The Federal Communications Commission approved the policy known as net neutrality by a 3-2 vote at its Thursday meeting, with FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler saying the policy will ensure “that no one — whether government or corporate — should control free open access to the Internet.” The Open Internet Order helps to decide an essential question about how the Internet works, requiring service providers to be a neutral gateway instead of handling different types of Internet traffic in different ways — and at different costs. “Today is a red-letter day,” Wheeler said Thursday. The dissenting votes came from Michael O’Rielly and Ajut Pai, Republicans who warned that the FCC was overstepping its authority and interfering in commerce to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. They also complained that the measure’s 300-plus pages weren’t publicly released or openly debated.
TEDEd explains how smartphones know your location. via youtube
GPS location apps on a smartphone can be very handy when mapping a travel route or finding nearby events. But how does your smartphone know where you are? Wilton L. Virgo explains how the answer lies 12,000 miles over your head, in an orbiting satellite that keeps time to the beat of an atomic clock powered by quantum mechanics.
Leonard Nimoy, the sonorous, gaunt-faced actor who won a worshipful global following as Mr. Spock, the resolutely logical human-alien first officer of the Starship Enterprise in the television and movie juggernaut “Star Trek,” died on Friday morning at his home in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles. He was 83. His artistic pursuits — poetry, photography and music in addition to acting — ranged far beyond the United Federation of Planets, but it was as Mr. Spock that Mr. Nimoy became a folk hero, bringing to life one of the most indelible characters of the last half century: a cerebral, unflappable, pointy-eared Vulcan with a signature salute and blessing: “Live long and prosper” (from the Vulcan “Dif-tor heh smusma”).
Few asked throughout the Ukraine civil war is just whose side is China leaning toward, after all the precarious balance of power between NATO and Russia had resulted in a stalemate in which neither side has an obvious advantage (even as the Ukraine economy died, and its currency hyperinflated, waiting for a clear winner), and the explicit or implicit support of China to either camp would make all the difference in the world, and perhaps the world's most formidable axis. Today we finally got the answer. China's ambassador to Belgium, was quoted as blaming competition between Russia and the West for the Ukraine crisis, urging Western powers to "abandon the zero-sum mentality" with Russia. Reuters assessment of Xing speech: "an unusually frank and open display of support for Moscow's position in the crisis." At least it is not a warning to the US to back off or else. Yet.
I have to agree with Lee on this. Doesn't President Park Keunhye see what real estate bubbles have done to many countries around the world? Excellent researches have shown this as well. While promoting the so-called creative economy to rekindle entrepreneurship and innovation, does she intend to blow another bubble? We don't get it. Without fundamental reforms on many fronts, one wouldn't see much hope for the Korean economy. Korea's economic sustainability rests on political will and capacity to a significant degree, which is one of the key themes in my books. Korea doesn't have much time left.
한겨레로부터:
박근혜 대통령이 23일 국회의 '부동산 3법 처리 지연'을 두고 '퉁퉁 불어터진 국수'라고 비유한 데 대해, '친박근혜계'인 이혜훈 새누리당 전
최고위원이 24일 '잘못된 인식을 전제로 한 것"이라며 정면 비판했다. 그는 또 지금 우리 경제의 가장 큰 문제인 내수 침체를 해결하기 위해서는
부동산 3법이 아니라 '경제민주화'를 해야 한다고 강조했다. 한국개발연구원(KDI) 출신인 이 전 최고위원은 새누리당의 대표적인 '경제통'으로
불린다. 이 전 최고위원은 이날 CBS 라디오의 <박재홍의 뉴스쇼>에 출연해 "(박 대통령의) 그런 인식은 부동산 3법이 경제를 살리는
묘약이라는 전제를 깔고 있는데, 부동산 3법은 경제를 살리는 묘약이라고 보기 어렵다"고 지적했다. 그는 "부동산 3법은 초기에는 (주택) 매매가
활성화되는 효과가 있기는 하겠지만, 건설 경기가 전체 경기를 끌고 가는 시대는 이미 아니기 때문에 이런 방식으로 경제가 살아나기를 기대하는 것은
좀 무리다. 부동산 3법은 앞으로 시간이 지나면 굉장히 많은 부작용을 낳을 우려가 있다"고 경고했다. 그는 "지금 전셋값이 오르고 있는 것은
어떻게 보면 부동산 3법의 효과이다"라고 덧붙였다. 앞서 박 대통령은 23일 청와대에서 열린 수석비서관회의에서 지난해 9월 내놓은 '부동산 3법'이 국회에서 12월에 통과된 것을 두고 "경제를
생각하면 저는 좀 불쌍하다는 생각도 든다. 지난번 부동산 3법도 작년에 어렵게 통과됐는데 비유하자면 아주 퉁퉁 불어터진 국수인데 그것을 그냥
먹고도 경제가, 부동산이 힘을 좀 내가지고 꿈틀꿈틀 움직이면서 활성화되고 집 거래도 많이 늘어났다. 불어터지지 않고 아주 좋은 상태에서 먹었다면
얼마나 힘이 났겠는가"라고 말했다. 국회가 법안 처리를 지연시켜 경제 활성화의 발목을 잡고 있다며 야당에 대한 불만을 다시한번 드러낸 것이다.
