Links for 5/29

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There’s an industrial boom underway in Louisiana, thanks, in part, to a rise in fracking. A massive new plant under construction in Lake Charles is expected to create 7,000 jobs at the peak of construction, according to a new report in the Wall Street Journal. South African state-oil company Sasol is pumping $21 billion into the 3,034-acre complex in what could be the largest foreign investment in U.S. history, according to the Journal.

Fracking spurs next industrial revolution | Daily Ticker - Yahoo Finance

Perhaps the main problem, though, was one of ideas. "All of us Brazilians got carried away with the great football that Netherlands had presented in 1974, with the players carrying out lots of functions, and our coach Claudio Coutinho wanted, in a short space of time, Brazilians to play in the same way. It wasn't possible," he said.

BBC Sport - Zico's World Cup story: World class but denied on biggest stage

The middle classes will die out within 30 years because of rising property prices, which will rob today's children of their dreams, an economist has warned.

Middle classes will disappear in next 30 years warns Government adviser - Telegraph

Nobody ever claimed binge drinking was good for you. But the work done by researchers at the University of Massachusetts Medical School on a small group of drinkers shows that a single episode of five drinks or more "can cause damaging effects such as bacterial leakage from the gut into the blood stream,"

Binge Drinking Can Take A Toll On Your Immune System - Business Insider

Putting their alternative take on economics to the world of stock picking, "Freakonomics" authors Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt have told CNBC that investors might try blind luck rather than follow the advice of their portfolio manager.

Freakonomics authors blast stock pickers

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As a result, very little was done to help households struggling with mortgage debt. Indeed, Mian and Sufi argue that "The fact that Secretary Geithner and the Obama administration did not push for debt write-downs more aggressively remains the biggest policy mistake of the Great Recession."

The Great Recession's "biggest policy mistake" - CBS News

Fine, so it won't be in Krakow. It won't be in Stockholm either, because it dropped out in January. Or Munich, which dropped out in November. Or the Swiss towns of Davos and St Moritz, which dropped out last year. And probably not Oslo, because it turns out that nobody wants it there either.

The 2022 Winter Olympics: the games nobody wants to host | Sport | The Guardian

In a previous post I argued that high house prices, in the UK and perhaps elsewhere, could simply reflect lower expected long term interest rates. This had some people puzzled, because it appeared to ignore supply and demand. Surely it is higher demand combined with inelastic supply (supply that is insensitive to changes in prices) which is to blame for high house prices? This short post clarifies how both views can be correct at the same time. I also raise a question about housing wealth and inequality at the end.

mainly macro: House prices, rents, and supply

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The country’s embrace of natural gas means less love for wind and solar. New investments in renewable energy sources declined 5 percent in North America last year to $56 billion, the lowest since 2010, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. By comparison, North American oil and gas companies spent $168.2 billion on exploration and production last year, more than double 2009, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Fracking Sucks Money From Wind While China Eclipses U.S. - Bloomberg

The ratio of people at risk of poverty or social exclusion in the EU increased by 0.5 percentage points in 2012 to 24.8% or 124.2 million people, according to figures updated this week. The risk increased most in bailed-out nations Greece and Cyprus, where the rate rose by 3.6 and 2.5 percentage points, respectively. The Netherlands had the lowest risk at 15%.

A Quarter Of Europeans Are At Risk Of Poverty | Zero Hedge

Unlike the United States, which relied largely on its central bank’s efforts to cushion the crisis and foster recovery, China deployed a CN¥4 trillion fiscal stimulus (about 12% of its 2008 GDP) to jump-start its sagging economy in the depths of the crisis. Whereas the US fiscal stimulus of $787 billion (5.5% of its 2009 GDP) gained limited traction, at best, on the real economy, the Chinese effort produced an immediate and sharp increase in “shovel-ready” infrastructure projects that boosted the fixed-investment share of GDP from 44% in 2008 to 47% in 2009. To be sure, China also eased monetary policy. But such efforts fell well short of those of the Fed, with no zero-interest-rate or quantitative-easing gambits – only standard reductions in policy rates (five cuts in late 2008) and reserve requirements (four adjustments).

