After this past week, you deserve to kick back with a strong cup of joe, and enjoy our longer form hand curated weekend reads:
• The Rise and Fall of John DeLorean (Longreads)
• How an F Student Became America’s Most Prolific Inventor (Bloomberg) see also Venture Capital and the Internet’s Impact (Stratechery)
• The tipping minefield: who actually pockets your cash? (The Guardian)
• Will the Earth Ever Fill Up? (Nautilus)
• Terry Gross and the Art of Opening Up (NYT)
• Taylor Swift on People Who Call Her “Calculating” (GQ)
• She Kills People From 7,850 Miles Away: Her name is ‘Sparkle.’ She operates a drone. (Daily Beast)
• Can ESPN Solve Its Grantland Problem? (Vanity Fair)
• Another Nail in the JFK Conspiracy (NeuroLogica)
• What is life? If we met new life – on this planet or the next – would we know it when we saw it? (Mosaic)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Paul Desmond of Lowry’s Research.
Companies Paying HIGHEST AND LOWEST Taxes
Source: WalletHub
“Sparkle” a sniper operating in a clean room.
If there were an end to accrue by “taking out” the target…..
Governor Rauner REFUSES to accept the shredding he got from former Illinois GOP governors.
http://www.sj-r.com/article/20151022/NEWS/151029848
He’s our Scot Walker Republican hero. Refusing to govern, just screeching at the media.
Warning: this is what the Tea Party will bring to the rest of the country.
He does make me nostalgic for Blagojevich.
He does. Blago got nabbed trying deal an open Senate seat for a favor. Rainer is fucking up people’s lives.
Financial markets primarily exist to fund new business, develop capital and exert discipline on existing businesses? How very yesterday.
“The Money Has to Go Somewhere” – 1
…The vast majority of “investment” by private shareholders does not directly contribute any funding to the companies being invested in. Rather, it involves the purchase of existing assets from other owners of financial assets. …
…There simply isn’t enough room in the limited financial pipelines flowing into new businesses, to accommodate the immense gusher of cash coming from established ones. …
China central bank sees ‘very normal’ growth of 6-7 percent in next few years
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/24/us-china-economy-growth-idUSKCN0SI04820151024
The reason to ignore this? Because Obama!!!
Is it Debt Deleveraging or the Fall in Labor Share?
Adair Turner was interviewed by INET about his new book which …came out this week. It is called, Between Debt and the Devil. Here is the interview. (link)
He lays out an exquisite analysis of economics on many layers.
. How the crisis was not expected due to economic theories that thought they had solved macroeconomic problems.
. How debt is dragging down the global economy.
. How debt monetization is the best solution to the current sluggish economic growth.
. and more
Yet I question him… Is it truly deleveraging debt along side fiscal consolidation that is making some economies sluggish? It is an easy concept to grasp and accept. A larger portion of the economy would rather pay down debt than borrow to invest or consume. So the economy becomes sluggish.
But let me play the devil’s advocate…
I look at a different cause for economic sluggishness… the fall in labor share. It is not a concept so easy to accept. If you pay labor less, business should be able to grow faster right? You have lowered business costs. You have made it easier for firms to project higher profits, right?
Yet, I see the fall in labor share as a fall in effective demand, which has lowered economic potential. But there is more to this…
NB: These are not necessarily mutually exclusive scenarios btw; e.g, there is indeed a slow recovery from crisis and restrained fiscal spending but never to the previous growth level(s).
This is the general macroeconomic scenario I consider most plausible based on current evidence and there is <a href="http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-10-20/low-interest-rates-are-here-to-stay"considerable doubt that we'll see interest rates rise significantly for years unless (IMHO) austerianism is completely overthrown and there is massive fiscal spending WRT repair and replacement of infrastructure, education, poverty, basic research, alternate energy, etc. Canada at least seems to hold out some hope for this.
Sorry about the broken link in the NB (the word “considerable” was merged). Correct url is
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-10-20/low-interest-rates-are-here-to-stay“
Israel Agrees with Jordan to Quell Violence
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/kerry-travels-to-jordan-in-quest-to-stop-violence-in-israel/2015/10/24/a6c1dbe2-d518-46cd-b71d-355aee59bfc5_story.html
NO! Stand firm Bibi! until the other side gives up you must stand firm!
How he expect support being such an equivocating compromiser!? The Freedom Caucus should go to the Knesset and give a speech about backbone! (Bu they better do it before they agree to support anything Ryan put sin from of them.)
Paul Ryan has a happy weekend, but votes against it for you.
http://www.salon.com/2015/10/22/sad_sexless_lonely_this_is_the_real_paul_ryanayn_rand_vision_for_your_life/
Wit the news that Jeb Bush’s campaign is struggling, it is clear that the GOP needs to find a new mainstream candidate. This candidate should consider entering the race even though it didn’t work out in the last set of GOP primaries. His message will likely resonate even better with the GOP base this time around.
