10 Tuesday AM Reads

December 15, 2015 7:00am by

Our Two-fer-Tuesday morning train reads:

• Why Very Low Interest Rates May Stick Around (The Upshot) but see The Fed may be about to atone for the “mistake” of 1998 (FT Alphaville)
• Five Mind-Blowing Stats from the Selloff in the Biggest Junk Bond ETF (Bloomberg)
• The lawyer looking to kill the ‘gig economy’ (Marketwatch) see also When Will Labor Laws Catch Up With the Gig Economy? Companies such as Uber will get regulated eventually—but whether that’s the best way to help on-demand workers is still being debated. (The Atlantic)
• Who’s investigating fake Chinese goods? Fake investigators (AP) see also Why China Is Loosening the Yuan’s Ties to the Dollar (WSJ)
• Why Hoverboards Keep Exploding (Wired)

Continues here

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Discussions found on the web:
    • VennData commented on Dec 15

      As Health Care Act Insurance Deadline Nears, ‘Unprecedented Demand’

      http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/15/us/politics/as-health-care-act-insurance-deadline-nears-unprecedented-demand.html

      Fear of terror drives the uninsured to get insured. Obama’s jobless drones must be stealing to afford the outrageous fees private insurers impose due to his hamfisted regulatory demands that you can’t have pre-existing conditions anymore.

      Those were the days. Bring back pre-existing conditions! They’re gifts from God! You deny my religious freedom by forcing me to buy insurance when there’s a perfectly good ER up the road i can go to if anything happens! And stiff if those bastards demand payment.

    • VennData commented on Dec 15

      ​“It’s not something we want to be involved in,” said the mayor, a Republican completing his third term. “If the White House wants to push its agenda, they should do it without our participation.” Mr. Winters said White House officials had reached out to him. “They were rather pushy about it, borderline rude,” he said. “Montanans don’t appreciate people calling us and being rude to us on the phone.”​

      ​Well that’s a great argument not to promote free market health insurance.​ Definitely outweighs the positives.

      These Republicans are such savvy debaters.

    • VennData commented on Dec 15

      Remember Santelli, Gundlach, Bianco GUARANTEED there would be no 2015 Fed hike.

    • ilsm commented on Dec 15

      You cannot make this up.

      Rubio wants to arm Sunni al Qaeda, give them Syria so they can kill alawites, Shiites, Christians and plan a really big 9/11 against US.

  4. VennData commented on Dec 15

    Michele Bachmann ends Israel tour with call for Jews to convert to Christianity, says Jesus is ‘coming soon’

    http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/michele-bachmann-jews-convert-christianity-article-1.2427858​

    The GOP’s war on Hanukkah is like ISIS. Forcible conversion. Or just shoot ’em

    http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/nev-lawmaker-shoot-syrian-refugees-article-1.2458331

    The Female Vanguard of Republicanism.

    Michele Bachmann winner of Iowa Republican Caucuses past is an expert predictor LOL!

  5. VennData commented on Dec 15

    I’ve seen APPLETV.

    It’s called CNBC. Al they talk about is APPL…

    …unless Joe Kernan or RIck Santelli are concocting predictive counter factual straw men to rile up The Base.

  6. RW commented on Dec 15

    A Blast from the Past: Unions as Combinations in Restraint of Trade
    A move is under way in Seattle to extend collective bargaining to drivers for Uber and Lyft. …

    Uber …is fighting back. Today’s New York Times has a story that sets out their legal case and suggests one argument might have traction, “that collective bargaining by independent contractors would amount to illegal price-fixing under anti-trust law.”

    No irony is voiced in the article, but it should be noted that this was exactly the legal basis for the repression of unions in the nineteenth century …

    “The thing that has been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.” –Ecclesiastes (1:9 AKJ)

  7. RW commented on Dec 15

    The Treasure and the Law
    “…and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels.” Golden words; they may yet save us. But how on earth, given the massive forces against such high ambition, did they get into the Paris Agreement last week? A year ago, this was being pushed by the “group of small island nations”, tiny, powerless and on the face of it doomed. Last Saturday, 196 countries agreed to their central demand. How come? ….

