Links for 5/19

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Growth in the euro area slowed in the first three months of the year according to preliminary data, led by a contraction in Greece, where GDP shrank to its slowest pace in nearly four years. Economic activity across the region disappointed with the exception of Germany which saw expansion double.

German economy steams ahead as euro zone drags

While adopting solar power in developed markets usually weighs on utility incumbents there, Asia's players are likely to reap benefits, Bernstein Research said.

Why Asia’s utilities may welcome solar disruption

A large part of the West Antarctic ice sheet appears to be in an "unstoppable" decline meaning global sea level rise predictions will have to be revised, scientists have found.

Melting glaciers threaten global sea levels

Economists universally believe in the law of diminishing returns. As capital accumulates, the incremental return on an additional unit of capital declines. The crucial question goes to what is technically referred to as the elasticity of substitution. With 1 percent more capital and the same amount of everything else, does the return to a unit of capital relative to a unit of labor decline by more or less than 1 percent? If, as Piketty assumes, it declines by less than 1 percent, the share of income going to capital rises. If, on the other hand, it declines by more than 1 percent, the share of capital falls.

Lawrence H. Summers for Democracy Journal: The Inequality Puzzle

This is what sticks in the throat about the rise in inequality: the knowledge that the more unequal our societies become, the more we all become prisoners of that inequality. The well-off feel that they must strain to prevent their children from slipping down the income ladder. The poor see the best schools, colleges, even art clubs and ballet classes, disappearing behind a wall of fees or unaffordable housing.

Joseph Fishkin’s book, “Bottlenecks,” explains why inequality lowers social mobility | Economics for public policy

On Wednesday, President Barack Obama gave his first formal warning about this impending self-inflicted disaster — the Highway Trust Fund, a transportation and infrastructure fund financed by gasoline taxes, is set to run out by the end of the summer.

Highway Trust Fund: The Next Big Fight In Congress - Business Insider

Macroeconomics is where all the booming controversies lie. Some economists like to argue that the field has an undeservedly bad reputation because the part that “just works”, microeconomics, has such a low profile. That view is mistaken. Microeconomic analysis, whenever it escapes the elegance of theorem and proof and is applied to the actual world, always makes assumptions about the macroeconomy. One very common assumption microeconomists frequently forget that they are making is an assumption of rough distributional equality. Once that goes away, even such basic conclusions like “markets should clear” go away as well.

interfluidity » Should markets clear?

The Chinese technology upstart Xiaomi, known for selling smartphones online at heavily discounted prices, just intensified its attack on some of the biggest companies in technology–Samsung, HTC, and even mighty Apple. At a press conference on Thursday in Beijing, the four-year old company, which has been privately valued by investors at $10 billion, unveiled its first ever tablet and an HDTV using the new 4K screen resolution standard. Both products carry disruptively low prices

Xiaomi Aims at Apple, Samsung With a Low-Cost Tablet and TV - Businessweek

"When I look at the kind of things that lead to bear markets, I just don't see them. The economy looks to me like it's getting stronger, not about to fall into recession. Fed policy is clearly going to be on hold for quite a while," he said, adding Ukraine and Chinese growth remain concerns in the background. "I don't see anything that's about to blow up. I don't think we're going to have a bear market, but could we see a 10 percent correction? Sure, but the chances of that are low," he said. Keon said one positive for the market is that the earnings for the first quarter, expected to be flattish, came in 5 percent higher and forecasts are improving for the rest of the year. "I think the fundamentals are still quite good," he said.

Will 'technical tsunami' continue as stocks try to stabilize?

Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of Tesla Motors (TSLA) said Wednesday at the World Energy Innovation Forum that he expects the company's "gigafactory" will reduce cost of lithium-ion batteries by more than the 30 percent originally anticipated. He also said that he envisions a future where demand for batteries is so high that "just to supply auto demand you need 200 gigafactories."

In the news: Walmart misses, GM recalling more cars, Musk predicts 200 gigafactories

She passed her days fetching water from a pond and tending to chickens that roamed near her wooden stilt home. She watched the men in her village skeptically. If they only cared about card games and alcohol, how could marriage improve her life?