부동산 3법은 △분양가 상한제 탄력 적용 △재건축 초과이익 환수제 3년 유예 △재건축 조합원 분양 주택 3주택까지 허용을
말한다.
이 전 최고위원은 또 우리 경제의 가장 큰 문제는 내수 침체이며 이를 해결하기 위해서는 경제민주화가 필요하다고 강조했다.
그는 "지금 우리 경제의 가장 큰 문제는 내수가 살아나지 않는 것인데 부동산 경기로 내수를 살리기는 어렵다"며 "내수가 침체돼 있는 것은
서민들이 지금 주머니가 비어 있어 사고 싶은 물건들을 살 수 없기 때문이다"고 지적했다. 그는 "과거에는 수출이 잘되면 온 국민의 주머니가
두둑해졌는데 지금은 소위 '낙수 효과'가 실종돼 대기업이 아무리 돈을 벌어도 그 돈이 중소기업이나 근로자, 소상공인들에게 흘러가지 않고 있다.
이 물이 제대로 흘러가게 해 주려면 '경제 보일러 공사'에 해당하는 경제민주화를 해야 한다"고 밝혔다. 그는 "보일러가 고장난 상태에서는 아무리
불을 때도 아랫목은 절절 끓어 장판이 타는 상황이지만 윗목은 냉골인 채로 그대로 있다. 이럴 때 제일 중요한 것은 보일러 공사를 해서 아랫목의
온기가 윗목으로 갈 수 있도록 뚫어주는 게 제일 중요하다"며 경제민주화의 필요성을 거듭 강조했다.
I worked for HP in Palo Alto. This once great company is dwindling as well.
From Zero Hedge:
The biggest scandal in today's release of Hewlett Packard Q1 earnings was not that, just as the Nasdaq is knocking on 5000's door, it reported revenues of $26.8 billion missing consensus expectations of $27.3 billion, while beating non-GAAP EPS by 1 cent to $0.92 (up from $0.90 a year ago) entirely due to a massive reduction in outstanding stock and some truly gargantuan non-GAAP addbacks (GAAP EPS declined from $0.74 a year ago to $0.73) pushing the stock down 7% after hours. The biggest scandal was the company announced that having cut 44,000 workers so far, it will cut 58,000 jobs by the end of 2015. From Bloomberg:
HP SAYS HAS CUT 44,000 JOBS TO DATE
HP SAYS EXPECTS TO CUT 58,000 JOBS BY END OF FISCAL 2015
Incidentally, just 10 years ago Hewlett Packard employed a total of 58,000 people in the entire US. So why is the company axing 58 thousand workers? Simple: so it can cut enough costs on top and continue to fund its now exponential surge in stock buybacks, which in the just concluded quarter was a record $1.6 billion, an increase of 178% from a year ago, and 66% more than the company spent on CapEx,in the process making its shareholders even richer while its management team get massive equity-linked bonuses. Rinse. Repeat.
No large country in modern times has made a smooth transition from being investment driven to being consumption driven. China’s investments as a percent of GDP are at an unheard of level and are increasingly going to unproductive commercial real estate investments. It would be better if I were proven wrong, but the Japanese case says there are rough times ahead for China. However, when that occurs is very much open to question. In this post, Escobar also depicts China as making a smooth transition to being consumption driven. However, he includes services data, which is not the definition most analysts and observers focus on. Note that that would almost certainly include financial services industry and real estate services, both of which would benefit from property, commodities, and stock market speculation.
