Pour yourself some strong brewed java, and settle in for our long-form weekend reads:
• Defining Your Investment Philosophy (AAII)
• Janet Yellen’s Quiet Revolution: Trump says she’s a political stooge. Actually, she’s reinventing our understanding of economics. (Politico)
• Can Airlines Make Money? (Priceonomics)
• China’s Money Exodus: Here’s how the Chinese send billions abroad to buy homes (Bloomberg)
• How to Build a Search Engine for Mathematics (Nautilus)
• How $100 million in cuts created chaos in Florida’s mental hospitals (TampaBay.com)
• Confessions of a Paywall Journalist: Thanks to a booming trade press, lobbyists and other insiders know what’s happening in government. The rest of the country, not so much. (Washington Monthly)
• Arbitration Everywhere, Stacking the Deck of Justice (Dealbook)
• How 1994 Explains 2016: The year that stunned Jeb, battered Hillary and changed politics as we know it. (Politico) see also How Richard Nixon Created Hillary Clinton (Bloomberg)
• Hundreds of officers lose licenses over sex misconduct (AP)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Jeff Maggioncalda of Financial Engines
Yearly Changes to Wages
Source: WSJ
Brennan: Kick Greg Hardy out of NFL after release of photos
“…Something is very wrong when sports officials such as the leaders of the NFL players’ union look at pictures of a battered and bruised woman and think it’s a good idea to lessen the perpetrator’s punishment…”
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/2015/11/06/brennan-kick-greg-hardy-out-nfl-after-release-photos/75315284/
”…Something is very wrong when people think Obama is the worst President ever in spite of the pictures of the economy, foreign policy, and lessening social controls…”
LOOK AT THE DATA, Republicans.
Bernie Sanders identifies a special interest group: marijuana users
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/bernie-sanders-identifies-a-special-interest-group-marijuana-users-110215.html
Combine that with debt holders… er… a… taxpayers and you have a winning combo.
Most US citizens probably have no idea just how much gun violence there is in an average week — you don’t get to over 33k dead a year via just a bit here or there — and not the slightest inkling how much it costs in dollar terms either. This is a pandemic, straight-up.
GunFAIL CLXIV
The volume is really starting to pick up toward the end of the year. …there’s no break in racking up numbers in the most popular kind of GunFAIL, that is, the accidental, self-inflicted gunshot wound. I found twenty-three people who accidentally shot themselves between the 18th and the 24th of October. And by the way, October appears to have shattered all my previous records in that category, as I found 103 people who accidentally shot themselves in the course of the month.
In other common statistical categories, eleven minors were accidentally shot, eight accidental shootings resulted in fatalities, seven people cleaning and/or repairing still-loaded guns accidentally discharged them, killing one and wounding seven more. Five people were wounded by guns that discharged when they were dropped, which we are repeatedly assured “cannot happen with modern weapons.” …
Transition times with guns also continue to be a problem. In addition to the four dropped weapons, two people shot themselves while holstering their guns, two were shot with guns they had tucked in their pants. Two of our dropped guns accidentally escaped from pockets and/or purses on their way to the ground.
There are very nearly too many incredible, standout stories this week to even mention them all …
Martin Shkreli refuses to respond to Congress
Why should he bow down to those grubby nobodies!? He’s a “free-market” hero. The logical conclusion of Bush’s deft “free market” Medicare Part D policy that clearly states that drug companies don’t have to negotiate prices.
http://www.businessinsider.com/martin-shkreli-refuses-to-respond-to-congress-2015-11
I know why the GOP refuses to legislate. They don’t know what they’re doing.
you mean business might have answer to their Congress? who knew??
Overheard on the intertubes
NB: Future generations would probably spend more time cursing the name(s) of present policy-makers if they could just get their jaws off the floor at the astonishing vision of a society failing to borrow and spend to the mega-max for productive assets when interest rates were negative; i.e., effective net costs for those assets would be less than zero even if no multiplier effect is assumed at all.
