Friday Morning Reads
By Barry Ritholtz - May 27th, 2011, 7:24AM
Some reads to get your Friday morning started:
• U.S. manufacturing attempts a high-tech comeback (Chicago Tribune)
• Cheat Sheet on Bank Investigations and the Probes That Have Petered Out (Pro Publica)
• Mind Games: Lessons for the Irrational Investor (Smart Money)
• Recession Forecasts? Yield Curve Says No Way (Bloomberg)
• Comparing Wages Across the U.S. (Real Time Economics)
• Greece, the unbearable heaviness of debt (VOX)
• A Billion Prices Now (New Yorker)
• The truth about LinkedIn (Business Insider)
• GOP ignored Ryan plan red flags (Politico)
• Notes of a Screenwriter, Mad as Hell (NYT)
What is on your Instapaper?
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May 27th, 2011 at 8:21 am
Unsurprisingly, almost 80% of the software installed on PC’s in China is pirated.
http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2011/05/ballmer-piracy-costs-microsoft-95-percent-of-potential-chinese-revenue.ars?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+arstechnica%2Findex+%28Ars+Technica+-+Featured+Content%29
This is down from 86% five years ago, but still costs MS 95% of potential Chinese PC licensing revenue. That’s $Billions as PC sales in China rival those in the US. No surprise there; Chinese pc users are simply emulating their industrial bosses and stealing whatever they can from Western companies. Unlike most othere western business there, there is no Microsoft clone company there, e.g. Baidu ripping of Google, like there are for American and US industries who have allowed Chinese partners to see their tech. But then, I suppose you don’t need industrial plants to copy software.
Probably the only thing stopping iPhone clones is that Apple could threaten to shut down the Foxcon factories that make the real thing. By all accounts, the Chinese Justice system is very “flexible.” But, if wages keep escalating and production is moved out of China, we could see some.
May 27th, 2011 at 8:38 am
When did America completely jettison the rule of law? (http://www.israeli-occupation.org/2011-05-24/noam-chomsky-when-did-america-completely-jettison-the-rule-of-law/ )
May 27th, 2011 at 8:56 am
Regarding yesterdays news about “secret” .01% loans, no wonder the Fed defied Freedom of Information law. Bernanke should be fired immediately, Obama should publicly demand his resignation, we should be outraged by this stuff,I guess we’ve just grown numb…
• Fed Gave Banks Secret Loans as Low as 0.01% (Business Week)
May 27th, 2011 at 9:00 am
Caroline baum is the worst commentator out there. The yield curve is distorted beyond anything we have seen before by the federal reserve. Looking to the yield curve for recessionary signals is thus not the best idea at this point.
The economy is slowing down. Look at the regional manufacturing indices, look at gdp, look at todaaya prsonal spending numbers. It is slowing This is a fact. It doesn’t mean the world is ending. Nor does it mean the us economy will just power on after a “pause which refreshes”. read JH’s latest market commentary instead. Hussman actually understands economics and thinks before he publishes something.
http://www.hussmanfunds.com
May 27th, 2011 at 9:03 am
Via: The Atlantic:
A small research arm of the U.S. government’s intelligence establishment wants to understand how speakers of Farsi, Russian, English, and Spanish see the world by building software that automatically evaluates their use of metaphors.
That’s right, metaphors, like Shakespeare’s famous line, “All the world’s a stage,” or more subtly, “The darkness pressed in on all sides.” Every speaker in every language in the world uses them effortlessly, and the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity wants know how what we say reflects our worldviews. They call it The Metaphor Program, and it is a unique effort within the government to probe how a people’s language reveals their mindset.
“The Metaphor Program will exploit the fact that metaphors are pervasive in everyday talk and reveal the underlying beliefs and worldviews of members of a culture,” declared an open solicitation for researchers released last week. A spokesperson for IARPA declined to comment at the time….”
http://cryptogon.com/?p=22563#comments
“A small research arm of the U.S. government’s intelligence establishment wants to understand how speakers of English see the world…”
http://cryptogon.com/?cat=12
~~
Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (Book Title)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/014303653X/ref=nosim/cryptogoncom-20
May 27th, 2011 at 9:17 am
That LinkedIn article can be summed up rather easily…”Who knows? No one.” Not worth reading.
May 27th, 2011 at 9:36 am
i also reading rktbrkr ‘s secret fed loans, said to be auctioned.
must have been a hell of an “auction” where you get money at 0.01%
auction for one anyone? or only two or three?
