My easy like Sunday morning reads:
• Why 2015 Was a Breakthrough Year in Artificial Intelligence (Bloomberg)
• Peter Lynch, 25 Years Later: It’s Not Just ‘Invest in What You Know’ (WSJ)
• Private Equity Fees Are Sky-High, Yes, but Look at Those Returns (Dealbook)
• Will Anthony Bourdain’s Market Be Sweet or Sour? (Daily Beast)
• Regulatory Problems with Cancer Research (Otium) see also Happiness Doesn’t Bring Good Health, Study Finds (NYT)
• How to Design a Better Pitch Deck (The Macro)
• The world just agreed to a major climate deal in Paris. Now comes the hard part. (Vox)
• Stopped by the Police? Don’t Worry, There’s an App For That (NBC)
• The GOP is the world’s only major climate-denialist party. But why? (Vox) see also Why Are Republicans the Only Climate-Science-Denying Party in the World? (NY Mag)
• The Best Books We Read in 2015 (The Atlantic)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview today with Jazz guitarist and singer John Pizzarelli.
Inflation has been stuck in neutral, partly due to a slide in commodity prices
Source: WSJ
A look inside the insanely successful life of Silicon Valley investor Marc Andreessen
http://www.businessinsider.com/a-look-inside-the-insanely-successful-life-of-investor-marc-andreessen-2015-12
He likes Carly over Hillary. His argument is that Carly ran a big company but Hillary couldn’t run a big company.
Hey Marc,
Aside from the imponderable unknown, Hillary Clinton isn’t running for CEO and doesn’t claim to be good at it.
This is the logic Republican’s use. Hilarious. What a tool.
Surely Marc must be aware of the dismal track record Carly has in corporate management … most prominently, a member of the “parade of fools” that dragged HP down in a sequence of terrible managers making stopped decisions … looting the company all the while …
http://fortune.com/2015/08/14/carly-fiorina-president-2/
Initial Results Show 5 Saudi Women Elected for First Time
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/12/13/world/middleeast/ap-ml-saudi-women-vote.html
How do you know it’s them?
Google CEO Pens Open Letter Supporting Muslim Tolerance In U.S. And Beyond
http://techcrunch.com/2015/12/11/sundar-pichai-tolerance/
I’m never searching the internet again!
Send everyone home!!!
Crushing the Caddy (tax)
The WSJ reports that while the situation is fluid, the ongoing budget and tax negotiations will likely include a two-year delay of the implementation of the …“Cadillac tax”–the excise tax on expensive health insurance plans that was to phase in by 2018 to help pay for Obamacare–…this ACA funding source …embeds important cost-control incentives …and if you repeal it, you will not be able to replace it.
“But no one’s repealing it!” you say. Just delaying it. To which I say, “ha!”…
All of which goes to say that we are great at cutting taxes and terrible at raising revenues. And that will bite us–it already is.
“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” –H. L. Mencken
Don’t forget that a repeal mean that the budget and deficit projections will include it being gone forever. When you make it a delay you get to pretend that it will only last for a short time. Republicans want to first institute their unaffordable tax cuts before they repeal any income provisions of Romney/Obamacare.
“All of which goes to say that we are great at cutting taxes and terrible at raising revenues. And that will bite us–it already is.”
I am going to call B.S. here Federal tax receipts are higher than they have ever been..
https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/FYFRGDA188S
Even if you look at tax receipts as a percent of GDP they are higher than at most times in our history.
Actually, that’s not even close to true. 17.5% is about the median since WW2
December 11, 2015, 5:17 PM
Read the original 1977 reviews of “Star Wars”
When George Lucas’ “Star Wars” first landed in 1977, some critics were swept away, while others resisted the tide. A sampling:
EXHAUSTING
“‘Star Wars’ is like getting a box of Cracker Jacks which is all prizes. This is the writer-director George Lucas’s own film, subject to no business interference, yet it’s a film that’s totally uninterested in anything that doesn’t connect with the mass audience. There’s no breather in the picture, no lyricism; the only attempt at beauty is in the double sunset. It’s enjoyable on its own terms, but it’s exhausting, too: like taking a pack of kids to the circus. … It’s an epic without a dream.” – Pauline Kael, The New Yorker.
…
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/original-1977-reviews-of-star-wars/
Another good reason to pay little attention to critics.
Pauline Kael, was a standout – she essentially invented the independent film critic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauline_Kael
and another good reason to ignore critics: http://www.rogerebert.com/chazs-blog/siskel-and-ebert-defend-star-wars
Didn’t know that Pat Buchanan was still around. Are we still at war? O boy….
=============
An Establishment Unhinged
Thursday – December 10, 2015 at 11:05 pm
By Patrick J. Buchanan
Calling for a moratorium on Muslim immigration “until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on,” Donald Trump this week ignited a firestorm of historic proportions.
As all the old hate words — xenophobe, racist, bigot — have lost their electric charge from overuse, and Trump was being called a fascist demagogue and compared to Hitler and Mussolini.
The establishment seemed to have become unhinged.
Why the hysteria? Comes the reply: Trump’s call for a temporary ban on Muslim immigration tramples all over “American values” and everything we stand for, including the Constitution.
But is this really true?
The Constitution protects freedom of religion for U.S. citizens. But citizens of foreign lands have no constitutional right to migrate. And federal law gives a president broad powers in deciding who comes and who does not, especially in wartime.
…
http://buchanan.org/blog/an-establishment-unhinged-124406
The US is all about pandering to Saudi royals. Self determination is malarkey! The US deferred elections in Vietnam too.
The Syria terror consortium was in Riyadh last week checking in with their bankers. To the Sunni democracy is apostate anathema.
https://consortiumnews.com/2015/12/12/blocking-democracy-as-syrias-solution/
December 12, 2015
Blocking Democracy as Syria’s Solution
The long-cherished neocon dream of “regime change” in Syria is blocking a possible route out of the crisis – a ceasefire followed by elections in which President Assad could compete. The problem is there’s no guarantee that Assad would lose and thus the dream might go unfulfilled.
By Robert Parry
The solution to the crisis in Syria could be democracy – letting the people of Syria decide who they want as their leaders – but it is the Obama administration and its regional Sunni “allies,” including U.S.-armed militants and jihadists, that don’t want to risk a democratic solution because it might not achieve the long-held goal of “regime change.”
Assad the secular non Sunni might win an election!