Escobar stresses China’s focus on working with other developing countries. This too was a Japanese strategy, to act as a convoy leader for Southeast Asia. While the other countries were willing to take Japanese investment (for instance, setting up plants to allow for lower-cost manufacturing), they were not as subservient in other respects as Japanese leadership had assumed. One big issue is the way China’s geopolitical aims conflict with its economic goals is its aggressive stance regarding sovereignity in the South China Sea. Chinas’s belligerent stance has alarmed its neighbors to the point of achieving the difficult task of making the US look like the better hegemon. China’s focus is admittedly wider ranging than Japan’s circa 1988, but that also implies other types of impediments. For instance, Chinese investors have made a push to acquire agricultural assets in Africa. This has not gone as easily as they had hoped, and quite a few investors have changed strategies or decided to abandon their projects.
If anyone has stopped to ask just why global central banks are in such a rush to create inflation (but only controlled inflation, not runaway hyperinflation... of course when they fail with the "controlled" part the money paradrop is only a matter of time) over the past 5 years, and have printed over $12 trillion in credit-money since Lehman, the bulk of which has ended up in the stock market, and which for the first time ever are about to monetize all global sovereign debt issuance in 2015, the answer is simple, and can be seen on the chart below. It also shows the biggest problem facing the world today, namely that at least 9 countries have debt/GDP above 300%, and that a whopping 39% countries have debt-to-GDP of over 100%!
We have written on this topic on countless occasions in the past, so we will be brief: either the Fed inflates this debt away, or one can kiss any hope of economic growth goodbye, even if that means even more central bank rate cuts, more QEs everywhere, and stock markets trading at +? while the middle class around the globe disappears and only the 0.001% is left standing. Finally, those curious just how the world got to this unprecedented and sorry state, this full breakdown courtesy of McKinsey should answer all questions.
The Intel demo team at CES posing with some of the awards the Edison won.
Computer vision is a processor-demanding task, but thanks to a dual-core Atom processor, the Intel Edison handles it with ease. The Edison ships with a highly custom Linux image, but you’ll only need to add a few software packages and custom code to get OpenCV — a wildly popular approach to computer vision — operational and recognizing human faces in photos.
"Whether in eating or drinking, or in whatever you may do, do everything
for the greater glory of God. Avoid giving offense, whether to the Jews, or to
the Greeks, or to the Church of God itself, just as I try to be pleasant to
everyone in every way, not seeking my own profit, but that of the many, that
they may be saved. Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ."
Corinthians
10:31-11:1
In a bit of synchronicity, two new papers confirm the long-held suspicion that Wall Street is sucking the life out of Main Street. The BIS has released an important paper, embedded at the end of this post, which has created quite a stir, even leading the orthodoxy-touting Economist to take note. Titled, Why does financial sector growth crowd out real economic growth?, its analysis of why too much finance is a bad thing is robust and compelling. This article is a follow up to a 2012 paper by the same authors, Stephen Cecchetti and Enisse Kharroubi, which found that when finance sectors exceeded a certain size, specifically when private sector debt topped 100% of GDP or when financial services industry professions were more than 3.9% of the work force, it became a drag on growth. Notice that this finding alone is damning as far as policy in the US is concerned, where cheaper debt, deregulation, more access to financial markets, and “financial deepening” are all seen as virtuous. The paper is short and accessible, so I strongly encourage you to read it in full. The paper starts by looking empirically at the fact that larger financial sectors are correlated with lower growth rates: And the big reason is one that is no surprise to anyone in the US, that finance has been sucking “talent,” as in the best and brightest from a large range of disciplines, ranging from mathematicians, physicists, the best MBAs (which remember could be running manufacturing operations or in high-growth real economy businesses) and lawyers. The banking sector’s gain is Main Street’s loss. From the abstract:
In this paper we examine the negative relationship between the rate of growth of the financial sector and the rate of growth of total factor productivity. We begin by showing that by disproportionately benefiting high collateral/low productivity projects, an exogenous increase in finance reduces total factor productivity growth. Then, in a model with skilled workers and endogenous financial sector growth, we establish the possibility of multiple equilibria. In the equilibrium where skilled labour works in finance, the financial sector grows more quickly at the expense of the real economy. We go on to show that consistent with this theory, financial growth disproportionately harms financially dependent and R&D-intensive industries.
And how does this come about? One big reason is that financial firms like to lend, and to lend against collateral rather than business earnings. That drives lending to collateral-intensive activities, most of all real estate, which is not all that productive from a societal perspective:
In our model, we first show how an exogenous increase in financial sector growth can reduce total factor productivity growth.2 This is a consequence of the fact that financial sector growth benefits disproportionately high collateral/low productivity projects. This mechanism reflects the fact that periods of high financial sector growth often coincide with the strong development in sectors like construction, where returns on projects are relatively easy to pledge as collateral but productivity (growth) is relatively low.
