Pour yourself a strong mug of Danish Blend, settle in for our long-form weekend reads:
• Trend Following In Financial Markets: A Comprehensive Backtest (Philosophical Economics) see also Here We Go Again: Forecasting Follies 2016 (Above the Market)
• Amazon Invades India: How Jeff Bezos aims to conquer the next “trillion-dollar market.” The inside story. (Fortune)
• Blowhards Beware: Megyn Kelly Will Slay You Now (Vanity Fair)
• How Is the Economy Doing? It May Depend on Your Party, and $1 (The Upshot)
• Warren Buffett’s Predatory Lender Charges Minorities A Lot More (Buzzfeed)
• No Accident: Inside GM’s deadly ignition switch scandal (Atlanta Magazine) see also The Lawyer Who Became DuPont’s Worst Nightmare (NYT)
• Ned Overend Is the Champion Cyclist Who Never Grows Old (Outside)
• Magical thinking: the history of science, sorcery and the spiritual (New Statesman)
• Why Bernie Sanders Doesn’t Want Your Vote (Bloomberg)
• The Triumph of Email: Why does one of the world’s most reviled technologies keep winning? (The Atlantic)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Michael Covel, author of Trend Following and Turtle Trader.
Chinese Investors Dump Stocks to Buy Bonds and Properties
Source: WSJ
Future Economists Will Probably Call This Decade the ‘Longest Depression’
Economist Joe Stiglitz warned back in 2010 that the world risked sliding into a “Great Malaise.” This week, he followed up on that grim prediction, saying, “We didn’t do what was needed, and we have ended up precisely where I feared we would.”
The problems we face now, Stiglitz points out, include “a deficiency of aggregate demand, brought on by a combination of growing inequality and a mindless wave of fiscal austerity.”
He says the only cure is an increase in aggregate demand, far-reaching redistribution of income and deep reform of our financial system. The obstacles to this cure, he writes, “are not rooted in economics, but in politics and ideology.” ….
GiveWell
Thousands of hours have gone into finding our top-rated charities. They’re evidence-backed, thoroughly vetted, and underfunded.
Amazon’s New Jets Represent a Serious Threat to FedEx and UPS (Updated)
If the reports are true, Amazon is leasing Boeing 767 jets to get tighter control (and presumably better pricing) on its logistics. UPS and FedEx need to go into full-on war-time mode: Make no mistake, Jeff Bezos will one-day use this fleet of jets to launch a direct frontal assault on their core parcel delivery business. ….
Robust U.S. payrolls brighten economic outlook
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-economy-idUSKBN0UM0FG20160108
Stiglitz is wrong.
About the Clayton Homes allegedly charging minorities higher rates. They never talk about credit scores in these articles. Interest rates and fees on loans are often driven by credit scores & credit quality (because lower credit quality predicts higher default rates), and African Americans and Hispanics have lower credit scores and more credit issues on average across the board than whites and Asians. When they have these predatory lending articles, they need to look at people of different races with the same credit scores & credit quality, and then see if they were given different rates or charged more. If so, then you truly do have a case of predatory lending based on race.
So DuPont knowingly send birth defect and cancer causing chemicals into the environment and conceal their knowledge about it. Final punishment is a fine of 2% of their annual profit. EPA cannot investigate the safety of such chemicals unless someone brings evidence of them being harmful. These absurdities have to stop.
It is time for mandatory 10 year jail terms to any individual who fail to report evidence of harm to the EPA and mandatory company fines of 5 years profit to any company that fails to fully investigate potential harm of their products. It is clear that the current system fails to hand out punishment that can serve as a deterrent; mandatory minimum sentences to individuals and corporations is the only solution (to get around a corrupt legal system).
RE: Why Bernie Sanders Doesn’t Want Your Vote
I tried real hard to stay with this article until the end. I was hoping it wouldn’t be a political hack job (silly me!). I got all the way to this part:
“When he became the ranking minority member of the Senate Budget Committee last year, he hired Stephanie Kelton as the Democratic Party’s chief economist on the committee. Kelton espouses Modern Monetary Theory, a branch of economics so far left that it rejects Keynesianism and holds that government surpluses are disastrous.”
While I am not necessarily a full-blown MMT proponent, I have spent considerable time in the study of economic and monetary systems/philosophy/models. The last 2 sentences quoted above are where I closed my browser window and moved on…
Why are people talking about Marco Rubio’s boots? Here’s the real reason.
Trump has turned the Republican primaries into Mean Girls
“…Fitsnews, a conservative website, added Rubio’s “decidedly metrosexual footwear selections” to its list of reasons not to vote for him. MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough referred to Austin Powers and called the boots “shagalicious.” Ted Cruz’s communications director tweeted a piece from The Cut called “A Vote for Marco Rubio is a Vote for Men’s High-Heeled Booties,” even though Cruz himself has been seen sporting shiny boots with about the same heel height:..”
http://www.vox.com/2016/1/8/10735692/marco-rubio-boots-sexism
The economy is back, The dollar is strong again. Our tech companies rule the world. Fed hikes rates. Our defense companies and military intimidate everyone. our enemies in the Middle East are fighting each other instead of us floundering in there, China’s mandarins have seen the limits of power, North Korea pretends, gun restrictions are coming. Everyone the world over wants to attend college in America.
Things progress and the GOP realizes there’s no way to implement any policy derived from their “Obama is ruining America” nonsense.
If we could just keep taxes where they are and keep paring down the deficit (reverse Paul Ryan’s $700B giveaway to the uber wealthy) and stay the course, we’ll improve as much over the next decade as we did over Obama’s two terms.
Having a blisteringly angry one tenth of the population, uneducated white males, is the price the nine tenths of us will happily pay to make the world better.
I don’t give care you’re angry about TSA making you turn on your laptop.
I don’t give care you’re angry about newly regulated soap bubble rules that you feel don’t clean your dishes enough.
I don’t give care you’re angry about interracial sex.
I don’t give care you’re angry about lightbulbs.
i don’t care you can’t accept Bush was the worst president ever, who you re-elected, and every prediction you made turned out wrong.
Uneducated white males, you seething, raging white hot balls of rage Get out there and shout and scream! No one cares. Vote for Trump! Bring down the Republicans. Take back America!
Oh and you ladies who buy into the same GOP Media Machine garbage? you’re angry too?
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/poll-anger-217295
ROFL we’re having a good laugh at your expense.
General Motors
Very sad that major corporations consider a portion of their customer base to be ‘disposable’, whether GM, gun manufacturers, tobacco companies, etc.
Power & Profit take Precedence over People.
science and Americans
http://qz.com/588126/theres-a-good-reason-americans-are-horrible-at-science/
might also explain our lack of accepting of facts. as opposed to loud noise
who knew
economics etc are all man made so cant be man made
http://www.pragcap.com/theres-nothing-natural-about-the-economy-and-the-financial-markets/
As a licensed Professional Engineer, I read the GM article with alternating emotions of absolute outrage and immense sadness for the families. In general, corporations have fought long and hard to NOT have licensed Professional Engineering requirements in the design of their products. There are specific industrial exemptions. So the car you drive over the bridge has NOT been designed by a PE but the bridge has (but the bridge may not have been maintained by the professional politicians.)