Chinese Men Searching For Wives Abroad Have Started A Disturbing Trend - Business Insider

Patience, as your mom told you, is a virtue – but some people have to wait longer than others for success to come. After all, who wants to be some burnout in their early thirties, their best years behind them? Join us, then, as we bide our time, and run you through some of the greatest late bloomers of this world…

10 Of The World's Greatest Late Bloomers - Business Insider

Nonperforming loans rose by 54 billion yuan ($8.7 billion) in the three months through March to 646.1 billion yuan, the highest level since September 2008, according to data released by the China Banking Regulatory Commission yesterday. Bad loans accounted for 1.04 percent of total lending, up from 1 percent three months earlier.

China Bad Loans Rise Most Since 2005 as Economy Slows - Bloomberg

Portugal exits its international bailout program tomorrow, regaining the economic sovereignty the nation lost after the European debt crisis erupted while facing enduring challenges to its finances.

Portugal Laden With $293 Billion Debt Exits Bailout Plan - Bloomberg

A little over two decades ago, Franco Sbarro, the famous Swiss sports car designer, took a stab at reinventing the wheel. His orbital or “hub-less” wheel, would allow for a lower center of gravity, which in theory would translate to better road grip, braking and steering.

This bike folds down to the size of an umbrella

As the analysts note, a powerful fiscal stimulus in Japan helped to counter the demand shortfall. That caused personal consumption to continue to grow until 1997 and investment to rebound almost to its previous peak in just six years — something which isn’t slated for Europe any time soon.

Charting Europe’s Japanification | FT Alphaville

But the eurozone’s low inflation rate remains the dominant worry. It was just 0.7 per cent in April, still far below the ECB’s target of just under 2 per cent over the medium term. If low inflation were to turn into outright deflation, governments would find it much harder to manage their outstanding debts. Falling prices might also induce shoppers to delay purchases, weakening demand and threatening recession.

Draghi must tackle threat of deflation - FT.com

For a team with a relatively small squad and a wage bill comparable to Fulham's, overcoming the renowned superstars and almighty financial power of Barcelona and Real Madrid required an almost superhuman effort. That was especially the case when Atletico entered the final 45 minutes of their league campaign trailing 1-0 against Barcelona at the Nou Camp in a game they needed to draw, deprived of the services of arguably their two most important attacking players, Diego Costa and Arda Turan, through injury.

BBC Sport - Atletico Madrid: Specialists in triumphing in the face of adversity

One of the earliest and most popular provisions of the Affordable Care Act — the one that allows young people to stay on their parents' plans until age 26 — may have a more far-reaching effect than previously measured, according to a new study published in the Journal of Health Economics.  The study determined the provision offers young adults more flexibility making both educational and work choices earlier in their lives. This flexibility leads to better employment matches for new workers entering the labor force. It also leads to higher overall wages, according to the study.

Obamacare: Effects Of Staying On Parents' Plan - Business Insider

scientists' warnings about future weather patterns are certainly not overreactions to the evidence they have gathered. In most cases, observed climate changes – the slump in summer sea ice coverage in the Arctic in recent years is a good example – have turned out to be far more drastic than researchers had originally predicted.

Climate change is upon us and we must act | Comment is free | The Observer

Big bank stocks have been sickly in recent months, often a symptom of a less-than-healthy market – one in need of a prolonged rest at minimum, or a more intense selloff that would allow the fever to break.

If bank stocks seem ill, how long can the Dow resist infection? | Breakout - Yahoo Finance

And this is exactly what is observed in the real world: Most money managers underperform the market in the long run. According to an analysis by NerdWallet, actively managed funds underperformed the market by an average of 0.56% (median of 1.36%) in the 10-year period ended December 2012. Even more to the point, a December 2013 study released by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that the average Sharpe ratio for all mutual funds that have been in existence for 30 or more years is 0.37, which compares unfavorably to the S&P 500 at 0.39.

Three stocks all but immune to market turmoil

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Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency Mel Watt said at a Brookings Institute conference that FHFA-controlled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac now won't be reducing the size of the mortgages they insure. And, they will continue to back loans even when a borrower misses a couple of payments in the first three years. More rule changes loosening lending requirements are expected in the several weeks from now.

Why the federal government can't save housing | Talking Numbers - Yahoo Finance

"I think we have been asking too much of central banks in the past...it's easy for them to print money, but sometimes they don't know what they are going to do with it," he told CNBC Thursday. "I think the right solution, the right response is to ask more to fiscal policy...at the end of the day you have a better sense of what you do with the money and how much you are asking to the different groups in society."

Piketty to CNBC: 'Let's get fiscal'

New Medicaid enrollees are coming out of the woodwork even in some anti-Obamacare states—which may further strain some of those states' budgets. Seventeen of the 26 states that had not expanded their eligibility rules for Medicaid to capture more poor adults as of March 31 nonetheless saw net increases in the number of Medicaid recipients—a total of 550,300 people—since last fall, according to an analysis by health-care consulting group Avalere Health.