And the access to funding then drives where resources go:
Next, we introduce skilled workers who can be hired either by financiers to improve their ability to lend, increasing financial sector growth, or by entrepreneurs to improve their returns (albeit at the cost of lower pledgeability).3,4 We then show that when skilled workers work in one sector it generates a negative externality on the other sector. The externality works as follows: financiers who hire skilled workers can lend more to entrepreneurs than those who do not. With more abundant and cheaper funding, entrepreneurs have an incentive to invest in projects with higher pledgeability but lower productivity, reducing their demand for skilled labour. Conversely, entrepreneurs who hire skilled workers invest in high return/low pledgeability projects. As a result, financiers have no incentive to hire skilled workers because the benefit in terms of increased ability to lend is limited since entrepreneurs’ projects feature low pledgeability.5 This negative externality can lead to multiple equilibria. In the equilibrium where financiers employ the skilled workers, so that the financial sector grows more rapidly, total factor productivity growth is lower than it would be had agents coordinated on the equilibrium where entrepreneurs attract the skilled labour.6 Looking at welfare, we are able to show that, relative to the social optimum, financial booms in which skilled labour work for the financial sector, are sub-optimal when the bargaining power of financiers is sufficiently large.
And remember, even though the authors blandly mention “the bargaining power of financiers” the model does not include the further distortion seen in many advanced economies, of laundering subsidies to the housing sector through housing finance or tax breaks. And they test their model against real economy outcomes:
Here we focus on manufacturing industries and find that industries that are in competition for resources with finance are particularly damaged by financial booms. Specifically, we find that manufacturing sectors that are either R&D-intensive or dependent on external finance suffer disproportionate reductions in productivity growth when finance booms. That is, we confirm the results in the model: by draining resources from the real economy, financial sector growth becomes a drag on real growth.
The impact is large:
We find unambiguous evidence for very large effects of financial booms on industries that either have significant external financing needs or are R&D-intensive. We report estimates that imply that a highly R&D-intensive industry located in a country with a rapidly growing financial system will experience productivity growth of something like 2 percentage points per year less than an industry that is not very R&D-intensive located in a country with a slow-growing financial system.
Brad DeLong, earlier this week, flagged another important article on why finance has become a productivity drain by Thomas Philippon, titled Finance vs. Wal-Mart: Why are Financial Services so Expensive? Despite the financial services industry having so much bigger and supposedly more efficient firms, the cost of financial intermediation is higher than in 1910. How is that possible? Is it all the new and improved looting? It’s even simpler. It’s Keynes’ capital markets as a casino problem:
…the current financial system does not seem better at transferring funds from savers to borrowers than the financial system of 1910. The role of the finance industry is to produce, trade and settle financial contracts that can be used to pool funds, share risks, transfer resources, produce information and provide incentives. Financial intermediaries are compensated for providing these services. Total compensation of financial intermediaries (profits, wages, salary and bonuses) as a fraction of GDP is at an all-time high, around 9% of GDP. What does society get in return? Or, in other words, what does the finance industry produce? I measure the output of the finance industry by looking at all issuances of bonds, loans, stocks (IPOs, SEOs), as well as liquidity services to firms and households. Measured output of the financial sector is indeed higher than it has been in much of the past. But, unlike the income earned by the sector, it is not unprecedentedly high. Historically, the unit cost of intermediation has been somewhere between 1.3% and 2.3% of assets. However, this unit cost has been trending upward since 1970 and is now significantly higher than in the past. In other words, the finance industry of 1900 was just as able as the finance industry of 2010 to produce loans, bonds and stocks, and it was certainly doing it more cheaply. This is counter-intuitive, to say the least. How is it possible for today’s finance industry not to be significantly more efficient than the finance industry of John Pierpont Morgan?… Technological improvements in finance have mostly been used to increase secondary market activities, i.e., trading. Trading activities are many times larger than at any time in previous history. Trading costs have decreased, but I find no evidence that increased liquidity has led to better (i.e., more informative) prices or to more insurance
This is another damning finding from a policy perspective, in that the bias of regulations has been strongly toward promoting more market liquidity. Readers may recall that we’ve been skeptical of that premise for years, noting that in the stone ages of our youth, investors were not terribly bothered by limited liquidity in large and important markets like corporate bonds. Yet the SEC and the Fed have been all in with the “more liquidity is better” program, with the SEC pushing for lower and lower transaction charges (which has the perverse effect of leading financial services firms as trading counterparties to be fleeced rather than good customers to be nutured) and promoting high frequency trading, and the Fed allowing derivatives to grow like kudzu, out of the belief (among other things) that they would facilitate price discovery in cash markets. And of course, an overly costly financial services sector on a raw transaction level again drains resources from other sectors. As the Tax Justice Network noted,
…an oversized large financial sector is not the Golden Goose providing benefits for all, but a cuckoo in the nest, crowding out and harming other sectors and society. Winston Churchill summarised:
“I would rather see finance less proud and industry more content.”