Stephen Roach Warns "The US Is Trapped In Perils Of Linear Thinking" | Zero Hedge

Accords with the World Bank, Repsol SA and now the Paris Club have put Argentina on the cusp of returning to international bond markets. The country has left the toughest deal for last.

Argentina Leaves Singer for Last Prepping Bond Market Return - Bloomberg

Although typically the old adage "sell in May and go away" until the U.K.'s St Leger horseracing festival in mid-September, those opting at the start of the month to stay on the sidelines will be kicking themselves.

Sell in May and...miss out on the rally

Nine companies in the Standard & Poor's 500, including home security firm ADT, biotech Gilead Sciences and financial software company Intuit, saw their cash piles grow by 10% in the first calendar quarter while generating astounding free cash flow margins, according to a USA TODAY analysis of data from S&P Capital IQ.

These 9 companies are cranking out piles of cash

The idea behind Hedged Convexity Capture is to benefit from the path dependent negative convexity that has been widely observed in leveraged ETP products in an efficient risk/reward structure which dramatically lowers the potentially ruinous drawdowns of shorting leveraged inverse ETP products. The idea behind Structural Arbitrage is that profits are possible by acting as a synthetic insurance company which sells expensive insurance in the volatility market, then synthetically reinsures that market risk with long duration government bonds.

Make 70% A Year With Math - SPDR S&P 500 Trust ETF (NYSEARCA:SPY) | Seeking Alpha

It's been about six months since the Food and Drug Administration approved an $84,000 breakthrough drug to treat hepatitis C. One record-breaking sales quarter later for Gilead Sciences' Sovaldi, and the health-care industry isn't any much closer to figuring out how to deal with the drug's hefty price tag as it warns of a larger problem ahead.

How an $84,000 drug is sparking a new health-care debate

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Samsung wants to be first to market with a virtual reality headset, but it doesn't want to invest the time and money that Oculus and Sony are. Oculus VR wants to create a high-quality virtual reality headset specifically for gaming, and it doesn't want to rush one out. And thus, a convenient partnership is born between the two companies: Samsung makes the OLED screens that Oculus needs for its final product; Oculus makes the software that Samsung needs for its upcoming headset.

Samsung is working with Oculus on a media-focused VR headset

Fridges are transforming women's lives in India and other emerging markets, just as they did in developed countries decades ago. They are next on families' wishlists after mobile phones and televisions, usually becoming affordable when household incomes pass around $3,000 a year. Take-up is swifter in places that are urbanising fast.

Fridge Ownership: Cool Developments - Business Insider

Many reasons have been given for the persistently low inflation the U.S. has experienced for the past few years. A recent article in The Regional Economist examines an alternative reason: the liquidity trap.

How the Liquidity Trap Keeps Inflation Low | St. Louis Fed On the Economy

Shadow banking can have economic advantages—mainly widening access to credit and better rewarding savers—but its underground nature can cause serious systemic risks, especially when the system is interconnected and parties are highly leveraged.

How Risky Is China’s Shadow Banking System?

Good news for all you taffy addicts and crystal meth smokers out there — a Harvard-led team of scientists has just devised a way to regrow teeth. If developed further, this technology could spell the end things like fillings and dentures, and even lay the groundwork for other regenerative procedures like wound healing, bone regeneration, and more.

Scientists just discovered how to regrow teeth using laser beams | Digital Trends

But people believe Bernanke is tied to Yellen's hip. So his forecast of abnormally low rates is very important. It suggests easy money as far as the eye can see. It also indicates that the Fed may not truly tighten monetary policy in my lifetime. On top of all that, Bernanke strongly hinted that, if necessary, the Fed may well overshoot its 2 percent inflation target. This too is big news.

Bernanke's Loose Lips Are Bullish for Stocks, Bearish for Dems

Piqué is a multifaceted person, a footballer-genius with an IQ of 140, a person who always speaks his mind and that, sometimes, bothers others. One day, he fell in love with a woman who was born on the same day as him but 10 years before, and who turned out to be one of the most influential singers in the music world. Shakira may not have known who he was, but she does now, and is the mother of his child.

