Links for Sept 26 2016

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Who needs to carry a bulky bag around when you can stick a full-size laptop (or two) right into a jacket pocket? Available starting today, the ScotteVest Off the Grid (OTG) jacket has 29 different pockets, including two padded areas in front that can hold laptops as large as 14 inches.  Made in both men and women's versions, the $215 coat also has an inside pocket for a large tablet, an RFID-blocking pocket and two clear pockets that allow you to interact with your phone's touch screen through them.

New Jacket Can Hold Two Full-Size Laptops in Its Pockets

Companies with more female senior managers perform better, with stock-price returns sometimes more than double that of less diverse companies, the latest update to a key Credit Suisse report confirmed. "We find clear evidence that companies with a higher participation of women in decision-making roles continue to generate higher returns on equity, while running more conservative balance sheets," Credit Suisse's chairman Urs Rohner, and Iris Bohnet, a public policy professor at Harvard University and Credit Suisse board member, said in the report.

Female CEOs, board members super-charge company returns: Credit Suisse report

One of the themes of this election season has been the Wall Street analysts who expect the U.S. economy to do better under Hillary Clinton, who would be the nation’s first female president, than under Donald Trump. Similar bets about the value of female leadership are being made in the stock market. The SPDR SSGA Gender Diversity Index exchange-traded fund SHE, -0.46% launched earlier this year, has attracted attention from those who want to play its central strategy: that companies with a high representation of women in the executive ranks outperform their male-dominated peers. But while the fund was created to support the cause of corporate gender diversity, performance data shows support for the fund’s thesis, meaning investors wouldn’t just be making a moral statement, but could also get a financial benefit for their position.

This ETF bets that companies with female leadership will outperform - MarketWatch

Enthusiasts use the tiny Raspberry Pi computers for many things.  Fun ones include garage door opening, retro gaming, a voice-activated tea maker, live images from near-space and even a GPS kitten tracker.  These computers are primarily educational but do anything a normal computer does, so users also send email, play Minecraft, program and (it turns out) do macroeconomic modelling.

DIY Macroeconomic Modelling on a Raspberry Pi | Bank Underground

This philosophy—stamped into policy by Ronald Reagan and maintained by subsequent Democratic and Republican administrations—unleashed a torrent of mergers and acquisitions and resulted in the abandonment of cases against companies that abuse or unfairly obtain monopoly power. A conservative judiciary raised the bar for proving antitrust violations; conduct that was previously considered illegal was now hailed as generating efficiencies. The result is concentrations of power across the economy at levels unseen since the Gilded Age.

New Tools to Promote Competition : Democracy Journal

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And what does $1 buy these days? In North Bergen, New Jersey, you could pick up a dozen eggs at Wal-Mart. OK, the price was actually $1.14. A mile away, check out Aldi, the German supermarket discounter, which can actually break the buck -- 12 eggs for 99 cents. A year ago, you would have paid, on average, three times that price. In a startling development, almost unheard of outside a recession, food prices have fallen for nine straight months in the U.S. It’s the longest streak of food deflation since 1960 -- with the exception of 2009, when the financial crisis was winding down. Analysts credit low oil and grain prices, as well as cutthroat competition from discounters. Consumers are winning out; grocery chains, not so much. Their margins and, in some cases, their stock prices, are taking a hit.

Grocery Prices Are Plunging - Bloomberg

But this is just a “canary in a coal mine” signalling a much bigger problem in the European banking system, according to former macro hedge fund manager Raoul Pal. “Deutsche Bank was just one of the warning signs out there for the banks. It just looks the worst based on the shear size,” Pal told Yahoo Finance in an interview. “It’s one of the canaries in the coal mine telling something really bad is going on in the European banks overall.”

RAOUL PAL: 'It's not a big storm yet, but the clouds are everywhere'

Currently, 92% of the population lives in places with higher pollution than what's considered healthy, according to a new report by the World Health Organization. The WHO has also looked at these data at a city-by-city level. The most harmful pollutant to human health is called PM 2.5, particulate matter smaller than 2.5 microns in diameter that's found in soot, smoke, and dust. PM 2.5 is especially dangerous because it can get lodged in the lungs and cause long-term health problems like asthma and chronic lung disease. PM 2.5 starts to become a major health problem when there is more than 35.5 micrograms (µg) of PM 2.5 per cubic meter of air, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency. But the WHO recommends keeping yearly average PM 2.5 levels three times lower than that. Here's a map of the annual median concentration of PM 2.5 — green areas are within the levels that's considered healthy, according to the WHO's standards.  World Health Organization The WHO links 3 million deaths a year to air pollution. Most of those deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries.