During the height of World War II, the BBC carried a series of radio broadcasts by C. S. 'Jack' Lewis, the Oxford don and good friend of fellow author J. R. R. Tolkien.
The broadcasts, which were immensely popular, were later gathered into a book, titled Mere Christianity.
Mere Christianity is a book by C. S. Lewis, adapted from a series of BBC radio talks made between 1942 and 1944. The transcripts originally appeared as three separate pamphlets: The Case for Christianity (1942), Christian Behaviour (1943), and Beyond Personality (1944).
Below is the broadcast titled Beyond Personality, and it is the only surviving recording which we have. All the tapes of the other broadcasts were reused during the war effort.
When most people hear the word “manufacturing,” a few images tend to come to mind: low skill, wrench-turning, physically draining work; dirty, grease-stained workplaces; a male-dominated workforce. For whatever reason, these stereotypes persist, and they are antiquated and misleading. Thanks to massive advancements in automation technology and analytics software, the American manufacturing industry of today is a far cry from the assembly lines and manual labor of the past. Manufacturing in the 21st century is a high-tech fusion of software and mechanical engineering, automated processes and complex production equipment, 3D CAD models and on-demand parts. The fortunate result of this modern-day industrial revolution is an expanding demand for highly skilled STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics)-related positions.
I'd like to start an initiative like this to educate and inspire new generations of Korea.
From Makezine:
A large funding has been giving to the organization Norway Makers for establishing up to 10 makerspaces in Norway. The Norwegian foundation, DNB Savings Bank Foundation, donated 430 000 USD for the project. The makerspaces will be established in science centers around the country in the next two years to come. Roger Antonsen and Jon Haavie in Norway Makers are saying that the funding will spark the maker movement in Norway. “This funding gives us the opportunity to build a national network of public makerspaces and inspire new generations. Our mission is to make more makers”, Haavie says. “The makerspaces will have open activities and educational programs where kids can get their hands dirty and get inspired by art, technology, and science. By doing this in a science center network, we can have a great impact”, Antonsen says. The Norwegian science centers have about 1 million people visiting each year of which 200 000 are pupils. “Our aim is also that makers and makerspaces will use the science centers as place where they show people their projects, inspire makers, as well as recruit members to their organizations”, Haavie says. “We are proud to support their work and hope it will inspire many new inventors, Birthe Mørreaunet Selvaag from DNB Savings Bank Foundation says.
This militarism will end one way or the other.Either enough Americans will wake up and demand an end to Washington’s foreign adventurism, or we will go broke and be unable to spend another fiat dollar on maintaining the global US empire.
This one might be a show for kids that’s just as fun for adults to watch. Google has partnered with Disney to make a new cartoon series, Miles from Tomorrowland, to inspire kids to code.In this outer space adventure, Miles explores the galaxy with his family and best friend in tow. Miles’ family joins him for the ride, including his mom and ship captain, Phoebe, his mechanical engineer dad, Leo, his tech-savvy big sister, Loretta, and his best friend and pet robo-ostrich Merc. The show is designed to not only fuel kids’ interest in space but also coding, teamwork, critical thinking and exploration. The show’s makers tapped consultants from NASA, Space Tourism Society and Google to keep it real. Characters are voiced by a stellar cast, too, including Olivia Munn, Adrian Grenier, Mark Hamill, George Takei, Bill Nye, Wil Wheaton, Alton Brown and Brenda Song. The series’ premiere is tomorrow, Feb. 6, on the Disney Channel, starting at 9 a.m. PT. You can watch four back-to-back episodes, each featuring space facts integrated into the storylines of Miles’ missions as he strives to “connect the galaxy on behalf of Tomorrowland Transit Authority.” There is also a Miles from Tomorrowland: Missions app to accompany the series, available on iOS and Android. It offers games similar to the intergalactic missions presented on the show.