Out of the woodwork: Medicaid's rise in nonexpansion states

A drawback, in my view, of general discussions about the wisdom and effectiveness of large-scale asset purchase programs is that these policies come in many flavors. My belief, in fact, is that the Fed versions of QE1, QE2, and QE3 can be thought of as three quite different programs, useful to address three quite distinct challenges.

macroblog: Which Flavor of QE?

And then there is a plan from four hedge fund managers — Bill Ackman, Bruce Berkowitz, John Paulson, and Richard Perry — who think the right solution is for the government to hand them tens of billions of dollars for no good reason at all. It's a plan so shocking that the fact that it's even receiving any consideration at all is a testament to the extent to which our republic is becoming a corrupt oligarchy. And the longer the question of what to do with Fannie and Freddie remains unresolved the higher the risk that they will somehow manage to get their way.

The plot to use Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to steal billions from the taxpayer - Vox

The regulator of government-controlled mortgage finance firms Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac said on Sunday he would not oppose them having a smaller presence in the market but private capital had to be ready to take over first.

U.S. private lenders not ready to replace Fannie, Freddie: regulator - Yahoo Finance

Americans are swimming in debt and that's holding back the economy, says Cardiff Garcia, U.S. editor of FT Alphaville. By the end of the first quarter U.S. households were $11.65 trillion in debt, according to the New York Fed. That's bigger than the GDP of any country or region in the world except the U.S. and the European Union. The fastest growing debt category: student loans, which top $1 trillion... These high levels of debt are restraining household formations, which is "hugely important," Garcia explains in the video above. Slower household formation means less demand for buying homes or apartments, which, in turn, translates into less construction and construction jobs. And even young households looking to buy residential real estate have a harder time getting a mortgage.

One of the biggest disappointments of the recovery | Daily Ticker - Yahoo Finance

Last month, Austin Stewart gave a rather unique virtual reality demonstration at a storefront in Ames, Iowa. With a wall TV display, an Oculus Rift headset, and yoga ball trackpad, the Iowa State University assistant professor showed how virtual reality could enrich the inner lives of farm animals confined to small spaces. Strap an Oculus Rift headset onto a chicken, and it’s free range, you see. In its mind.

Could “Second Livestock” Give Chickens A Virtual Free Range? | Co.Exist | ideas + impact

You will often see Denmark listed in surveys as the “happiest country on the planet." Interestingly Danes are not only happy at home, they're also happy at work. According to most studies of worker satisfaction among nations, the happiest employees in the world are in Denmark.

5 Simple Office Policies That Make Danish Workers Way More Happy Than Americans | Co.Exist | ideas + impact

Consumers have gained more than $3.25 billion in benefits over two years from a Obamacare rule that financially compels insurers to keep a tight rein on overhead costs relative to the medical claims they pay out, a new report says. The Commonwealth Fund report issued Tuesday found that even as insurers paid out less in consumer rebates for violating so-called medical loss ratio rule in the second year of the program, they ramped up slashing of administrative and sales costs, without increasing their profit margins.

Obamacare's $3 billion windfall to insurance customers

Two groups of scientists have found that a large section of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is now melting at an unstoppable rate, and within a couple of centuries the world sea level could rise more than 10 feet. Tom Wagner, who runs NASA’s programs on polar ice, discusses the research with Here & Now’s Jeremy Hobson.

Scientists Find Polar Ice Irreversibly Melting | Here & Now

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Has a manager ever had such an immediate and profound impact? When Simeone took over two days before Christmas 2011, Atlético were 10th and had just been defeated by Second Division B side Albacete in the Copa del Rey. They were "sunk", the captain says. These are the same players. His character has transformed them; as has his work. They finished fifth and won the Europa League, following that up with a European Super Cup demolition of Chelsea. Then they reached the Champions League places and won the Copa del Rey. Now they have won an impossible league and have reached the European Cup final. They have won more than their city rivals in that time; more than Barcelona too.

Atlético Madrid win more than the league with 'impossible' La Liga title | Sid Lowe | Football | theguardian.com

You aren't going to have a severe crash in the market while so many stocks are giving you a 3% or better dividend yield in many different industries. Those stocks would only sell off if U.S. Treasury interest rates went higher -- and if rates went higher, the portion of the stock market that is most tenuous, the banks, would put in a rally. As it is right now, the banks are the market's chief cause for concern because rates are low.

