Monday Reads
Ahhh, good to be back in the saddle after a week away. Quite a few very worthwhile reads crossed my desk today:
• Treasuries at Odds With Stocks (Barron’s)
• Martin Wolf: The political genius of supply-side economics (FT.com)
• Sixteen Dow Recoveries: Update (D Short)
• The Great Mortification: Economists and the Crisis of 2007 (Infectious Greed)
• Ten Stock-Market Myths That Just Won’t Die (WSJ)
• Stephen Roach on The Consumption Gap: They thought Asia would save the world economy. They were wrong. (Foreign Policy)
• 22 Statistics That Prove The Middle Class Is Being Systematically Wiped Out Of Existence In America (Business Insider)
• Clay Shirky: What I Read (The Atlantic)
• London Times loses 90% of online readership: Less than three weeks after the Times paywall went up, data shows a massive decline in web traffic (Guardian) See also Newspaper Chain’s New Business Plan: Copyright Suits (Wired)
• World’s best street food (CNN)
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July 26th, 2010 at 4:30 pm
Credit card fees transfer wealth to rich: Fed
People who pay by cash subsidize those using cards, study says
After accounting for rewards paid by banks, households that earn more than $150,000 (U.S.) annually receive a subsidy of $756 on average every year, while the households earning $20,000 or less pay $23.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/credit-card-fees-transfer-wealth-to-rich-fed/article1652086/
Ayoba! Africa’s cellphone gold rush
Mobile phone use has exploded, and thanks to the new technology ‘tweet’ is a verb in everything from Swahili to Zulu
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/ayoba-africas-cellphone-gold-rush/article1650280/?plckFindCommentKey=CommentKey:64fe1943-d5a0-4a4d-9636-cadc8bdd863e
July 26th, 2010 at 5:01 pm
Another insider with suspicious motives:
http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2010/04/fink-201004
July 26th, 2010 at 5:49 pm
Darn, I saw the Business Insider article and was going to list that one but you beat me to it.
How about this new site, Center for Financial Stability.
http://www.centerforfinancialstability.org/index.php
It’s a non-profit, non-political database that posts economic data for any wonk who chooses to puruse. I noticed Myron Scholes is on the Board. I’ve bookmarked the site as a potential go-to for econ data.
July 26th, 2010 at 6:06 pm
About that “World’s best street food,” here’s the definitive guide to it, and it will make you hungry:
http://www.foodcartsportland.com/
July 26th, 2010 at 6:17 pm
http://www.amazon.com/Power-Grab-Policies-Freedom-Bankrupt/dp/1596985992
–book link
and, as “point v. counterpoint”
http://www.booktv.org/Program/11775/2010+Eagle+Forum+Collegians+Summit+Chris+Horner+Power+Grab+How+Obamas+Green+Policies+Will+Steal+Your+Freedom+and+Bankrupt+America.aspx
v.
http://www.booktv.org/Program/11020/Whole+Earth+Discipline+An+Ecopragmatist+Manifesto.aspx
July 26th, 2010 at 7:44 pm
With respect to #11 of the 22 stats article:
“As of 2007, the bottom 80 percent of American households held about 7% of the liquid financial assets.”
I assume they’re referring to the bottom 80 percent of households by income, not some other metric, like, location on the map or body odor.
July 26th, 2010 at 7:55 pm
swag you really believe Portland has the best street food in the world? Bwahaha. I live in Seattle but used to live in Portland. Give me a break. The best street food is not within 3000 miles of the United States.
July 26th, 2010 at 8:05 pm
“…To be fair, however, all encrypted streams that travel over the Internet are susceptible to government spying, not just those that use Microsoft technology.
How does this affect you? Many information-hungry governments routinely compel companies to assist them with surveillance. ISPs and telecommunications carriers are frequently required to violate their customers’ privacy by providing the government with email communications, telephone calls, search engine records, financial transactions and geo-location information. A few examples of this electronic surveillance by law enforcement include: a consumer electronics company that was forced to remotely enable the microphones in a suspect’s car dashboard GPS navigation unit in order to covertly record their conversations, as well as a secure email provider that was required to place a covert back door in its product in order to steal users’ encryption keys. And who can forget the NSA’s wiretapping?
In regard to Packet Forensics and Big Brother in your browser, EFF’s Senior Staff Technologist Seth Schoen advises, “HTTPS Everywhere does not address this threat. We have been doing other research to try to investigate this concern. There are several Firefox plugins that try to use information other than CA-issued certificates to validate web sites’ keys — for instance, Perspectives, Monkeysphere, CertPatrol, and Petnames. The general problem is that right now these approaches sometimes call for considerably more effort on the part of the user. Under certain assumptions, this might be unavoidable.”
Schoen has written more about these issues, including, Behind the Padlock Icon: Certificate Authorities’ Mysterious Role in Internet Security…”
Certified Lies: Big Brother In Your Browser
Government capable of wiretapping millions of encrypted sessions, including those secured by IE, Microsoft’s SSL, others.
By Ms. Smith on Fri, 07/23/10 – 12:04pm.
http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/certified-lies-big-brother-your-browser?t51hb
July 26th, 2010 at 8:39 pm
Great selection of reading matter today Barry. Seldom I click on every link, thanks.
Regarding the Dirty Digger (aka Murdoch) attempt to Paywall the London Times and Sunday Times, new data Beehive) suggest that only 15,000 have paid up although 12,500 others have taken iPad subscriptions. It cannot be encouraging that the GBP2 permonth introductory offer has only just been replaced by the regular GBP 1 per day or GBP 2 per week.
July 26th, 2010 at 9:15 pm
So is BR still in cash?
My last count… he was 50% in cash in Feb at 1050 SPX… and then 100% at 1150 on SPX in Mar/Apr.
The latter move was nice… but then the bear seldom “buy the dip” and BR has stated this is still a “bear market”. Ha, next big move up will kill that. We are a hair of an upturn off $100/shr on SPX earnings…
July 26th, 2010 at 9:22 pm
And who ever doesnt believe the “best street food” might be in Portland, OR should watch the “Diners Drive-ins and Dives” episode on the spot called “Pok Pok”.
That place looks strong.
July 26th, 2010 at 10:57 pm
An interesting view on “oldsters” not pulling together for the good of the country by wonderboy Kashkari who now manages PIMCO Investments after making it big with TARP.
——————-
Neel Kashkari, TARP Guru, Supports Cutting Entitlements, Citing ‘Me-First’ Attitude Of Beneficiaries
Jason Linkins
jason@huffingtonpost.com
July 27th, 2010 at 11:49 am
MorticiaA
Two points from the Center for Financial Stability “mission statement” give me pause:
•Seek market-based solutions that promote fairness to investors, officials, and market makers.
•Serve as a private sector check and balance on government actions.
I am not so certain of their ideological independence from the prior/prevalent market laissez faire focus.
That being said I will also bookmark that site and see what develops.