10 Friday AM Reads

January 8, 2016 7:38am by

Helluva a first week to start 2016. Finish strong with the best morning train reads in the land:

• Investment Lessons from Genghis Kahn (A Teachable Moment)
• Millennials Are Outpacing Everyone in Retirement Savings (Time) 
• Why Cheap Gas Isn’t Bad News for Electric Cars: Much bigger changes are driving the automobile industry (Slate) but see 15 Ways for Oil to Bottom (ReformedBroker)
• How Americans Got So Fat, in Charts (Bloomberg)
• Your challenge isn’t finding a better solution. It’s finding a better problem.(Harvard Business Review)

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Michael Covel, author of Trend Following and Turtle Trader. 

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  1. VennData commented on Jan 8

    Trump’s big tent: The GOP should stop fooling itself. Trump is reaching more than just undereducated, angry white men,

    http://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/trump-supporters-big-tent-217481

    ROFL! No he’s not!

    Trump’s reaching under-educated white men and the people who listen to, sell to and think like under-educated white men. The Base, the people the GOP establishment has spent billions convincing them not to explore the New York Times, university research, and MSNBC to listen to half-spun, unscientific, blather so the GOP Establishment could keep cutting tax on the uber wealthy.

    Obama split them. Showed the under-educated white males the flaw in the GOP media Machine nonsense. Obama created Trump because Obama has been a great leader, and an excellent president and their rusty media apparatus can’t deal with it.

  2. rd commented on Jan 8

    A vehicle game-changer will be when the SUVs and pick-ups come in hybrid models. All of a sudden, they will have average gas mileage in the 30s instead of teens and low 20s. I think the drivers will appreciate when their range on a tank jumps to over 600 miles.

  3. rd commented on Jan 8

    As the parent of several millenials that have been moving out into the work force, I think they will be our “Depression Generation” with a focus on savings, experiences, friends and family, and not owning a whole lot. A common question will be “do I really need this?”.

    A game changer is that this is really the first generation where they have moved into a troubled work force with the women on generally an equal (for many, more than equal) footing as the men, so there is no traditional financial incentive to find a mate. As a result, they will be forming households slower since they will do it when they want to instead of when it is thrust onto them.

  4. VennData commented on Jan 8

    Stellar Jobs Report: 292,000 Jobs Added In December

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/samanthasharf/2016/01/08/stellar-jobs-report-292000-jobs-added-in-december-unemployment-rate-held-at-5/

    ​So more job’s were created than Bush at this point in their presidency’s​ (After raising taxes on job creators!)

    http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/12/27/obama-the-job-killer

    And since Bush LOST 1,000,000 in his last month in office, many millions more jobs will have been created on Obama’s watch than Bush. And Republicans told us that Obama would destroy jobs, wreck the economy and his policies were wrong.

    The Republicans were wrong. They were wrong about Bush during his pointless war to create ISIS. Wrong about Clinton’s budget balancing tax hikes on the rich. And wrong that Reagan’s cowardly retreat from Lebanon was a smart move and Reagan’s quadrupling of the debt was good.

    Republicans are wrong.

    Put that in a photoshop and send it in a large font colored email financed by the Koch Brothers to the idiots in The Base who worship Trump, the silver spoon-fed reality TV asshat.

    • VennData commented on Jan 8

      VennData,

      I’m sick of your political correctness! Call a tinkler a tinkler!

      – The Base

  7. rd commented on Jan 8

    Apparently the Oregon militia survivalists may not have packed enough warm socks and food to withstand a multi-week siege. I guess the old Western ethos of living off the land without being reliant on others isn’t quite what it used to be. John Wayne is probably looking down recommending that pilgrims go on back where they belong. Oh well, at least it is good practice for the End Times. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/daily-show-oregon-militia-supplies

    So there is some advice from the US military for them.
    http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-army-to-oregon-militia-eat-bugs-2016-01-08?dist=lcountdown

    • willid3 commented on Jan 8

      well so far it seems they can just go to a store or restaurant and get the food they need.

    • rd commented on Jan 9

      Yeah, but all that food has to be approved by FDA and USDA, and local health departments who are all part of the vast Federal conspiracy to deprive them of their rights to be idiots.

    • willid3 commented on Jan 8

      well this the rainy season there. they just havent had one in quite a while now

  9. tagyoureit commented on Jan 8

    RE: Your challenge isn’t finding a better solution. It’s finding a better problem [whose solution has side effects].(Harvard Business Review)

    In programming a side effect is when a procedure changes a variable from outside its scope.

  10. RW commented on Jan 8

    As Krugman points out in today’s NYT op-ed, the numbers don’t suggest that economic troubles in China are a significant global problem but there are less tangible factors that might make them so.

    The Bigger Risk (than China)
    Our biggest worry is not one event or condition. …it is that a long list of negative macro conditions will bias investors towards the assumption that all of the positive performance in risk assets over the past five years was solely about chasing monetary policy. …switching monetary policy as the proximate cause to the sole cause. …That is, it was all about the market chasing QE, zero rates and other non-traditional monetary stimulus. This is what we call the condition of “monetary asset paranoia.”

    NB: It looks like China has postponed the expected relaxation in currency regime and that has stabilized financial markets for the moment.

  12. Icouldabenacontendah commented on Jan 8

    Genghis Kahn …. perhaps he’s some guy who owns a deli. I think you meant Genghis Khan.

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