Jim Cramer: The Bear Story Doesn't Add Up - TheStreet

India's Sensex index is up a whopping 13.9% since the beginning of the year. Jim O'Neill, former chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, tells the Economic Times that the rally is far from over and that Indian stocks could rise another 10-15% this year.

JIM O'NEILL India On Cusp Of Bull Market - Business Insider

Finland fell into recession, while output contracted by 1.4pc in Holland, 0.7pc in Portugal and 0.1pc in Italy. “The recovery has vanished,” said Italian think tank Nomisma.

Recovery stalls in Europe as austerity grinds on - Telegraph

Prof Philip Eaton, from King's College London, and colleagues from the University of California in the US believe it is the fusion of the diet's ingredients that make nitro fatty acids. In their study, part-funded by the British Heart Foundation, the researchers used genetically engineered mice to see what impact nitro fatty acids had on the body. Nitro fatty acids helped lower blood pressure by blocking an enzyme called epoxide hydrolase. Prof Eaton said: "Humans have this same enzyme so we think the same happens in people."

BBC News - Olive oil and salad combined 'explain' Med diet success

One in six cancers - two million a year globally - are caused by largely treatable or preventable infections, new estimates suggest.

BBC News - 'One in six cancers worldwide are caused by infection'

That’s because the S&P has gone 468 days since experiencing a correction of 10 percent or more. That’s the fourth longest streak on record, according to Newedge.

An incredible explanation for the relentless stock rally | Talking Numbers - Yahoo Finance

At the end of the first quarter, some 18.8% of U.S. homeowners with a mortgage—9.7 million households—were "underwater" on their mortgage, according to a report scheduled for release Tuesday by real-estate information site Zillow Inc. While that is an improvement from 19.4% at the end of last year and a peak of 31.4% 2012, those figures understate the problem.

Mortgage, Home-Equity Woes Linger - Yahoo Finance

In a recent note, JP Morgan's Jan Loeys, the bank's head of global asset allocation, warns inflation is coming, but not in the goods and services where we may have thought. It will be in asset prices, in what he calls "financial overheating," which will increase faster than consumer prices, which he calls "economic overheating." This, he says, will create a "financial bubble" that will inevitably pop.

JP Morgan: Central Banks Give No Confidence - Business Insider

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When the Federal Reserve ends its latest bond-buying quantitative easing program, stocks could drop 15 percent to 20 percent, said Peter Boockvar, chief market analyst at The Lindsey Group. That's how much the market dropped when the Fed ended QE1 and QE2, Boockvar said in an interview on CNBC's "Squawk Box."

Fed exit may cause 20% stock drop: Peter Boockvar

As everyday objects get connected, brace yourself for network effects, says one economist.

Platform Economics Will Rule the Internet of Things | MIT Technology Review

A handful of girls seem to defy one of the biggest certainties in life: ageing. Virginia Hughes reports on the families wrestling with a condition they can’t explain, and the scientist who believes that these children could hold the key to immortality.

BBC - Future - Ageing: The girls who never grow older

One of Intel's most dangerous rivals is the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Comp., Ltd. (TPE:2330) (TSMC).  TSMC is expecting to tape out 16 nm FinFET transistor-based chips late this year, possibly in Q4 2014.  If all goes well, this 16 nm product could launch as early as the 2015 back-to-school shopping season.  If it can pull that off, it may have closed the gap with Intel to about a year, versus the gap of over two years process-wise that existed back in 2011.

DailyTech - Intel's Broadwell Will Likely Slip Past Back-to-School Shopping Season

Another key rival is Samsung Electronics Comp., Ltd. (KRX:005930) (KRX:005935).  Having taped out 14 nm transistors in Dec. 2012 in a test run, Samsung has been working to mature the technology at its fabs.  Samsung has teamed up with former Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) spinoff, Global Foundries to push the technology into production.  According to a report in The EE Times, production is expected to begin in late H2 2014, and product may be available late in the holiday season.

DailyTech - Intel's Broadwell Will Likely Slip Past Back-to-School Shopping Season

The White House has long argued that, under Obamacare, competition in the exchanges will lower health premiums. When insurers have to compete side-by-side, the thinking goes, they'll have a new incentive to compete with other health plans on price. A new paper is arguably the best evidence yet that this might be true.

