My morning reads:
• “We exaggerate the risks beyond our control, & underestimate the risks we can control” (NYT)
• UK Austerity policies are failing (Tax Analysts Blog)
• Iceland Wins Major Case Over Failed Bank (DealBook)
• Six ways our brains make bad financial decisions (The Globe and Mail)
• Eric Schneiderman: Mortgage Task Force Eyeing Broader Suits (Frontline)
• The Apple paradox (Benedict Evans) see also Amazon, Apple, and the beauty of low margins (Remains of the Day)
• For Search, Facebook Had to Go Beyond ‘Robospeak’ (NYT)
• As Music Streaming Grows, Royalties Slow to a Trickle (NYT)
• 8 Other Nations That Send Women to Combat (National Geographic)
• 10 Business Lessons from the Beatles (Money & Markets)
What are you reading?
Investors Pivot Back to Banks
Source: WSJ
Category: Financial Press
Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor implied. If you could repeat previously discredited memes or steer the conversation into irrelevant, off topic discussions, it would be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.
If projections hold there will be about 54,000 law school applicants this season — the lowest since before 1984. (i.e., since before L.A. Law.): http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1202585810784&Avoiding_law_school_in_droves&slreturn=20130029103658.
Looks like that 55% employment after 9 months for 2011 grads has likely had an effect on people deciding to enter law school.
Attention shoppers: Retailers can now track you across the mall
Your favorite big box retailer or discount warehouse will soon be able to track your movements via your smartphone. Meet the next big thing in analytics: You.
I read an interesting, if not a little scary, article about how retailers now have the ability to track the movements of your smartphone (a.k.a., “you”) as you wander about the mall.
If your smartphone has WiFi capability, and you leave that capability enabled, then it is possible to track your smartphone via its unique MAC address.
The companies that collect this MAC address data can then collate the data and see the path you traveled as you walked through the mall.
This goes from creepy to scary when you consider that if the same tracking company has contracts with multiple malls or locations around the country or around the world, your MAC address can be tracked anytime you are in an area serviced by that tracking company.
“UK Austerity policies are failing”
That should read:
Austerity policies are failing
The Power of Habit, by Charles Duhigg. Best non-fiction I’ve read in a long time.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Power-Habit-What-Business/dp/1400069289/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1359478380&sr=8-1&keywords=the+power+of+habit
i suspect that austerity policies are working, they just were never intended to reduce deficits, or recover economies for the majorities. though thats what they are sold as doing. they are doing well in punishing the 99% and leading to cutting benefits for that group too.
Interesting piece on using DNA coding for long-term data storage.
http://www.nature.com/news/synthetic-double-helix-faithfully-stores-shakespeare-s-sonnets-1.12279?WT.ec_id=NEWS-20130129
Fair Isaacs warns on student loan delinquencies..
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/fico-labs-us-student-loan-delinquencies-climbing-fast-showing-no-signs-of-slowing-2013-01-
Don’t miss Krugman on “Morning Joe” – he was spectacular.
http://video.msnbc.msn.com/morning-joe/50613650/#50613650
Microsoft wants $100 annually for Office?
http://money.cnn.com/2013/01/29/technology/office-365/index.html?hpt=hp_t3
Speaking of Microsoft, I am not sure it has been posted but Bill Gates writes about data-driven solutions
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323539804578261780648285770.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/bill-gates/9812672/Bill-Gates-interview-I-have-no-use-for-money.-This-is-Gods-work.html
Mali insurgents torching the tomes of Timbuktu. Despicable.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/28/mali-timbuktu-library-ancient-manuscripts
Krugman did fine.
None of his opponents wanted to broach taxes, tariffs, industrial policy or the penatgon porker.
I will take my money out of fidelity for sponsoring those toads.
josh’s article on the beatles was pretty good, i had just gotten ‘please please me’ over the weekend and had been reading the liner notes about their early years. have you ever seen this 2003 release from the beatles?:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_It_Be…_Naked
paul basically redid the let it be album with analog tapes from the original recording sessions and stripped away the phil spector post recording production. quite interesting. liner notes also talk about the toxic atmosphere of the sessions.
also, speaking of business lessons from bands of the sixties…..
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/03/management-secrets-of-the-grateful-dead/307918/
‘Oddly enough, the Dead’s influence on the business world may turn out to be a significant part of its legacy. Without intending to—while intending, in fact, to do just the opposite—the band pioneered ideas and practices that were subsequently embraced by corporate America. One was to focus intensely on its most loyal fans.’
bankster trials?
http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2013/01/29/when-banks-face-criminal-charges/
The one point where Krugman should have been a little stronger was to point out that when the economy is working way below capacity, deficit spending on high multiplier government activities, is a way to REDUCE long-term debt. The return in form of increased economic activity and the associated increase in tax income will pay for the whole thing, even if you initially increase your borrowing. Things do work differently when the economy is in a slump.
If the investments are in infrastructure that would have to be done sooner or later, and the borrowing is with negative real interest rates – it should be simple enough that even the worst right wing ideologogs should be able to get it.
I read the Amazon article and I couldn’t help but notice that many of the examples were of “cost shifting” not cost savings, or a willingness to accept slim margins.
An example from today’s reconnoitering was; tablets being shipped directly from China to the consumer. Amazon takes the money immediately, holds no inventory and has the manufacturer pick up all the cost of distributing and retailing…and waits for Amazon to pay…it’s good work if you can get it.
But beware gloating to much, it won’t take to long for China to figure out with only player in the way…Amazon…they can be replaced by a Chinese government funded “start-up”. It will be fun to watch, both Amazon and Wall-Mart appeal tot eh US government to save them from the “bad” Chinese.