many hours as everyone else and make twice as much money. If they wanted they could a more normal job, or the banks could hire twice as many people, but nobody seems to want that…

    • willid3 commented on Oct 14

      not sure thats true. but thats what they tell themselves i am sure

    • BillG commented on Oct 14

      They’ve got a lot more upside than most people though. Do your time in Ibanking and good things will come to you. But yeah, from everything I’ve heard about it the only benefit is the paycheck. Even if they cut the hours back to 50 or 60 you’d think the banks would come out ahead. How productive is anyone on their 60th, 70th or 80th hours? And there’s no shortage of MBAs looking for those jobs. Bring a few more people on board.

    • BTUR commented on Oct 15

      Well, at the junior banking level it is, like BillG said the upside if they stick it out and get into the senior management positions it stops being true. A junior iBanker straight out of college is making $80k-100k though working 100 hours a week, compared to a similarly educated person getting a job in say marketing that might pay a starting salary of $50k and you work 40-50 hours a week.

      I agree with the general sentiment of the article to stop whining, though, these people are choosing that career. They want the work life balance AND the paycheck. Sorry pals but it doesn’t work that way, you want the double paycheck and the opportunities it leads to you don’t get the same other perks as everyone else. Like I said nobody is clamoring to double the number of junior iBankers because they can see how that would cut their paycheck in half. Let’s not be fooled – they want the money, and it’s a choice they’re making to go after it.

  4. RW commented on Oct 14

    The economics and health of fish farming is an evolving story but there is still enough mis- and malpractice to warrant caution from consumers. I only eat north Pacific salmon — mostly wild-caught sockeye for grilling and Chinook for smoking — but not just because I live there and it’s (mostly) reasonably priced. The sad tale of “Scottish Salmon” will help explain.

    Wild Scottish salmon comes off MCS’s ‘fish to avoid’ list
    Wild salmon caught in Scottish rivers can go back on the menu, the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) is advising diners after assessing the way catches are managed.

    The fish, in contrast to farmed salmon, have for years been on the MCS’s list of species that consumers should avoid eating because of concerns about their numbers. …

    Their numbers, yes certainly, but the reason for those numbers ain’t just overfishing, it’s rampant disease and coastal contamination from net-cage fish-farming activity.

    The Scottish Salmon Think-Tank
    The …Think-Tank is an evolving entity that emerged urgently during October 2012 in Sleat (pron. Slate), the peninsula at the south end of the Isle of Skye, in response to a sequence of four aggressive planning permission applications submitted The Highland Council by Norwegian aquaculture companies Marine Harvest and Hjaltland Seafarms Ltd (Grieg Seafood ASA) who would like to install industrial scale net-cage salmon farms in Lochs Slapin and Eishort (pron. Eshort). …

    The Think-Tank site linked above is deep with a lot of detail but the much shorter version supplied by one of its authors is [emphasis his]: “Salmon farming (in nets) is the subject that has occupied a small group of us here on Skye for the past three years … and until we get something done about it, probably a lot longer. …we’re just a bunch of locals, two of us biologists, who were appalled by threats to our local lochs of aggressive industrial development by companies (mostly Norwegian) who stop at nothing to get their way ….

    “…The consequences of marine pollution and parasitic sea lice concentrated on farmed fish and then transferred in huge numbers onto wild salmon and sea trout, exterminating population of them all along the west Highland coast. There is virtually no salmon or sea trout angling on west coast rivers now because there’s nothing to fish for and all scientific research indicates that that sea lice from fish farms are the cause. There is a solution that eliminates all problems associated with net-cage salmon farming: closed containment in tank systems, which we are energetically recommending. …” (ht AT)

    NB: The island of Skye also happens to be the home of my favorite single malt which fortunately does not appear to depend upon the quality of sea water or the health/abundance of local sea food but I guess I won’t be including fishing in my itinerary if I go to visit for a special tasting.

    • Jojo commented on Oct 15

      A wonderful headline and a sordid tale indeed… [lol]

  9. DeDude commented on Oct 14

    Oh poor Walmart – someone took away the welfare punchbowl.

    http://money.cnn.com/2015/10/14/investing/walmart-outlook-wages/index.html

    Having to pay their employees enough to get off food stamps may cost them as much as $1.5 billion. That $20 billion stock buy back may have to be trimmed by 7.5% to cover these expenses. How on earth are the Walton owners going to be able to survive such cuts to their capital gains – I mean show them some compassion and get rid of that minimum wage altogether.

    • willid3 commented on Oct 14

      yes save those poor broke helpless Walton family. otherwise they might have to cut back on their caviar . they also might have to actually walk places

    • DeDude commented on Oct 15

      Yep – weakening the speaker and destroying party discipline is indeed a double edged sword.

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