The best evidence yet Obamacare competition lowers premiums - Vox

But when Denmark implemented the policy, banks were unwilling to pass the negative deposit rate to their customers, squeezing their margins, Wall noted. At the same time, to deal with the added expense, some banks increased their lending rates, which was counterproductive to the central bank's objectives, he said.

Will the ECB shoot itself in the foot?

Levi's CEO Chip Bergh says you should keep your jeans out of the washing machine.  Bergh lives by his words and hasn't washed his own jeans in more than a year, reports Neha Prakash at Mashable.

Levi's CEO: Don't Wash Your Jeans - Business Insider

There's a lot of data out there that both bulls and bears cite to support their market views. Unfortunately, many of these oft-cited data points aren't subject to real statistical analysis, according to Tobias Levkovich, chief U.S. equity strategist at Citigroup. In the accompanying video, Levkovich discusses some of these "mythical data" with Lauren Lyster, including the VIX, which he calls "horribly misunderstood."

No, stocks aren’t wildly overvalued: Citi strategist finds hole in Shiller’s CAPE | Daily Ticker - Yahoo Finance

The EIA has cut its original estimate of recoverable shale oil reserves in California's much-hyped Monterey shale play by 96%, the L.A. Times' Louis Sahagun reported late Tuesday.

EIA Monterey Shale - Business Insider

A new WhatsApp alternative has entered the mix, with PQChat landing as “the most secure mobile communications app ever.” Putting security at the fore of the mobile messaging trend, PQChat utilises never-the-same (NTS) encryption methods to ensure your communications – be they in text, image, video or audio form – are secure from unwanted intruders or data mining.

PQChat lands as secure WhatsApp alternative - News - Trusted Reviews

While Federal Reserve policymakers are now in agreement over gradually tapering its bond purchases, as the question of when to further withdraw its easing arises, the gloves will come off, says Alan Blinder, former vice chairman of the Fed.

Blinder: Fed's Hawks and Doves Will Battle Over Exiting Easy Monetary Policy

A huge survey of 450,000 individuals found that money only buys happiness to a limited extent. Princeton researchers Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton analyzed data collected in 2008 and 2009 for the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index and concluded: (We) find that the effects of income on the emotional dimension of well-being satiate fully at an annual income of ∼$75,000.

$75,000 Buys Happiness; More Money Does Not | LinkedIn

The legs are heavy, the brains are tired and the match is deep into extra time. Atlético Madrid win a free-kick at the corner of the box on the left. Sepp Maier, the Bayern Munich keeper, lines up his six-man wall. Looking to have all the angles covered, he shuffles to his left. Luis Aragonés and José Luis Capón stand over the ball, but it is Aragonés who takes it. Despite the obvious exhaustion, he summons the energy to whip the ball over the wall and into the net. With just six minutes left in the final, Atlético are 1-0 up and ready to pucker up and kiss the European Cup.

Seconds from ecstasy: the night Atlético Madrid threw away European glory | Ian McCourt | Football | The Guardian

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But if you ask a dermatologist, they can see a whole lot more. Everything from poor diet and stress to serious kidney problems can be revealed by a glance at your fingernails.  There are about 30 different nail signs that can be associated with medical issues, though many may indicate more than one problem, according to Dr. Amy Derick, a clinical instructor of dermatology at Northwestern University.

Signs Of Disease In The Nails - Business Insider

"Lenovo is the best company in the world at balancing innovation and efficiency." So declares Yang Yuanqing, the chairman of the Chinese computer-maker.

Lenovo: The Rise Of The Frugal Investor - Business Insider

The euro’s impact on southern EZ members is a key topic in national and European debates. This column argues that the economic evidence is twisted to fit preconceptions. It presents evidence based on the ‘synthetic control’ approach, finding that the euro raised trade, lowered interest rates and inflation, but had a small negative impact on per capita incomes.

Italy and the euro: Myths and realities | vox

Elderly people need to give up ambition, rivalry and anxiety if they want to be happy in old age, Dame Joan Bakewell has said. The broadcaster and former older people’s tsar, 81, said old age was a ‘different country’ where the elderly felt excluded, depressed and lonely.

To be happy in old age give up your ambition, Dame Joan Bakewell says - Telegraph

Tarantino, the director of Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill and Pulp Fiction, said the prevalence of digital projection in cinemas today meant films were just "television in public".

Quentin Tarantino: 'Cinema as I knew it is dead' - Telegraph

By a horrible twist of fate, Europe's political Left has become the enforcer of reactionary economic policies. The great socialist parties of the post-war era have been trapped by the corrosive dynamics of monetary union, apologists for mass unemployment and a 1930s deflationary regime that subtly favour the interests of elites.