    NB: A glimpse into the sausage factory (AKA making laws and treaties). I’m still fairly well persuaded that a 2°C mean climate temperature rise is baked into the cake even if efforts at amelioration are extraordinary meaning a target of 1.5 may be not be achievable but also believe the social and economic benefits of trying will be well worth the attempt regardless; e.g., innovation and an industrial revolution focused on infrastructure rather than personal consumption or services could be a real breath of fresh air both literally and figuratively (ok stronger than a breath more likely).

    • VennData commented on Dec 15

      The money the Kochs et AL spend to spread ignorance is a worthwhile investment to keep their tax rates low.

      The GOP Media Machine works.

    • Iamthe50percent commented on Dec 15

      Let’s see. Using data from public High School circa 1960.

      The Sun radiates essentially equally in all directions. That means that at the distance of Earth, the energy is spread over a sphere of area 4 pi (93,000,000) squared. The Earth intercepts this energy (neglecting re-radiation which is NOT negligible) with a disk of area pi (4,000) squared. Retreating to Windows calc, it tells us that the Earth intercepts AT MOST, 4.6 ten billionths (10 to the -10) of the energy that the Sun is constantly radiating. That’s the entire daylight face of the Earth. Half a billionth. Like ten cents is to the Koch Brothers wealth. And it’s going to suck it dry? This person should not be allowed any closer to a school than a registered child molester is!

    • VennData commented on Dec 15

      Audited financials must conform to GAAP. They can ‘feature’ other numbers but if you “change” accounting methods you must show the restatement affect for prior periods. That a few companies do this redisplay shows how silly this wildly offbeat article is. No CPA reviewed this Rupert Murdoch generated rubbish.

      The WSJ when do/say anything to scare you out of the Obama Rally, get fear of crashes into your head etc.

      Don’t read the WSJ, it’s a horrible misrepresentation of what is actually happening, hyper partisan and wrong. Don’t forget how Rupert Murdoch and the WSJ kept you out of the rally. It is waste of time and money.

  10. VennData commented on Dec 15

    The Donald and the Chump Factor

    http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/krugman/2015/12/15/the-donald-and-the-chump-factor/

    “…Bear in mind that embarrassment, and the desire to avoid it, are enormously important sources of motivation. Consider, as a weird, self-aggrandizing, but I think relevant observation, what has happened to supposedly smart guys who predicted soaring interest rates and runaway inflation 6 or 7 years ago. Almost none of them have conceded that they were wrong, and should have done more homework. Instead, many of them — especially the academics — have become ever more obsessed with claiming that they were somehow right, and/or trying to tear down the reputations of those of us who were in fact right. Nobody likes looking like a chump, and most people will go to great lengths to convince themselves that they weren’t…”

    • ilsm commented on Dec 15

      CNN this AM put out a series of bold faced lies about Obama’s ISIS briefing CNN like the rest is selling excuses for dumping ASSAD to give Syria to al Qaeda and follows it with a two liner where Trump says: “media is filled with lies”.

      CNN either stops lying or stops proving Trump right.

  11. DSS10 commented on Dec 15

    The Corporate Takeover of the Red Cross – From Propublica

    “A former AT&T executive who had taught marketing at Harvard Business School, McGovern pledged to make the tough choices that would revitalize the Red Cross, which was chartered by Congress to provide aid after disasters. In a speech five years ago, she imagined a bright future, a “revolution” in which there would be “a Red Cross location in every single community.’’
    It hasn’t worked out that way.”

    https://www.propublica.org/article/the-corporate-takeover-of-the-red-cross

    • Iamthe50percent commented on Dec 15

      But we get no COLA because – gasoline. Like seniors drink it or something. Well, we can always use it to light alley fires after we’re evicted because we can’t pay the rent.

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