World Cup 2014: Spain profile – Gerard Piqué | Francisco Ávila | Football | theguardian.com

It has been around for 18 years and never made an annual profit, but that isn’t stopping optimistic investors from valuing the company north of $14 billion. Last year it reported just $267 million in revenue but paid its chief executive $142 million — almost double the $76 million earned by Oracle's Larry Ellison, who came in top place in the WSJ’s salary survey of CEO’s at some of America’s 300 biggest companies.

18 Years, No Profit, $1.9 Billion in Stock for Employees: Which Dot-com? - Corporate Intelligence - WSJ

As the IPCC report notes, this shift toward more efficient vehicles, combining with slowing growth in light duty vehicle demand, is already producing a leveling off of oil demand, with consumption expected to head downward in the coming decades. In its 2013 Energy Outlook, even oil giant BP is projecting that oil demand has peaked in the OECD.

The Surprising News About Vehicle Emissions - The Experts - WSJ

Ten years from now, electric (EV), hybrid and natural-gas powered cars will make some, albeit not yet decisive, inroads in our lives. There are economic, lifestyle and technological reasons for this.

Why Electric and Natural-Gas Cars Will Gain Traction - The Experts - WSJ

Hayek viewed recessions as working out excessive investments; Keynes viewed them as demand shortages. This column argues that they may not be as mutually exclusive as many think. Recessions may reflect periods of liquidation but this may be associated with inefficient adjustment involving unemployment and precautionary savings. Simulative policy may be desirable even if it delays the full recovery.

Reconciling Hayek's and Keynes' views of recessions | vox

Somehow, the fans still found out. Hundreds were waiting in Genoa, armed with enough rotten fruit to go around. Players were chased out of the airport and had their team bus pursued for several miles down the road. Many, including Janich, would never play for Italy again. The defeat left a lasting impression on the national consciousness.

World Cup: 25 stunning moments … No21: Italy lose to South Korea, 2002 | Paolo Bandini | Football | The Guardian

Conspiracy theories abounded. Mistrust of authority is commonplace in Italy, so much so that there is even a word to explain it. “Dietrologia” – which translates, roughly, to “behind-ism” – refers to the belief that the official explanation for any set of events is almost invariably the wrong one.

World Cup: 25 stunning moments … No21: Italy lose to South Korea, 2002 | Paolo Bandini | Football | The Guardian

If the insatiable demand for bonds has upended the models you use to value them, you’re not alone.

The Unstoppable $100 Trillion Bond Market Renders Models Useless - Bloomberg

Pure Android is no stranger to smartphones or tablets, and now it can include laptops in its repertoire. HP just unveiled the Slatebook 14, which runs a pure version of the Android operating system, and with availability starting August 6, it's priced to sell at $399.

HP Slatebook 14 Preview - CNET

The combination of a persistently weak labor market and evidence of a little more inflation is prompting an increasingly vigorous debate among Federal Reserve officials about the future of the central bank’s stimulus campaign.

Fed Debate Over Future Beyond End of Stimulus - NYTimes.com

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Hedge funds, those financial funds run by extraordinarily rich men, are going mainstream. Not content to be investments for just the super rich and super connected, they are starting to offer services to the average investor.

The 'Bad Boys Of Finance' Are Mainstream - Business Insider

Lasers are used frequently in medicine to destroy tissue, by making tiny surgical cuts, erasing spider veins, and banishing body hair. This week, researchers showed that low-power lasers can be used for the opposite purpose: to regrow missing tissue.

Laser Light Puts Stem Cells to Work | MIT Technology Review

But the country may gain more attention this week when Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy unveils a 6.3 billion euro ($8.6 billion) stimulus package after years of growth-sapping austerity.

Spain says goodbye to its king—and austerity

A lot of smart people have been calling for a market correction for an awfully long time. And all of them have been dead wrong.

Why all the correction calls have been wrong

Dennis Gartman, publisher of the Gartman Letter, told CNBC's "Futures Now" on Tuesday that gold is "breaking down." He said that gold looks increasingly weak as geopolitical concerns over Russia and Ukraine subside and that the only thing that would motivate him to buy gold would be an "egregious upward turn in inflation" or "a war of some sort," and neither of those seem to realities at the moment.

