Monday Reads
By Barry Ritholtz - December 20th, 2010, 1:40PM
Here are the latest additions to my Instapaper:
• The Effect of Falling Home Prices on Small Business Borrowing (Cleveland Fed)
• Bargain Junkies Are Beating Retailers at Their Own Game (Wired)
• Finding Time (Orion Magazine)
• 145 Minutes With Nassim Taleb (NY Mag)
• Counting on Google Books (Chronicle Review)
• Your Apps Are Watching You (WSJ)
• The Day Comedy Won: How 30 Rock Beat Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (SplitSider)
• The Odyssey of Captain Beefheart: Rolling Stone’s 1970 Cover Story (Rolling Stone)
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December 20th, 2010 at 2:18 pm
How much money can you lose in 145 mins with N. Taleb?
December 20th, 2010 at 2:37 pm
Finally! The housing market has turned around. I knew it was just a matter of time. All those naysayers… shame on them. All anyone has to do is look at the home building stocks today and they can plainly see it’s time to start flipping houses again. I’m off to the bank right now to tap my line of credit…
Wait, wait, hold on… the financial sector looks like it’s turning around too. Oh my God, things are looking GREAT! That does it, I’m re-opening my Ameritrade account and I’m going to use the money I get from the line of credit on my house to trade with. Does anyone have any good stock tips?
December 20th, 2010 at 2:43 pm
w. recent ‘Audio’-thread..
“…HOW DOES IT SOUND?
With a frequency response from approximately 500 Hz to 20 kHz, these speakers best suit mid-range to high-frequency applications. According to ITRI researchers, this range is especially suitable for expressing sophisticated changes in medium- and high-frequency ranges, such as the chirping of birds and insects, which are on par with traditional speakers. For larger home and studio systems, the addition of a woofer or subwoofer would at least be desirable.
“We plan to carry out technology transfer of largesize paper-thin flexible speakers to mass production by early 2010 and complete R&D of the flexible transparent speakers in plastic material by 2010. ITRI is seeking to license the technology or create a spinoff company to commercialize the product. We expect FleXpeaker technology to be available for new B2B product development and licensing later this year,” said ITRI general director Yi-Jen Chan.
ITRI is now in discussions with several American companies. For a demonstration, visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNgYToJC1RA . For details, visit http://www.itri.org.tw/eng .
http://electronicdesign.com/article/commentary/_thin_speaker_technology_gets_ready_to_revolutionize_audio_markets.aspx
~~
December 20th, 2010 at 2:57 pm
Put some tight stops behind your gold, folks, a top is coming soon: South Florida Mall installs Gold Bar ATM
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20101218/ARTICLE/12181026?tc=ar
December 20th, 2010 at 3:59 pm
BR, I know you hate assignments BUT I’m interested to know your take on the “Net neutrality” debate. Seems like that fits under every TBP category to some extent, especially with the whole “artificial scarcity” idea to create markets where there otherwise is not a market, for bandwidth or something.
I know this isn’t a political or legal blog, but the idea that the FCC can just circumvent Congress on this raises plenty of other interesting points…
~~~
BR: Whatever Verizon/Comcast/AT&T/Cablevision’s positions are, I am against them.
December 20th, 2010 at 4:13 pm
of course your beefheart article made me want to see what he was up to these days. didn’t know that he had passed this weekend. bought trout mask replica probably around ’85. took awhile to get into that one. a very unique voice. sorry to see him go.
December 20th, 2010 at 4:34 pm
Well, I’m far from the ubercoupon women — but I routinely cut 40% off my grocery bills, and shop my way around the outside of the store. I have no idea why everyone doesn’t do this: it makes a big difference in my family’s food budget. At this point, of course, I have a finely honed idea of what’s a deal and what isn’t based not on normal retail price, but what I’m willing to pay for it (I call it my “strike price”) after coupon and discount.
This is what becomes of a woman with advanced degrees if you deprive her of sleep for enough years and put her through a few pregnancies. It’s quite sad.
December 20th, 2010 at 5:17 pm
Caught an interview with Taleb over the weekend. He thinks we should follow the austerity agenda that the British Tories are implementing. Nevermind our federal budget deficits resulted from numerous rounds of tax cuts for the Rich & Corporate. Amazing to see someone fall for such drivel.
December 20th, 2010 at 5:18 pm
Now that Taleb has completed his book of aphorisms, he can move on to what he really loves: a book of mixed metaphors. Can’t wait!
December 20th, 2010 at 6:14 pm
Bankers fear for bursting of US farmland ‘bubble’
The bursting of the “bubble” in farmland, some of which has doubled in price in the last two years, is the biggest threat to a US rural economic boom which has seen tractor sales hit their most buoyant ever.
Creighton University economist Ernie Goss said that the rural economy was being boosted by “very healthy farm income”, which had driven an index of farm equipment sales to a record high of 77.8.
One banker polled by the university reported that farmers, enriched by higher crop prices, “have cash burning holes in their pockets”, while another reported a rush to prepay 2011 expenses in an effort to depress 2010 tax bills.
“Businesses heavily dependent on the farm economy continue to experience very strong economic conditions,” Mr Goss said.
‘Need to be cautious’
However, the poll also revealed growing fears for a farmland rally which, as one Kansas banker attested, had driven the prices of farmland worth $2,500 an acre two years ago to $5,000-5,500 an acre.
About 35% of respondents placed the farmland price “bubble” as the top threat to the US rural economy next year, followed by low commodity prices at 27%….”
http://www.agrimoney.com/news/bankers-fear-for-bursting-of-us-farmland-bubble–2632.html
December 20th, 2010 at 6:15 pm
…not reading, but, watching this…it’s a long one (120 mins), but a good, one…
Jim Rickards Speaks at the APL
December 20th, 2010 at 6:27 pm
Julia, when you say shop around the outsides of the store – you mean that literally? The attractive sales items are normally at the ends of the rows etc? I don’t buy enough food to be a coupon commando.
Home Depot offers 10% discount for all military vets, I only had 1 clerk look closely at my proof of service.
PenFed Credit union offers cash back on their credit card purchases plus other discounts – and I feel good getting away from the Big Banks stranglehold on the credit card business (and almost everything else financial)
December 20th, 2010 at 8:04 pm
Dot Cotton!
» http://chart.ly/x58tssu (cotton futures)
» http://chart.ly/cucow9k (cotton ETF)
» http://chart.ly/xawkbup (coffee)
» http://chart.ly/a6xagl9 (sugar)
Shit, meet fan.
December 20th, 2010 at 8:35 pm
Who stole Christmas?
http://www.theburningplatform.com/?p=8590
December 20th, 2010 at 8:36 pm
Thanks for that Wes Schott, great watch.
December 20th, 2010 at 9:27 pm
I was just going to send a note on this:
“The Effect of Falling Home Prices on Small Business Borrowing”
In the US, a small business is defined by the Federal Government as 500 employees or less, something like 90% of all businesses are “small”. When ordinary humans without law degrees speak of “small” they mean something else. This report talks about “real” small businesses and their reality.
December 20th, 2010 at 9:32 pm
Julia Chestnut Says “This is what becomes of a woman with advanced degrees if you deprive her of sleep for enough years and put her through a few pregnancies. It’s quite sad.”
And I laughed…fortunately, I was not in the same room as the author, because I get the distinct feeling she would NOT share my amusement.
December 21st, 2010 at 12:11 am
Superheroes, supervillains and the law:
http://lawandthemultiverse.com/
Too funny!