Europe's centre crumbles as Socialists immolate themselves on altar of EMU - Telegraph

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Despite all this, it is now safe to say the debate is basically over: Fracking has won.the administration has done nothing to impose federal regulations on fracking. What's more, the EPA's new carbon dioxide (CO2) regulations take direct aim at U.S. coal production, natural gas' main rival for electricity output.

The Fracking Debate Is Over - Business Insider

Apple is finally trading above $600 per share for the first time since 2012. With the iPhone 6’s expected release in August and the potential for a $3.2 billion deal with Beats Electronics, could $700 be just around the corner?

Here's how the pros are trading Apple | Talking Numbers - Yahoo Finance

I don’t think so. As a general matter, emerging-market gloom is overdone. India, in particular, could teach the pessimists a lesson.

A ten-step program to tap India's great potential | Jim O‘Neill at Bruegel.org

The list of grievances for MRAs is long. It includes the elevated rate of suicide for men, educational discrimination against boys, economic and workplace conditions for men, violence against men, false rape reporting, fathers’ rights in custody battles, rates of male imprisonment and prison conditions, and the horrors of war. Many of these issues deserve a thoughtful response and the force of an organized movement for address them. It’s too bad that’s not what men’s rights activists are offering.

A Look Inside the 'Men's Rights' Movement That Helped Fuel California Alleged Killer Elliot Rodger

it turns out that overdelivering on something won’t make anyone significantly more impressed by your awesomeness. “Going above and beyond a promise didn’t seem to be valued at all

Nobody Cares How Awesome You Are at Your Job - Businessweek

If you can guarantee an outcome, you’ll make your customers (or bosses) happiest when you promise it. But if you’re not sure you can do it—or if you think you can do it even better—you might not want to promise anything and surprise them instead.

Nobody Cares How Awesome You Are at Your Job - Businessweek

But then a funny thing happened: Europe started doing much better, while America started doing much worse. France’s prime-age employment rate overtook America’s early in the Bush administration; at this point the gap in employment rates is bigger than it was in the late 1990s, this time in France’s favor. Other European nations with big welfare states, like Sweden and the Netherlands, do even better.

Europe’s Secret Success - NYTimes.com

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With respect to profit margins, the following questions emerge: What are the forces that cause profit margins to mean-revert? Why do those forces pull profit margins towards any one specific mean value–11%, 9%, 7%, 5%, 3%, 1%–rather than any other?

Ignore Profit Margins, Focus On ROE - Business Insider

…the possibility for banks to arbitrage against negative rates by holding banknotes. If banks are to be charged for holding excess liquidity (as the imposition of a negative DF rate would imply), they have an incentive to hold banknotes to avoid that charge. This implies that a negative DF rate would prove ineffective (as banks switch excess liquidity into banknotes): arbitrage implies that market rates are bounded at zero.

Goldman Sachs on coping with negative rates | FT Alphaville

Are drugmakers responsible for an epidemic of prescription painkiller abuse? A new lawsuit alleges that 20 years ago, pharmaceutical companies set out to turn drugs that were narrowly prescribed for short-term acute pain into commonplace remedies for such conditions as arthritis and back pain, downplaying the risk of addiction. The suit, brought by two counties in California against five drug companies, claims that “a common, sophisticated, and deeply deceptive marketing campaign that continues to the present, set out to, and did, reverse the popular and medical understanding of opioids.” The defendants include companies that have made billions selling widely used painkillers such as OxyContin, Percocet, and Actiq.

California Counties Sue Drugmakers Over Painkiller Abuse - Businessweek

If you live in San Francisco, be on the lookout for some mysterious white envelopes -- they may contain $100 bills. An anonymous person is dropping off sums of money around the city and then tweeting hints about the locations in a project called "Hidden Cash."

An Anonymous Rich Person Is Hiding Money All Around San Francisco

Deforestation rates peaked in 2004 and fell steadily for almost ten years. But the loggers didn't go away. They just got smarter. Despite the government's interventions, most of the logging in the Brazilian Amazon was still illegal. The loggers learned how to game the systems put in place to keep illegal timber out of the market. They found crooked sawmills to launder their illegal timber, and exporters that didn't care where their products they sold came from.