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/11c52fe15f/12-reasons-the-g-o-p-should-run-old-man-potter-doug-s-dozen-74?_cc=__d___&_ccid=6bf5xc.nwqlo3
Why Angry Old Men Calling a Meeting to Yell at a Woman Is Always a Spectacular Failure
Anna Merlan
Filed to: benghazi10/23/15 10:30am
Twice in recent weeks, we’ve gotten to watch hotly anticipated Congressional hearings, in which mostly male Republican members got the chance to grill powerful women who had upset them. In both cases, those members of Congress ended up looking like damn fools. How’d that happen?
There are lots of good reasons why neither the #Benghazi squad yelling at Hillary Clinton nor the House Oversight Committee yelling at Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards worked out particularly well for Congress. Some of it stems from the fact that both hearings were show trials, a purely partisan effort to show the folks back home how erectly principled their conservative principles are. But there’s also a visual, theatrical reason: watching a body composed predominantly of white men shout at, interrupt, and harangue a dignified, composed woman has always been a bad look, and in 2015, it’s one the public will no longer accept.
…
http://theslot.jezebel.com/why-angry-old-men-calling-a-meeting-to-yell-at-a-woman-1738194096
Ask Well: Is Grass-Fed Beef Better for You?
By Anahad O’Connor
October 23, 2015
Q: Is there a health difference between eating grass-fed beef and conventional beef?
A: Grass-fed beef tends to be higher in some nutrients, and studies suggest it may contain fewer bacteria that can cause food poisoning — which could be good for your health.
Grass-fed can mean a lot of things. But the American Grassfed Association, which has a certification program, refers to grass-fed animals “as those that have eaten nothing but grass and forage from weaning to harvest, have not been raised in confinement, and have never been fed antibiotics or growth hormones.”
…
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/10/23/ask-well-is-grass-fed-beef-better-for-you/
Poll: Iowa Republicans Love That Ben Carson Is an Inexperienced Lunatic
“…In Iowa 81% of Republicans say that Ben Carson’s statement that Obamacare is the worst thing since slavery…”
http://gawker.com/poll-iowa-republicans-love-that-ben-carson-is-an-inexp-1738269725
So they’d rather have the CIA experiment with LSD on them than get Health Insurance without preexisting conditions excluded.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKUltra
I guess laughing at Iowa Republicans us something that is important to the country. So I am. I suggest you do to.
I do question whether Iowa should be part of the front loading primary wise.
“…Some 14 million previously uninsured adults have gained coverage in the last two years,..”
“…Around 7.5 million taxpayers paid the fine, according to a preliminary report by the Internal Revenue Service. That is significantly more than the three million to six million the government had forecast…”
“…$65 per biweekly paycheck is more than most of his workers are willing — or able — to pay for insurance…”
“…Workers making $15,000 to $20,000 a year buy employer-sponsored individual insurance when it is offered only 37 percent of the time. That rate rises at every income increment ADP studied until $45,000, when it reaches 82 percent and levels off…”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/20/business/many-low-income-workers-say-no-to-health-insurance.html
More America-poking insanity from the Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/oct/20/consumption-consumerism-americans-buying-stuff
It’s like New Yorkers writing about Californians. Californians about Texans, Or Texans even writing.
Good riddance to Scott Walker’s national campaign. He and the Wisconsin GOP majority are changing the John Doe law to give a free pass to political crimes.
http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2015/oct/22/chris-danou/gop-changes-wisconsins-john-doe-law-create-excepti/
We’ve got Scot Walker II ruining Illinois. Rauner wants an end to unions or no budget. Demanded tax cuts, that he got and we are losing credit ratings daily.
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20151019/NEWS02/151019818/fitch-downgrades-illinois-credit-rating-citing-budget-fight
Nice summary of Rauner’s “Businessman as politician” incompetent here
http://chicago.suntimes.com/opinion/7/71/1031398/wednesday-letters-rauner-fish-water-government
Edgar and Thompson both ex GOP governors hate him.
http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20151022/news/151029623/
His own controller hates him.
http://www.qconline.com/news/local/munger-says-rauner-should-give-up-union-attacks
REMOVE RAUNER.
A little grainy but still remarkably looking like the a comet
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-34615229
DeLorean – Interesting comments. He had an ego, but certainly moved thru GM. Knew him at Chevrolet where he had a special limo built as he couldn’t drive a Cadillac. Didn’t like waiting for Mr. Cole but had no issue on making Chevrolet groups wait for him, as long as 2 days in Kentucky. Used the non-produced Corvette mid-ship designs for the DeLorean structure, but was a good marketer convincing the UK to fund the Irish plant. Certainly was ‘exciting’ watching him maneuver thru the GM bureaucracy.