One week ago,when previewing what may be the first lockout of the West Coast Ports since 2002, we cited the Retail Industry Leaders Association who, realizing that failure to reach an agreement between the dockworker union and their bosses, the Pacific Maritime Association representing port management would lead to devastating consequences for the US retail industry, had several very damning soundbites:
"a work slowdown during contract negotiations over the past seven months has already created logistic nightmares for American exporters, manufacturers and retailers dependent on an efficient supply chain. A complete shutdown would be catastrophic, with hundreds of thousands of jobs at risk if America’s supply chain grinds to a halt."
Michael Greenberger has long been one of my favorite commenters on regulation, and in particular on futures price manipulation.
Within the context of the uphill battle against the status quo, Gary Gensler and Bart Chilton may have looked 'good' as regulators, but all in all they looked better only by comparison with some very horrible alternatives. Chilton, as you may recall, did not waste much time going through the revolving door to put on the feedbag from the HFT crowd.
I think that as Greenberger points out, once we were able to see Obama's early financial appointments, we knew that we had been had, once again. Despite his soaring rhetoric for change, he was a loyal member of the Wall Street wing.
Obama and the Wall Street wing of the Democratic party, founded by the Clintons, is a brand, cobbled together and groomed for office by the moneyed interests, designed to misdirect and diffuse the angry reaction for reform by the people in the aftermath of the financial crisis. And it was a job well done.
No matter what she says, no matter what promises she may make, no matter what identity branding they may choose to spin for her, I strongly believe that Hillary has been and still remains a product of Wall Street money, and will continue to follow the money once in office no matter what rhetoric she may wear during any political campaign.
Further, the only major difference between the parties now is that the Republicans have sold out wholesale to the moneyed interests, whereas the Dems have been doing it one despicable betrayal at a time. They merely wear different masks. Money conquers all with this venal brood of vipers.
Financial reform comes with political campaign money reform. The two are inseparable.
The company added to its trophy case Tuesday when its value surpassed $700 billion. That wasn’t just a record for Apple, it was a new record for any U.S. company. (Apple briefly touched this valuation in November, but Tuesday marked the first time it closed at that level, a far more significant achievement.) Apple is in a league of its own. The next largest company, Exxon Mobil, (XOM) is worth $382 billion.
The Voltera system provides multiple capabilities: It will print the traces for your prototype circuit board (at 8mil space and trace), dispense solder paste to allow you to place SMD components on professionally manufactured boards, and provide heat for reflowing those electronics onto boards. And it prints multiple layers with a transparent ink. The extruders on the system pop on and off with magnetic clasps, allowing for easy transitions between materials. The hardware helps advance at-home circuit making, a largely homebrew activity that normally requires using etching chemicals or small CNC mills to create boards, and hacked toaster ovens to do reflow soldering. Aside from being one of our favorite CES finds, Voltera won the TechCrunch “Hardware Battlefield” competition at the event, taking home a cool $50,000. They are Haxl8r product development alums, as well. The Kickstarter page has the printer priced at $1499, and shipping January 2016.
From Adafruit blog: Wow, is the true? Anything you say in front of your Samsung TV is transmitted to Samsung and/or 3rd parties? Well, if it true – don’t worry though, Samsung’s CEO promised “to be open for IoT components and devices”
As our plane touches down in Sundsvall, Sweden, the horizon is all snow and ice. A small air traffic control tower sticks out above the white horizon. But this airport actually has two air traffic control centers. The second one is just a short walk from the airport runway. Inside a ground-floor, windowless room, there’s a display that looks exactly like what you’d see out of an air traffic control tower. You can see the snowy runway, you can see the trees, you can even see a car pulling into the airport parking lot. But instead of windows, these are actually screens. And the airport you’re looking at isn’t the one in Sundsvall. It’s the one in Ornskoldsvik, Sweden — about 105 miles away. Ornskoldsvik is the first airport in the world to land passenger planes remotely. This summer, an airport in Leesburg, Va., will become the first American airport to use the new technology. Erik Backman runs the remote airplane landing center in the town of Sundsvall. He explains that the town of Ornskoldsvik has a tiny airport, and it’s expensive to keep air traffic controllers there who spend hours with no planes to land.