Amazon Destruction? Not In My Builder's Yard | John Sauven

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Bass changed one aspect of his outlook on Japan. Instead of predicting a collapse of the Japanese bond market, he focused on a severe weakening of the yen – without predicting when that might happen. His predictions for China were equally distressing. He said that its banks will be saddled with non-performing loans and that its economy is actually contracting.

Kyle Bass On China And Japan - Business Insider

Bears' call for a market correction after the relentless rally has been wrong for years and it's likely to remain wrong, Dennis Gartman, publisher of the closely watched Gartman Letter, told CNBC.

‘Abundantly wrong’ to expect correction: Gartman

The Bank of Japan has begun shifting its focus from supporting growth to ways of phasing out its massive stimulus, taking first tentative steps towards a potentially momentous move for the world economy.

That didn't take long: Japan eyes stimulus exit

Just back from China, renowned economist Jim O'Neill told CNBC on Tuesday that the "incessant focus" on whether the Chinese gross domestic product numbers are accurate and whether GDP there even matters for the rest of the world "seems to be misplaced."

China's growth plan 'pretty persuasive': O'Neill

Cantona says “all the best players” grew up in poor areas, name-checking Maradona, Pelé, Messi, Ronaldo and Ronaldinho. For him, football is 50% physical and 50% psychological. “You need to be angry, because it is not only about abilities. Abilities is 50% and 50% is mentally. And mentally is where you learn how to fight … it is in the street.” For him a broken link between the street and the stadium should be of urgent concern to Fifa

Eric Cantona: Fifa’s corruption divides Brazilian football from its roots | Owen Gibson | Football | The Guardian

The DuPont framework offers much more information than what you would get from just net income and equity. You begin to understand that the negative effects of a shrinking operating profit margin can be offset by a combination of higher asset turnover, lower borrowing costs, higher leverage, or lower taxes.

CFA: DuPont ROE Model - Business Insider

Much of the indecisiveness about stocks comes from their record-high valuations, sluggish earnings growth in the weather-beaten first quarter, and questions about how much the economic recovery is based on hope versus solid fundamentals.

Why stocks are being held back from a big breakout - Market Snapshot - MarketWatch

Our analysis also suggests that we’ve passed the lows and will see a gradual inflection higher in core inflation back towards the Fed's 2% target through 2015.

Inflation Talk - Business Insider

In seeking to unblock the supply of loans to the economy by reviving the European market for asset-backed securities, the European Central Bank president risks an unprecedented reach into the functioning of the financial system that could backfire, according to academics including former Bank of England Deputy Governor Paul Tucker.

Draghi’s Asset-Backed Drive Rouses Academic Skeptics - Bloomberg

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Straubel spoke of challenging the internal combustion engine on its "home turf of racing vehicles" with the Roadster. "The Roadster was the biggest battery pack in a vehicle and people were terrified by a 50-kilowatt-hour battery pack. Now, that seems like old technology; it has improved a lot since then." He noted that in the five years between the launch of the Roadster and the Model S, battery performance had improved by 40 percent. He said that battery energy density has doubled over the last ten years and that the curve is not starting to plateau.

Tesla CTO on Energy Storage: ‘We Should All Be Thinking Bigger’ : Greentech Media

The Richmond Fed paper wades into the debate. Andreas Hornstein and Marianna Kudlyak, both economists at the regional reserve bank, and McGill University economist Fabian Lange compared the official jobless rate with a broader “non-employment index” that measures unemployed workers available for employment, both in and out of the labor force. The two measures follow roughly the same trend over time, and both now are about halfway back to their pre-recession levels. That similarity, they wrote, suggests the traditional unemployment rate isn’t unusually off base in terms of measuring slack. “In particular, our index does not suggest that the standard unemployment rate understates how much slack there is in the current labor market,” the economists wrote.

In Grist for Fed’s Debate, Researchers Say Unemployment Rate isn’t Undercounting Slack - Real Time Economics - WSJ

The 1982 World Cup semi-final between France and West Germany at Sevilla’s Estadio Ramón Sánchez-Pizjuán is remembered – not solely, but mainly – for the most outrageous and notorious foul in World Cup history.... an infamous act of brutal cynicism to this day casts a long, dark shadow across a match which really should be principally remembered as one of the greatest, most dramatic and entertaining World Cup encounters of all time.

World Cup: 25 stunning moments … No20: Patrick Battiston loses his teeth | Football | The Guardian

“Flow is an optimal state of consciousness, when you feel and perform your best,” he says. “It’s the moment of total absorption. Time speeds up or slows down like a freeze-frame effect. Mental and physical ability go through roof, and the brain takes in more information per second, processing it more deeply.”