Countries with the worst air pollution - Business Insider

"This is extraordinary. This is really unprecedented for someone this close to the presidency to criticize the Fed chairman in personal terms, very strident and personal terms. I can't recall any precedent for that," said Greg Valliere, global analyst with Horizon Investments. "I think the markets have to worry about this. I think there's a real chance that he could align himself with the members of Congress that want to sharply curb the Fed's independence." Peter Boockvar, chief market analyst at The Lindsey Group, agrees the Fed waited too long to hike rates and that it's setting the stage for trouble. "The Fed's running the economy. How can you not discuss the Fed? … It's a tough situation, but the Fed has immersed themselves so deeply in the economy so that any honest discussion of it has to include the Fed. They threatened their own independence by going as far overboard as they have. These institutions were never built to take on these responsibilities," he said. But as for Trump, if he is elected, he could have problems with the pointed criticism. "The problem is if he wins, he's opened up this Pandora's box," Boockvar said. "At every single Fed meeting, he's going to be asked, 'What do you think about what the Fed did? What do you think about Yellen's job?' I don't think that's where you want to go." London-based Capital Economics Tuesday said Trump's criticism could even lead to Yellen's resignation before her term is over. "If Donald Trump wins November's presidential election, there is now a clear possibility that Fed Chair Janet Yellen would resign almost immediately, perhaps even before the mid-December (Federal Open Market Committee) meeting," Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist at Capital Economics, said in a note. "It is hard to see how she could continue in her position until her current term expires in early 2018."

Trump's attack on Yellen, Fed could backfire

Scientists have found the most definitive evidence yet that some people are destined to age quicker and die younger than others - regardless of their lifestyle. The findings could explain the seemingly random and unfair way that death is sometimes dealt out, and raise the intriguing future possibility of being able to extend the natural human lifespan. “You get people who are vegan, sleep 10 hours a day, have a low-stress job, and still end up dying young,” said Steve Horvath, a biostatistician who led the research at the University of California, Los Angeles. “We’ve shown some people have a faster innate ageing rate.”

Internal 'clock' makes some people age faster and die younger – regardless of lifestyle | Science | The Guardian

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"The problem with Deutsche Bank may be the end of Merkel's career," he told Business Insider over the phone. "The question is does she want to be remembered for doing the right thing — which is to provide support for the bank and diffuse the situation — or does she want to be remembered for standing by when one of the largest banks in Europe failed?" Earlier this week Merkel said that she would not be providing aid to the struggling bank, or any other lenders in its position, like Italy's Monte Paschi. It's a politically popular position, as there's little appetite among her constituents for a perceived bail out. However, it set off a chain of events that Deutsche Bank's CEO said in a letter to his staff has made the bank "subject to speculation."

Deutsche Bank problems may destroy Merkel - Business Insider

Technology shares have been the hottest game in the stock market by far during the third quarter, but their success has triggered a trend investors haven’t seen since the dot-com crash. The tech sector’s weighting in the S&P 500 has soared to a 15-year high of 21.28% recently, according to Bespoke Investment Group on Thursday. Compared to its long-term average weighting of 15.24% since 1990, the sector’s current weighting is 40% above the average, it added.

This has not happened to tech stocks since the dot-com bust - MarketWatch

Cramer said he simply cannot justify owning Nike at 23 times earnings when investors can get Nike, Adidas and more by owning Foot Locker (FL) , which trades at just 14 times earnings. Until Nike admits there's a problem, Cramer concluded, it cannot solve the problem. And that's a problem for both the company and its shareholders.

Jim Cramer's 'Mad Money' Recap: Don't Touch These 'Third Rail' Stocks - Pg.2 - TheStreet

Usually, most politicians act outraged when their critics compare them to Hitler. But Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte is not most politicians. Early Friday morning, Duterte voluntarily compared his vicious crackdown on the drug trade — which has claimed at least 3,000 lives since June 30 — to the Holocaust. As if it were as a good thing. Critics "portrayed [me] to be some cousin of Hitler,” Duterte said out of nowhere in a press conference. "Hitler massacred three million Jews, now there is three million drug addicts. I'd be happy to slaughter them.”

The Philippines’s president just cited Hitler as a positive role model - Vox

At the Paris Auto Show, which begins this week, the world’s biggest auto makers are unveiling plans to accelerate development of electric vehicles. About two dozen new electric vehicles are set to debut and there will be announcements by Volkswagen AG, Porsche AG and Daimler that demonstrate how Tesla’s achievements are spurring conventional auto makers to respond. In particular, the big German brands will release several vehicles squarely targeting Tesla’s hold on the luxury end of the electric-vehicle market.

Car Makers Rev Up Push Into Electric Vehicles - WSJ