In a new paper for the Institute For New Economic Thinking’s Working Group on the Political Economy of Distribution, economist Lance Taylor and his colleagues examine income inequality using new tools and models that give us a more nuanced — and frightening —picture than we’ve had before. Their simulation models show how so-called “reasonable” modifications like modest tax increases on the wealthy and boosting low wages are not going to be enough to stem the disproportionate tide of income rushing toward the rich. Taylor’s research challenges the approaches of American policy makers, the assumptions of traditional economists, and some of the conclusions drawn by Thomas Piketty and Larry Summers. Bottom line: We’re not yet talking about the kinds of major changes needed to keep us from becoming a Downton Abbey society.
his post focuses on how the procedures in the H1-B visa process that are meant to protect workers from unfair competition from foreign workers and contractors are a joke. And this is one of the reasons that the calls by disconnected Beltway pundits and technocrats for American students to get more technically oriented education, most of all in STEM fields, is hopelessly misguided. Companies are more and more refusing to supply much if anything in the way of entry-level jobs, sending yeoman’s work in former white collar professions, including accounting and the law, to outsources in India. And the fix of having more specialized training is just as unrealistic. The more specialized the training, the more at risk you are that those skills will prove to be useless. That is why so many mid-career professionals fall far when they lose their perch, since if they can’t use the narrow expertise that they’ve accumulated, they have to fall back on their generalist skills, which means low-level jobs like call center work, retail, or if they are lucky, a position like an office manager in a small business.
I have touched upon this issue here and in my books. This has economic, social and political consequences. The state has to work on the fundamental structural causes, policy actioins such as monetary policy and economic model transformation, as I have pointed out on many occasions. An increase in social welfare spending won't do much in the long run.
중앙일보로부터:
립튼 수석부총재 서울대서 강연 데이비드 립튼(David Lipton) 국제통화기금(IMF) 수석부총재는 4일 "한국은 사회적 계층 이동이 어렵고 중산층이 무너지고 있다. 재분배 정책을 통해 불평등을 줄여야 한다"고 제언했다. 그는 이날 서울대 금융경제연구원 주최로 열린 세미나에 발표자로 참석했다.
1998년 2월 김대중 대통령 취임 직후 방한했던 그는 당시 기업 구조조정 등 IMF 구제금융 계획의 실행을 진두지휘했다. 경제 관료들 사이에서 'IMF의 저승사자'로 불렸다.
립튼 부총재는 "나라간 불평등은 줄어들고 있지만 나라 내부의 불평등은 오히려 증가하고 있다"며 "한국도 예외가 아니다"고 말했다. 그러면서 한국의 소득 불평등을 보여주는 다섯가지 특성을 지적했다. ▶사회 계층간 이동 붕괴 ▶중산층 감소 ▶노동시장 이분화 ▶노인 빈곤 ▶성적 불평등이다.
그는 "1990년대 75.4%였던 한국의 중산층이 2010년에는 67.5%로 줄었다"며 "소득 불평등 정도를 보여주는 지니계수도 1990년 0.26에서 2010년 0.31로 높아졌고 상대적 빈곤율도 상승했다"고 강조했다. 이어 "흥미롭게도 불평등이 심해지는 나라는 성장이 저하되고, 반대의 경우 빨리 성장하는 것을 수년간 봐왔다"며 "한국도 사회 계층 간 이동, 중산층 재건 등 점점 더 악화되는 불평등을 막기 위해 정부가 공공 사회지출을 늘려야 한다"고 말했다. http://media.daum.net/society/others/newsview?newsid=20150205001204364
As BofAML warns,if Main St. doesn’t recover this year on the back of the powerful cyclical combo of lower oil/rates/currencies then the specter of “policy failure” will haunt investors, and currency wars, debt default and deficit financing will become macro realities. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-02-05/death-cross-american-society
For years, RadioShack — the retailer that helped bring personal computers to the masses — outlasted untold predictions that it would buckle in the face of bigger rivals and online competitors.
But its clock has finally run out.
RadioShack, a long-ailing 94-year-old electronics chain, filed for bankruptcy protection on Thursday after striking a deal to sell up to 2,400 of its stores to the wireless service provider Sprint and a hedge fund that is its biggest shareholder.
Uber faces an ever-growing cast of adversaries that includes dubious regulators, litigious drivers, hostile members of the press, and some well-funded rivals. But the most significant threat to the app-based transportation company may be much closer to home: one of its biggest investors, Google.
Google Ventures, the search giant's venture capital arm, invested $258 million in Uber in August 2013. It was Google Ventures' largest investment deal ever, and the company put more money into Uber's next funding round less than a year later. Back then, it was easy for observers to imagine Google teaming closely with Uber, or even one day acquiring it. David Drummond, Google’s chief legal officer and senior vice president of corporate development, joined the Uber board of directors in 2013 and has served on it ever since.