I dont remember them offering me free money, but i would love to bid at an auction for one.
May 27th, 2011 at 10:19 am
RE: “Recession Forecasts? Yield Curve Says No Way” article
For a variety of reasons I don’t believe that one should put undue faith in the yield curve as an economic forecasting mechanism, especially now.
There are a variety of reasons for this; for those interested I wrote a post last year that explains many of these reasons:
http://economicgreenfield.blogspot.com/2010/03/yield-curve-as-leading-indicator.html
May 27th, 2011 at 10:43 am
http://www.fresnobee.com/2011/05/26/2404314/pge-rate-cuts-okd-for-biggest.html
“The biggest difference will be for customers whose monthly power consumption reaches into the highest tier. Tier 4 power will be charged at a rate of 33.3 cents per kWh, a reduction of more than seven cents from the old rate of 40.4 cents – a big break for those who use the most electricity.”
The US economy is predicated on WASTE. No conservation allowed. If you are frugal, you will be punished to the fullest extent of the law that the corporatists can enact through their fellating intermediaries in the legislatures across this country.
Understand this, at least 6 out of 10 people you interact with in this country is dedicated to theft. Good luck out there.
May 27th, 2011 at 10:54 am
“A small research arm of the U.S. government’s intelligence establishment wants to understand how speakers of English see the world…”
The probem is that metaphorical language is being scooped up indiscriminately by the crawlers and it’s gumming up the works-to wit
“Speaking of John Parachini, Director of the Intelligence Policy Center at The RAND Corporation the Sun wrote, “(He) said the rule of thumb has been that every six hours, NSA collects an amount of information equivalent to the store of knowledge housed at the Library of Congress.”
The problem is with criteria not capacity. All the sociopaths (by sociopaths I mean white males between the ages of 22 and 50+ with security clearances issued by the DOD) working in big rooms in Georgia, Maryland, soon to be Utah, etc, have ‘caca-entre-las-orejasitis’- they drive big grilled pickups- yee haw I caught me a terrist, yee haw- even though they couldn’t swing pick axe harder enough to pierce a melon. About twenty years from now they’ll be easy to spot in crowd- hairy palms and braces for carpal tunnel syndrome.
They’d catch more no-goodniks noodlin’. If Americans really believed in freedom they would call each other up on the phone and read long excerpts out of Finnegan’s Wake to each other…meandertale, meandertale…
May 27th, 2011 at 11:25 am
Oaktree’s Howard Marks letter has been making rounds this week.
Another very important reading
http://thetailchaser.blogspot.com/2011/05/howard-marks-how-quickly-they-forget.html
May 27th, 2011 at 11:29 am
” Recession Forecasts? Yield Curve Says No Way (Bloomberg)”
I would mention that when Japan began its zero interest rate policy, the yield curve failed to remain a reliable indicator of recession.
May 27th, 2011 at 11:31 am
Michael Pettis: Looking for Debt
http://goo.gl/mbXrr
May 27th, 2011 at 12:09 pm
Comic relief: Eugene Mirman’s public letter to Time Warner Cable:
http://eugenemirman.com/2011/05/my-letter-to-time-warner-cable/
May 27th, 2011 at 12:13 pm
Regarding the secret .01% loans, it’s no wonder the Fed defied and then delayed compliance with Freedom of Information law (and then grudgingly delivered a dumpster load of datacrap to hinder understanding). At least they acted like shame is still possible which I guess is a slight positive.
In a capitalist system risky borrowers should pay higher borrowing costs, but if these banks were seeking emergency loans they clearly weren’t low risk, yet they were rewarded with free money, our whole financial system has been perverted by an inner circle cabal of bankers feasting on the private profit public loss game they’ve established.
Most of the recipients were European banks, what is the US Fed doing guaranteeing handsome profits to non-American banks? What is their scope, whatever they wish it to be? I guess we were lucky nobody had the chutzpah to submit negative bids with even GS drawing the line at .01%
May 27th, 2011 at 12:31 pm
OT: Lucy Ricardo meets here match:
http://singularityhub.com/2009/11/05/adept-quattro-becomes-worlds-fastest-robot-video/
May 28th, 2011 at 8:22 pm
Did the almighty worshiped yield curve predict that last credit crisis and recession BEFORE it happened? No it did not. So using a proven failed indicator to justify we are in a recovery is just economic Feng Shui BS. BR, I had more faith in you than this.