Gold is sinking—and now it could get even worse

Bloomberg has an interesting piece on how high bond prices and low yields have been shocking investors who relied on old models. Some of this, I suspect, is because many people still — after all these years — haven’t wrapped their minds around the implications of a zero-lower=bound economy and the risks of a low-inflation trap.

For bonds, this time is different

Stocks hit an all-time high this past week. What is puzzling now is that investors and traders keep hearing that the raging bull market is over, and that this has turned into a stock picker's market. Investors still will try to make gains, but they will want to avoid getting caught in bad stocks. As 24/7 Wall St. reviews dozens of analyst upgrades and downgrades each day of the week, there are almost always some hidden gems, many of which are in stocks trading under $10.

Eight Analyst Stocks to Buy Under $10 for Big Upside - Yahoo Finance

Learning a second language can have a positive effect on the brain, even if it is taken up in adulthood, a University of Edinburgh study suggests.

BBC News - Learning second language 'slows brain ageing'

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The projected 1km-high building in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia is set to be the world’s tallest, but what’s interesting is that it was meant to be a kilometre-and-a-half. So what’s stopping us from going higher?

BBC - Future - How high can you build a skyscraper?

Research has repeatedly found that sleep improves people's ability to come up with creative solutions to problems. Psychologists from UC San Diego found that REM sleep improves the creative process more than any other state--asleep or awake. And often the solutions to problems come to us when we are sleeping because of a phenomenon cognitive scientists call "pattern recognition."

Do These 3 Things Before Bed To Hack Your Creativity While You Sleep | Fast Company | Business + Innovation

Twenty million trees are cut every year to meet Chinese demand for chopsticks.

Mind-Blowing Facts About China - Business Insider

A storm alert today from Simon Derrick at the Bank of New York Mellon. He cites three warnings from leading central bankers, all alarmed by the remarkable disregard for risk in the equity, credit, and currency markets.

Global watchdogs rattled by lack of fear in the markets – Telegraph Blogs

Here is a story to cheer us all up. Wuxi Suntech Power expects the cost of electricity from solar modules match to coal-powered stations in China as soon as 2016. If so, we are entering a dramatically different world.

Solar to match coal in China by 2016, threatening fossil dominance – Telegraph Blogs

institutional clients are net sellers of US equities since Mid-April (and are cumulative net sellers year-to-date).

Who's Selling? | Zero Hedge

Based on studies in elite performance, Gladwell contended that it's "an extraordinarily consistent answer in an incredible number of fields ... you need to have practiced, to have apprenticed, for 10,000 hours before you get good."

Malcolm Gladwell Explains 'The 10,000 Hour Rule' - Business Insider

The profit margin on a medium soda is about $1.20, says John Gordon, principal at Pacific Management Consulting Group, which focuses on the restaurant industry. The cost of goods for each sub is about $2.40. That’s bad math for store owners, says Gordon: “It’s a violation of the franchise agreement if you don’t honor the coupons,” not to mention a sure way to upset clientele. But making good on the offer means losing money.

Subway Is Giving Away Free Sandwiches. Will Franchisees Pick Up the Tab? - Businessweek

This new nationalism takes different economic forms: trade barriers, asset protection, reaction against foreign direct investment, policies favoring domestic workers and firms, anti-immigration measures, state capitalism, and resource nationalism. In the political realm, populist, anti-globalization, anti-immigration, and in some cases outright racist and anti-Semitic parties are on the rise.

Nouriel Roubini likens the rise of nationalism today to that of authoritarian regimes during the Great Depression. - Project Syndicate

Even though OLED TVs deliver the most amazing display quality we’ve ever seen, things aren’t looking too great for the next-gen TV tech lately. In the last few months, Sony, Panasonic and Samsung have all indicated they are stepping back from OLED, leaving LG as the only player in town.

In other words, manufacturers can’t sell more OLED TVs until they get cheaper, and they can’t get cheaper until they sell more. It’s a chicken-or-the-egg scenario that requires a company with deep pockets to keep pushing forward, even when the juice isn’t worth the squeeze today. No wonder so many manufacturers are stepping back from OLED.