Now there are signs that the companies are more likely to be ferocious competitors than allies. Google is preparing to offer its own ride-hailing service, most likely in conjunction with its long-in-development driverless car project. Drummond has informed Uber's board of this possibility, according to a person close to the Uber board, and Uber executives have seen screenshots of what appears to be a Google ride-sharing app that is currently being used by Google employees. This person, who requested not to be named because the talks are private, said the Uber board is now weighing whether to ask Drummond to resign his position as an Uber board member.
Uber is also teaming up with Carnegie Mellon University for a research facility in Pittsburgh, Pa., to develop its own autonomous vehicle technology, the company announced on Monday. (The news was reported earlier by TechCrunch.)
Again, the productive capacity including manufacturing is the wealth of a nation. I started to develop my interest in manufacturing when I was working for a GM division in Midwest.
From Standford University:
If you've ever wondered how things are made - products like candy, cars, airplanes, or bottles - or if you've been interested in manufacturing processes, like forging, casting, or injection molding, then you've come to the right place.
AIM has developed an introductory website for kids and adults showing how various items are made. It covers over 40 different products and manufacturing processes, and includes almost 4 hours of manufacturing video. It is targeted towards non-engineers and engineers alike. Think of it as your own private online factory tour, or a virtual factory tour, if you wish.
We are able to cover only a small number of products and processes, but we believe it will give you a good introduction to the world of manufacturing.
From Bloomberg: In a typical doctor’s visit, you wait around for a while, get your vitals checked, and spend a few minutes alone in a room with a physician. It’s private and short. Some doctors, frustrated by a relentless schedule of 15-minute, one-on-one visits, are experimenting with appointments that are neither. According to the American Academy of Family Physicians, around 10 percent of family doctors already offer shared medical appointments, sessions that bring together a dozen or more patients with similar medical conditions to meet with a doctor for 90 minutes. With pressure from the government and insurers to bring down the cost of care while treating theincreasing number of people with health insurance, patients can expect group visits to become more common. “It’s efficient. It’s economical. It’s high-quality care when it’s done right,” says Edward Noffsinger, a California psychologist who created the model in the 1990s at Kaiser Permanente, the state’s largest health maintenance organization (HMO). In a group visit, exams and tests are still conducted privately, but patients discuss their ailments in front of the group. The theory is that each patient can learn from the others’ experience, and doctors get to have a longer, more relaxed discussion instead of hopscotching to three or four exam rooms in an hour. “You have one appointment with 10 observers,” says Marianne Sumego, an internist at the Cleveland Clinic. “Patients are really getting the equivalent of 10 visits.”
recent report on women entrepreneurs by the Kauffman Foundation identified the chief challenges to female entrepreneurship. Researchers interviewed 350 female entrepreneurs, and most cited “lack of available advisers” at the top of their list. Female professional attrition is only one reason for the scarcity of mentors for younger women. …No amount of confidence changes the fact that the valley’s big venture capitalists are almost entirely male. The top five don’t have any female senior partners, and VC partners are 96 percent male. Twenty years ago, the partners were 97 percent male. VCs are not funding women. According to a study by Babson College, only 2.7 percent of the 6,517 companies that received venture funding from 2011 to 2013 had women CEOs. Meanwhile, the Kauffman report found that female-run startups produce a 31 percent higher return on investment than startups run by men. One problem with the male-dominated system is that top partners have almost never been exposed to women as professional peers. Their interaction with women is limited to their wives and daughters, and maybe executive assistants. Male VCs who don’t have female professional peers are especially difficult to pitch on products that serve a female market. “Dozens of times, women have come and told me, I pitched to a firm and what do I hear over and over, ‘Oh, I will go home and ask my wife about it,’” says Trish Costello, an entrepreneur and founder of Portfolia, a venture capital investment platform designed for women. She is also CEO emeritus and co-founder of the Palo Alto–based Kauffman Fellows, a global training institute for venture capitalists.
Obama's hypocrisy seems to know no bounds. He was for hope and change, openness and transparency, jobs and civil society.
He is a brand, a marketing product of identity politics. Unfortunately, most of the politicians of both the left and the right are the same. They are just targeted to different segments of the public.
They say what is required for their marketing campaigns, and then do what they have been told to do by the moneyed interests who have bought and shaped them after they are elected.
I quit Wall Street and decided that it was time to talk more about what was going on inside it, as it had changed. It had become far more sinister and far more dangerous.