How To Hack Into Your Flow State And Quintuple Your Productivity | Fast Company | Business + Innovation

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles CEO Sergio Marchionne has gone even further, stating that he’d rather you not buy a 500e at all. "I hope you don't buy it because every time I sell one it costs me $14,000," said Marchionne. "I'm honest enough to tell you that."

DailyTech - Fiat CEO: Don’t Buy a 500e EV, You’re Costing Me $14,000 Each

The U.S. economy is recovering from its winter freeze and the Fed is pursuing a path to normalize monetary policy, yet the 10-year Treasury yield has fallen to 2.6%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average recently reached an all-time high, yet the small-cap Russell 2000 Index is at its low for the year, and year to date more than 8 out of 10 U.S. stocks are down by an average of almost 14%. The U.S. and European economies are accelerating, but China appears vulnerable. In fact, the global economy looks more fractured than it has in some time.

Three Market Paradoxes - Fidelity Investments

China's slowing property market poses the most substantial macro risk to its economy in the coming quarters, analysts at JP Morgan said. If real estate investment were to slow another 5 percent, it could shave 0.6 percentage points from China's already-flagging gross domestic product growth rate, according JP Morgan analysts. However, the risk of an actual house-price collapse remains limited as the authorities still have room for policy adjustment, they added.

Here's the biggest macro risk China faces

Bond yields have stymied widespread expectations they would rise this year and analysts seeking a reason may not need to dig any deeper than simple supply and demand. "On the supply side, bond issuance plummeted, down 19 percent year-to-date. Amidst short supply, a surge in positioning and bond inflows has pushed yields lower," Deutsche Bank said in a note last week.

This is what is keeping bond yields low

Enter James Tour of Rice University. Along with his colleagues, he's developed an electrochemical capacitor that's thinner than paper, bendable, and capable of storing enough electric energy to charge your phone — they say it could power the next generation of electronic devices.

Breakthrough Flexible Power Thinner Than Paper - Business Insider

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The hesitant housing recovery has surprised and concerned Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen and her colleagues at the central bank. It's not clear how much they can do about it.

Yellen Concerned by Housing Slowdown She Has Scant Power to Cure - Yahoo Finance

Wealthy people in Asia, Africa and the Middle East are increasingly choosing 'authentic experiences' over material possessions, a survey by Mastercard shows.

Wealthy ditch material goods for experiences: Survey

Cumulative solar photovoltaic (PV) installations in the United States hit the 10 GW level in mid-2013 and are on course to double by early 2015, approaching the 20 GW figure by the end of 2014.

Cumulative US PV Market to Approach 20 GW by the End of 2014 | Solarbuzz

So-called "shadow banks" were at nexus of the financial market meltdown that brought on the Great Recession. But what's a "shadow bank" and why does it cause problems?  Daniel Sanches offers an overview in "Shadow Banking and the Crisis of 2007-08," in the Business Review of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia

CONVERSABLE ECONOMIST: A Shadow Banking Schematic

In the past three decades China has revolutionised global manufacturing. In that time 500 million people have moved from its fields to its cities, creating an unprecedented mass of factory workers. China's economy is changing, however, as wages rise and labour unrest grows. Does this mean an end to its dominance of global manufacturing?

China Will Keep Manufacturing Supremacy - Business Insider

Buffer's spine-tingling turn has brought him worldwide fame, millions of dollars, roles in Hollywood blockbusters and record-breaking video games, as well as a walk-in wardrobe full of dinner jackets and dickie-bows. Not a bad return from a chance conversation with his son.

BBC Sport - Carl Froch v George Groves: Michael Buffer 'ready to rumble'

South Africa is sliding towards a slow economic crisis as the global commodity boom fades and striking workers dig in their heels, becoming the third of the Brics quintet after Russia and Brazil at risk of full-blown recession this year.

Brics malaise deepens as South Africa nears recession - Telegraph

Andrew Lilico is an Economist with Europe Economics, and Chairman of the Shadow Monetary Policy Committee. He's also been a mathematical chemist, an opera singer, a philosopher, and a computer programmer.

Five reasons why the Euro election results mean more integration, not less – Telegraph Blogs

Well, just like broadcast TV underwent a high-definition makeover, the next generation of cellular call quality is on the horizon, and it's called HD Voice.

What T-Mobile HD Voice Really Sounds Like | PCMag.com