Down but not out: OLED TVs aren't dead, despite what you've read | Digital Trends

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What people don't realize is the Dow is only up 88 points in the last six months. The Nasdaq is up 53 points and the S&P 500 is up 69 points. Sure, we had a phenomenal 2013 but this is 2014 and we are in the middle of a consolidation, not a bubble.

RealClearMarkets - Dow Is Up 68 Points in Six Months. You Call That a Bubble?

The GDP revision may cause some confusion.  While the headline figure was weaker than expected, most of that was due to slower inventory growth -- which bodes well for future growth.  Thus, while the 1Q14 growth estimate was revised down, the forecast for 2Q14 ought to be revised higher.

Jeff Saut: The Suprisingly Good News That The Stock Market Understands But The Media Doesn't | Stocks | Minyanville's Wall Street

The story's title is, "Are We Underestimating America's Fracking Boom?"  The byline reads, "Check Out Sasol's Energy Complex in Lake Charles, La."  Having followed Sasol (NYSE:SSL) in a past life, I was intrigued.  Sasol was formerly a South African state company that had developed the ability to "crack" natural gas into diesel fuel and other liquids.  Now the company is going to build a plant in Louisiana to do the same thing.  At $21 billion this would be the largest foreign investment project in US history.

Jeff Saut: The Suprisingly Good News That The Stock Market Understands But The Media Doesn't | Stocks | Minyanville's Wall Street

Moscow is infamous for traffic jams which snake around its highways. Now, it has been named the world's worst city for car congestion. The Russian capital has an average congestion level of 74 percent, topping the global traffic index released by Dutch GPS manufacturer Tom-Tom.

And the world’s most congested city is …

While the VIX is sitting at a five-year low, outside the S&P 500 there is plenty of volatility a-roiling. Half of the stocks in the SPDR S&P Biotech ETF (XBI) are down at least 10% in 2014 with one-quarter of the portfolio showing negative returns of at least 20%. From early March through early May, momentum stocks, especially those of the small cap variety, had a sizable haircut

Correction Ahead: Focus On Low Volatility Stocks

The two themes of the lecture were that sustained growth needs a ‘learning society’, and that markets alone can’t create this.

Learning and economic development | The Enlightened Economist

The reason for the widespread, opposite view is that defense shocks have "contractionary" effects while civilian government spending shocks have "expansionary" effects. Existing EVARs and SVARs, however, include only total government spending.

Defense Government Spending Is Contractionary, Civilian Government Spending Is Expansionary

This is of course just another example of the establishment’s attempt to deny the evidence about austerity. It is particularly rich because the Treasury was also becoming increasingly worried that growth would not return before the election, which is why it eased off on austerity and brought in Help to Buy. Anyone who tells you they just knew the UK savings ratio would fall sharply in 2013 and so there was no need to worry is either lying or a fool.

mainly macro: Tyrie and the IMF on austerity

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At the start, Tiananmen Square had the atmosphere of a festival. Most people couldn't see the hunger strikers – they saw the crowds marching with banners and music being played. Lots of things were surprising about the events in Tiananamen Square, even the demonstration itself. It's pretty rare in Chinese history for people to get together at the centre of a government square and defy the leadership.

Stuart Franklin: how I photographed Tiananmen Square and 'tank man' | Art and design | theguardian.com

But yesterday we also saw another company quietly release a series of chips that are virtually assured to wind up in many of the premium smartphones we will soon come to know and love.

DailyTech - Qualcomm Airs Snapdragon 610, 615, 801, Plus Groundbreaking Antenna Chip

It's definitely clear that Qualcomm is farther down the road to a truly monolithic core than Intel or chipset rival Broadcom Corp. (BRCM), at least on the mobile front.

DailyTech - Qualcomm Airs Snapdragon 610, 615, 801, Plus Groundbreaking Antenna Chip

A 2006 UCLA and Cal State-Long Beach study found that miles driven correlates more strongly with obesity than any other lifestyle factor.

Your Commute Is Making You Fat - Business Insider

This trend isn't quite as catastrophic as it might seem at first; one key factor here is shifting demographics. The US population is aging rapidly, meaning people are leaving work and taking in more and more money from Social Security and Medicare (included in "transfers" and pensions (included in "supplements to wages and salaries".

