10-12-2015, 02:26 AM
It starts by analysing the factors that might be causing slower growth. The recent sluggish productivity record suggests that long-run potential output growth – the rate at which economies expand over many decades – has slowed. Persistently low investment helps explains why labour productivity and wage growth have been so modest. The fund’s world economic outlook states: “Low aggregate demand is one factor that discourages investment. Slow expected potential growth itself dampens demand, further limiting investment, in a vicious circle. Ageing populations further restrain investment in a number of countries; in some others, institutional shortcomings or political instability are deterrents.”
A worried IMF is starting to scratch its head | Business | The Guardian
What accounts for this unusual degree of independence? Not self-sufficiency, in fact, but “group reliance,” according to Dwayne Dixon, a cultural anthropologist who wrote his doctoral dissertation on Japanese youth. “[Japanese] kids learn early on that, ideally, any member of the community can be called on to serve or help others,” he says. This assumption is reinforced at school, where children take turns cleaning and serving lunch instead of relying on staff to perform such duties. This “distributes labor across various shoulders and rotates expectations, while also teaching everyone what it takes to clean a toilet, for instance,” Dixon says.
Why Japanese Kids Can Walk to School Alone - The Atlantic
Goldman Sachs expects the stock market to rally every year for years to come. But not every stock in the market should be expected to do well. In its new quarterly chartbook for clients, Goldman Sachs' David Kostin and his team identify the stocks offering the most downside relative to Goldman analysts' price targets. We picked out the 16 stocks with more than 10% downside to their targets.
GOLDMAN: Stocks with the most downside - Business Insider
They are overwhelmingly white, rich, older and male, in a nation that is being remade by the young, by women, and by black and brown voters. Across a sprawling country, they reside in an archipelago of wealth, exclusive neighborhoods dotting a handful of cities and towns. And in an economy that has minted billionaires in a dizzying array of industries, most made their fortunes in just two: finance and energy.
The Families Funding the 2016 Presidential Election - The New York Times
future education will recognise that these 30 students are individuals and will differentiate course delivery and materials, tailoring these to each student’s specific needs. Historically we couldn’t provide every student with their own teacher; advances in technology will personalise education so that it does suit every student.” Much of this tech will be in MOOCs massively open online courses which are like giant online-only, impersonal schools. Some will be in more desirable improvements to classroom-style education, with students learning on digital platforms (such as smartphones or even feature phones) and analytics programs that make sure no pupil is left behind. And the ultimate aim is to have individually crafted experiences for every pupil. But VR brings something that none of these courses and this tech seems to focus on immersion which enthuses.