07-11-2016, 11:17 PM
According to Friedman, this is a big deal because Italy's economy is the fourth largest in Europe and the eighth largest economy in the world, and there's a lot of interconnectivity in play. For example, Germany's largest bank, Deutsche Bank, has an enormous amount of exposure to Italy, and so does the rest of Europe. Friedman thinks it will ultimately be Germany that has to save Italy. And that will cost a lot of money.
Germany could be Europe's next big problem - Business Insider
However, the rally in stocks is making some uneasy because it’s happening as the yield on the benchmark 10-year note closed at a record-low 1.366%, according to Dow Jones data. What gives? Investors typically don’t buy bonds and stocks at the same time. Bonds are considered a haven, while stocks are favored when risk appetite is higher. Bond prices move in the opposite direction of yields, so appetite for the perceived safety of bonds is driving yields lower even as investors scooped up equities at a rapid clip Friday.
S&P 500 near record highs? Treasury yields at lows? Something’s gotta give - MarketWatch
It may be time for a reality check on a big part of the American dream. According to UO psychology professor Azim Shariff, there is the idea — one that is touted by many politicians — that the ease to easily change our economic status by changing jobs is enough to make the nation's large levels of income inequality easier to swallow. In reality, though, the United States has the second-lowest income mobility — the ability to make such job changes — among rich countries, according to recent economic studies noted prominently by Shariff and colleagues in a study published in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science.
UO-led study casts a shadow on the American dream | Around the O
Gao Hucheng said at a G20 meeting in Shanghai that major economies must lead the way in tackling problems, including slowing trade and sluggish growth. To boost trade the G20 ministers, from the world's major economies, agreed to cut trade costs, increase policy co-ordination and enhance financing. They also approved a trade growth plan. "We agree that we need to do more to achieve our common objectives for global growth, stability and prosperity," the G20 ministers said in a statement.
China warns on global economy and says G20 must lead - BBC News
What this (and dozens of other experiments) reveal is the way we filter new information when it challenges our strongly-held beliefs or judgements. We use a series of post hoc manoeuvres to reframe anything inconvenient to our original position. We question the probity of the evidence, or the credentials of the people who discovered it, or their motives, or whatever. The more information that emerges to challenge our perspective, the more creatively we search for new justifications, and the more entrenched we become in our prior view. This tendency is called "cognitive dissonance".