Income from work is shrinking. Here's where Americans are getting more of their income now. - Vox

Involuntary unemployment is a problem at any age, but it can have particularly devastating effects for young people — effects that last for the rest of their lives.

12 ways to fix the youth unemployment crisis - Vox

It also felt like the first Apple presentation since Steve Jobs that Tim Cook really owned. Last year's iPhone launch was stilted and awkward in many ways, but he and his team looked totally at ease. This was Cook's vision, his ideas for the future. This was Tim Cook's Apple.

Apple reminds us it's the software that really matters - News - Trusted Reviews

His tweak to the first-person shooter's main Windows program file lets the game's visuals run at up to a very wide 8K (specifically, 8,000 x 3,333). That's about 13 times more pixels than you'd see in a 1080p image, folks.

Crysis 8K resolution hack offers a peek at the next decade of gaming

It has taken residential solar a number of years, but recent first quarter 2014 findings show that a full one third of residential PV came online without any state incentive.

Falling Costs Are Pushing SunPower and Others Forward

The U.S. installed 1,330 megawatts of solar PV in Q1 2014, up 79 percent over Q1 2013 and the second-largest quarter for solar installations in the history of the market Cumulative operating PV capacity stood at 13,395 megawatts (DC), with 482,000 individual systems on-line as of the end of Q1 2014. PV growth was driven primarily by the utility solar market, which installed over 800 megawatts in Q1 2014, up from 322 megawatts in Q1 2013

A PV Market First: Residential Solar in the US Beats Commercial Installations : Greentech Media

Watch out. Traders are piling into the weak euro trade ahead of Thursday's European Central Bank meeting, its most anticipated gathering of the year. But that may be the wrong bet.

That big euro bet everyone's making might be wrong

A book hitting the stores Tuesday by CNBC's Kate Kelly takes a look inside the powerful group that runs the global commodities trade.

How aluminum became a cash cow for Goldman

High-frequency traders like their targets big, with share prices cheap (but not too cheap) and with a fairly low level of volatility. That's according to a study published Tuesday on Investopedia, which charted 24 companies that meet metrics HFT firms have favored historically.

Here are the 24 stocks high-speed traders love

The price increase is the latest sign that a spike in coffee futures earlier this year is trickling down to consumers. In late April, futures hit their highest price in more than two years as forecasters predicted a drought in top grower Brazil would reduce global supplies of coffee beans. Brazil produces half the world's arabica coffee beans, the variety used by Starbucks Corp. and others.

Coffee-Futures Run-Up Makes Way to Store Shelves - Yahoo Finance

A new study analyzing more than three decades of wage data argues that government polices-more than globalization, new technologies or gaps in education or training-go a long way to explaining the expanding wealth gap in America.

Wage growth flows to top 1 percent: Study - Yahoo Finance

The two writers develop an argument rare in Republican circles. They cite the liabilities of an economic worldview that doesn’t recognize the need for government “to help those who cannot individually do for themselves, to advance justice in an unjust world, and to lift up the weakest members of society.” They go on to make the case that “many conservatives fail to see the extent to which equal opportunity itself, a central principle of our national self-understanding, is becoming harder to achieve.

The Republican Case Against Republican Economics - NYTimes.com

Eurozone monetary policy transmission is broken. A key aspect of this is the failure of credit to get to small and medium enterprises, and consumers. This column uses the ‘I theory of money’ to diagnosis the problem and propose ‘prudently designed’ asset-backed securitisation as the cure.

Repairing the transmission of monetary policy through asset-backed securitisation | vox

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The way we are going, the whole world will end up with zero interest rates or some variant of quantitative easing before long. Such is the overwhelming power of deflation in countries with burst credit bubbles. Such too is the implication of a global savings rate that has spiralled to an all-time high of 25pc of GDP, starving the world of demand.

The nagging fear that QE itself may be causing deflation - Telegraph

If Europe is at risk of deflation, the proper response is a monetary barrage of such force that nobody can be in any possible doubt about the outcome. As Napoleon said, if you say you are going to take Vienna, then take Vienna.