As the media becomes integrated I am highly hopeful and will invest in tech that shames the children and grandchildren etc. of Republicans.
Your family name will be shit GOP lunatics. I can’t wait. It ain’t too far off.
wonder how long it will be until some state decides to use arbitration instead of criminal courts? course they might have to announce that at their states borders?
Armed Arbitrators (see below…)
well down here in Texas, we do one DA that basically works for an insurance company. the companies pays the DA for all of the work they do. so i could see that happening state wide here, and then only crimes that involve some companies would actually get investigated. course the down side would be that the death toll would go up. as would insurance rates. before long companies would leave, as would those who could afford too.
course it will come back to the need for more guns. even though down here folks can walk around with a gun on their hip, or an assault rifle, of pack a concealed gun. Texas, from the old west to today, nothing much has changed.
Travis County judge Julie Kocurek shot outside Austin home
http://m.statesman.com/news/news/local/travis-county-judge-julie-kocurek-shot-outside-hom/npH5r/
Thanks GOP. Your Obama-hate foaming is a great strategy to get tax cuts to the hedge fund is and drug company CEOs. Republicans are the problem.
Marc Benioff hopes to end corporate greed
“…When I went to business school, I was taught the basics of Milton Friedman, that the business of business is business, shareholder value, and that’s where the CEOs will keep their focus. My approach is not shareholder value. My approach is stakeholder value,” Benioff told the crowd…”
http://www.businessinsider.com/marc-benioff-hopes-to-end-corporate-greed-2015-11
Milton Friedman monetarism, now his shareholder value nonsense vanishes away for all time. This great influencer of Republicans fades. Now if the Supply Side nonsense that Reagan tax cuts for the rich coupled with Reagan’s Social Security tax hikes in workers and small business will pay off debt… The Bush tax cuts for the rich will pay off debt…
If this utter bull will fade too we can move on to fixing infrastructure that the GOP REFUSES to pay for.
http://thehill.com/policy/transportation/259246-house-approves-325b-highway-bill
Yes America, Republican greed is the problem. But in your heart, you know that.
Water shortages aren’t just a matter of drought, they’re a problem of governance, as usual.
It’s (Still) Chinatown, Jake
This is America, where “public-private partnership” is a polite way to say that business and the state forever work hand-in-hand—or, rather, hand-in-glove. And the hand pulling the strings of water politics in California has always been that of the agrarian capitalists.
red state crises?
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2015/1105/America-s-red-state-crisis
Nov 6, 2015
The Perfect Bond Movie: Sean Connery, Judi Dench, And A Watch That Blows Stuff Up
“Spectre,” Daniel Craig’s fourth (and possibly final) James Bond film, hits theaters Friday, and a few common themes have emerged from the reviews so far: First, that this is a highly serviceable Bond movie. Second, that it’s no “Skyfall.” And lastly, that director Sam Mendes takes great pains to ponder whether Bond — spy, womanizer, Cold Warrior — and all of his timeworn tropes are still compatible with audiences in 2015.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-perfect-bond-movie-sean-connery-judi-dench-and-a-watch-that-blows-stuff-up/
Aloha to the US: Is Hawai’i an occupied nation?
BBC News Magazine
2 November 2015
An upcoming election has highlighted the deep disagreement between native Hawaiians over what the future should look like. For some, it’s formal recognition of their community and a changed relationship within the US. Others want to leave the US entirely – or more accurately, want the US to leave Hawai’i.
When US officials came onto the stage that June night, they must have known they would be hearing from a hostile audience.
Speaker after speaker came up to the microphone, decrying a rigged process and an occupying government with no legitimacy.
“We do not need you here. This is our country.”
“Get out of our house! Go home.”
The officials weren’t hearing from foreign nationals, but a crowd of citizens in Honolulu, Hawai’i. Someone began singing the opening words to Hawaii Pono?i – a national anthem of the Hawaiian Kingdom and the state’s official song.
…
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34680564
Yes.