10-08-2015, 11:11 PM
Stocks and bonds still trade at silly prices. Shills from Wall Street still “talk their books” on TV. And the Fed is still promising a rate hike – perhaps before the end of the year. This rate hike talk is either believed or not. To the extent it is believed, it is disastrous in the short run. To the extent it is not believed, it is disastrous in the long run.
Global recession is coming - Business Insider
The recent selloff in emerging-market assets, including Mexico and Malaysia’s currencies, has opened up investment opportunities not seen for decades, according to Franklin Templeton’s Michael Hasenstab, who’s well known for making contrarian bets.
Templeton Betting on `Multi-Decade' Emerging-Market Opportunity - Bloomberg Business
In financial markets, China is firmly entrenched in the driver's seat, according to David Woo. During an interview on BloombergTV, Bank of America's Head of Global Rates and Currencies Research outlined how the selloff in stocks and relatively tepid decline in bond yields since the devaluation of the Chinese yuan affirm his theory for what's been driving equity and fixed income markets.
Bank of America's Woo: "China Is Still More Important Than The Fed" - Bloomberg Business
The eight-hour workday hasn't changed much since Henry Ford first experimented with it for factory workers. Now, Americans work slightly longer—an average 8.7 hours—though more time goes into email, meetings, and Facebook than whatever our official job duties actually are. Is it time to rethink how many hours we spend at the office? In Sweden, the six-hour workday is becoming common. "I think the eight-hour workday is not as effective as one would think," says Linus Feldt, CEO of Stockholm-based app developer Filimundus. "To stay focused on a specific work task for eight hours is a huge challenge. . . . In order to cope, we mix in things and pauses to make the workday more endurable. At the same time, we are having it hard to manage our private life outside of work. We want to spend more time with our families, we want to learn new things or exercise more. I wanted to see if there could be a way to mix these things."
Why Sweden Is Shifting To A 6-Hour Workday | Co.Exist | ideas + impact
CORPORATE profits are at their highest level in at least 85 years. Employee compensation is at the lowest level in 65 years. The Commerce Department last week estimated that corporations earned $2.1 trillion during 2013, and paid $419 billion in corporate taxes. The after-tax profit of $1.7 trillion amounted to 10 percent of gross domestic product during the year, the first full year it has been that high. In 2012, it was 9.7 percent, itself a record. Until 2010, the highest level of after-tax profits ever recorded was 9.1 percent, in 1929, the first year that the government began calculating the number.