The nagging fear that QE itself may be causing deflation - Telegraph

As the housing market slowly recovers, a majority of homeowners and renters are finding it hard to meet rising rents and mortgage payments, new research finds.

Half of Americans can’t afford their house - MarketWatch

Consider any “June swoon” in the stock market to be a buying opportunity. That’s the strong implication of Sam Eisenstadt’s latest six-month forecast, which is calling for the S&P 500 to be above 2,100 at the end of November, 10% higher than where it stands today.

A stock-market prediction that’s ‘kind of scary’ - Mark Hulbert - MarketWatch

Unless you’ve experienced poverty first-hand, it’s difficult to imagine just how expensive it can be.

This family proves just how expensive it is to be poor | Daily Ticker - Yahoo Finance

Worries over a China slowdown may be overdone, but the government should be examining new ways to support the economy, David Lipton, deputy managing director at the IMF, has told CNBC

China needs to look at 'alternative' stimulus: IMF’s Lipton

A more severe crackdown on the use of commodities as collateral to finance deals in China could lead to heavy losses across the asset class, analysts warn.

Are commodities set for a sharper correction?

Draghi announced a three-step response to counter weakness in the eurozone at an ECB forum earlier this month.  "The first step involves a reduction in interest rates to put downward pressure on rising money market rates, and to depress the exchange rate," Vistesen wrote ahead of the announcement. These are the cuts we just got. "The second step responds to sluggish credit growth by targeting lending to non-financial corporates through either an LTRO or private QE," writes Vistesen. "The final step sees a broad- based asset purchase program to counter a persistent lurch lower in inflation expectations."

June ECB Decision - Business Insider

Police on the Spanish island received a call from a panicked member of the public, who said that a gorilla had escaped from its pen in Loro Park zoo, and was seen running around the theme park. A vet was called, and on spotting the creature fired a tranquilliser dart at its leg with enough sedative to fell a 200kg beast. But to his horror, the vet - who had only been in the job for two months - realised that the creature was in fact an employee of the zoo, dressed in a gorilla suit, who was staging a mock escape to practise their emergency routines.

Man in gorilla suit shot with tranquilliser dart at Tenerife zoo - Telegraph

Cullen Roche passes along David Rosenberg's list of 10 possible recession indicators. Rosenberg concludes that not one of the indicators is pointing to a recession, so there's a zero percent chance of recession.

DAVID ROSENBERG: Here's Why There's Zero Percent Chance Of A Recession - Business Insider

"We paid nowhere near enough attention to him," he added. "Pirlo is not renowned for his athleticism but that day he ran 11.58km, more than any England player. "He also had more passes (131) than England's four starting midfielders."

BBC Sport - World Cup 2014: Paul Scholes says Andrea Pirlo can 'destroy'

Most cigarettes cost less than $1 (60p) a packet. They are stacked under large sun umbrellas bearing the logos of various brands, such as L.A. and Vinte e Tres. All carry health warnings but these are effectively meaningless to many smokers - about half the adult population can't read.

BBC News - The country where nearly two-thirds of men smoke

Chinese suppliers shipped 64 percent more solar panels to the United States last year than they did in 2012, according to Shyam Mehta, a lead solar analyst at GTM Research in Boston, which tracks the industry. Chinese panels accounted for 49 percent of all panels deployed in the U.S. last year, up from 40 percent in 2012. Most Chinese companies “recorded big shipment gains … and increased their market share” in 2013, he added.

Chinese Solar Companies, Unfazed By 2012 Tariffs, Could Take a Hit From Latest Penalties

Powell is the chief technology officer of Infinium, a startup spun out of Boston University that’s been operating quietly since 2008 and is now ready to go to market with its first products—the “rare earth” metals neodymium and dysprosium. These materials are needed to make powerful magnets that work at high temperatures and are important for the generators found in wind turbines and many electric car motors.

Startup Has a New Way to Make Rare Earths and Other Metals | MIT Technology Review

Just as a new generation of virtual reality goggles for video games are about to hit the market, researchers at Microsoft have come up with what could be the perfect accompaniment—a way for ordinary headphones to create a realistic illusion of sound coming from specific locations in space.

Microsoft Researchers’ “3-D Audio” System Is Like Oculus Rift for Your Ears | MIT Technology Review

Jean-Claude Juncker vehemently criticized German-imposed austerity measures during the euro crisis. By doing so, he gained support in a number of countries -- especially those which would like to see the common currency zone degraded into a debt union.

Opinion: Why Germany Should Say No To Juncker - SPIEGEL ONLINE

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Research, though, tells us that getting spanked as a child can leave a discernible mark on people: it makes people more likely to suffer from addiction, depression, and other mental health problems as adults. This is one reason why 37 countries have explicitly banned all physical punishment of children — even by parents — since 1979.

The case against spanking kids - Vox

A state minister from Indian prime minister Narendra Modi's ruling party has described rape as a "social crime", saying "sometimes it's right, sometimes it's wrong", in the latest controversial remarks by an Indian politician about rape.

India state minister on rape: 'Sometimes it's right, sometimes it's wrong' | World news | theguardian.com

While we all strive to be good stewards of the earth, “climate change” is a political agenda which attempts to control every aspect of our lives. We urge government at all levels to ignore any plea for money to fund global climate change or “climate justice” initiatives.

New Texas GOP Platform Calls On Politicians To Ignore Climate Change | ThinkProgress

The mechanism by which a good night's sleep improves learning and memory has been discovered by scientists.

BBC News - Sleep's memory role discovered

But once on the ground, the Americans, to the dismay of the Taliban, proved uninterested in any pomp. They rushed through the encounter and did not stop to talk or exchange polite greetings, as is customary in Afghanistan, even during hostage releases. The narrator complained that they had managed to shake hands with only two of the Americans, and that one of them had hastily shoved his left hand forward, considered a particularly rude gesture in Afghanistan.

The Taliban Fighters Were Bummed Bergdahl Didn't Even Say Goodbye - Business Insider

“Janet Yellen, the Fed’s head, rather bizarrely used the prospective price/earnings ratio, one of the weakest of all measures, to justify a statement that Wall Street was not overvalued. (This was doubly strange since her husband, George Akerlof, co-wrote a book with Robert Shiller, who has championed a much better measure…”

Janet Yellen and hindsight value | Andrew Smithers

The euro is resisting the European Central Bank's (ECB) all-out assault on the specter of deflation, surprising the market with its continued rise, and some analysts believe it won't weaken anytime soon. "A lot of people are scratching their heads" over the euro's climb, said Emma Lawson, senior currency strategist at National Australia Bank.

The ECB eases and the euro… rises?

An authoritative new study published recently in the Financial Analysts Journal shows that all investors — individuals and institutions alike — are keeping the lowest percentage of their portfolios in stock in over half a century.

Not even a bull market can interest people in stocks - Howard Gold's No-Nonsense Investing - MarketWatch

With Qualcomm set to introduce its 4K enabled Snapdragon 805 chipset later this summer, the company’s Senior VP of Product Management, Raj Talluri has suggested that 4K tablets will be widely available before the year’s end.

Prototype 4K Samsung tablet spotted in the wild - News - Trusted Reviews

But such stories will be misleading because in the last six years America’s population grew by about 14 million people. With population growth taken into account, America needs more than 145 million jobs to surpass 2008’s employment percentage.

Americans fared better after Great Depression than today | Al Jazeera America

The world’s solar leader grapples with how to make its solar policies financially sustainable.

The Money Problem With Germany’s Renewable Energy Law in 3 Charts : Greentech Media

Upon winning the 1986 staging, the players of Argentina decided to celebrate reaching the summit of world football with the immediate commencement of shouting, whooping, hollering, singing, jigging around in the carefree style, and the taking on board of sparkling liquids. But there would be no such instant giddy gratification for poor José Luis Brown, José Cuciuffo and Oscar Ruggeri. Argentina’s new world-champion back-line were collectively collared in the dressing room by manager Carlos Bilardo, who proceeded to deliver a lengthy in-depth lecture on matters pertaining to team shape and defensive rigour.

The Joy of Six: tales from the Guardian and Observer’s World Cup diaries | Scott Murray | Football | theguardian.com