Links for 8/10

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Here’s something you don’t expect to see: Stocks, bonds, the U.S. dollar, and the CBOE Volatility Index (the VIX) are all up this year.

This unusual trend could point to pain for stocks | Talking Numbers - Yahoo Finance

Diversified Investing + Small Deposits of Money + Time = Wealth

This Strategy Could Make A Millionaire Out Of Anyone - Business Insider

According to his research, 80% of wealthy people make birthday calls, hello calls, and life event calls, compared to 11%, 26%, and 3% of poor people, respectively.

How 5-Minute Phone Calls Could Make You Rich - Business Insider

But there’s now growing evidence for a new view — namely, that the whole premise of this debate is wrong, that there isn’t actually any trade-off between equity and inefficiency. Why?

Inequality Is a Drag - NYTimes.com

In the same research lab where the ethernet, laser printer, and graphical user interface were born, engineers are forging an entirely new way to assemble electronic devices—a technique that could be faster, cheaper, and more versatile.

PARC Researchers’ Invention Could Revolutionize Electronics | MIT Technology Review

Acting on President Vladimir Putin’s orders, Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev on Thursday ordered a ban on a wide range of food and agricultural products from the European Union, the United States, Canada, Australia and Norway. No doubt many producers in these countries will feel the loss of $30 billion in food exports to Russia, but the overall effect on their large and diversified economies will be marginal. Russia, by contrast, imports about 40 percent of its food needs in terms of value, and the Russian agriculture minister has acknowledged that the sanctions would cause a spike in inflation.

Russia Sanctions Itself - NYTimes.com

A weaker euro should prove a buffer against deflation but the damage already runs deep. Italy has fallen back into a triple-dip recession, with GDP returning to levels last seen 14 years ago. The toxic mix of recession and very low inflation is a grave threat to Italy’s debt trajectory. The public debt ratio jumped from 130.2pc to 135.6pc of GDP in the first quarter from a year earlier and will now rise again, despite austerity measures and a primary budget surplus. “The picture is getting worse rather than better. We are going to get to 140pc for sure next year. Nobody knows when the markets will react,” said a senior Italian banker.

Germany close to recession as ECB admits recovery is weak - Telegraph

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The Arab world has entered into a growing phase of terrorist warlordism. It's a calamity hitherto unimaginable.

Why Is No One Acting Against The Islamic State? - Business Insider

Russian president Vladimir Putin has been obsessed with an imaginary threat from an ageing, pacifist Europe in slow decline, while throwing his country at the feet of a greater threat - China

Vladimir Putin's pointless conflict with Europe leaves it a vassal of China - Telegraph

According to Akamai, the U.S. clocks in at an average of 10.5 Megabits per second (Mbps). Ookla puts the peak average at 26.7 Mbps, which is good for 27th in the world. That allows the average American to download a single HD movie in about 50 minutes.

World's Fastest Internet Can Grab Movies in Milliseconds - Reviewed.com Laptops

In his 1932 essay “In Praise of Idleness,” the British philosopher Bertrand Russell corrects this idea, writing, “A great deal of harm is being done in the modern world by belief in the virtuousness of work.” Rather, “the road to happiness and prosperity lies in an organized diminution of work.” That is to say happiness is ultimately not found in late nights spent at work, but in finding a way to work less, even if that means buying fewer things or recalibrating your perspective such that having free time no longer suggests moral shortcomings.

Working Less Makes You More Productive - Business Insider

Solar accounted for 29 percent of all new global electricity generation capacity added in 2013, up from just 10 percent in 2012, making it the second-largest source of new electricity generating capacity after natural gas.

China Will Install More Solar This Year Than The U.S. Ever Has

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A self-described former boss of the Colombo crime family in New York says even he doesn’t trust Wall Street. Michael Franzese, who spent 10 years in prison after he was convicted on federal racketeering charges, told CNBC that even the mob has better ethics than Wall Street.

Even a former mob boss doesn’t trust Wall Street - The Tell - MarketWatch

Their conclusion: “The preferences of the average American appear to have only a miniscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”

Robert Reich (The Disease of American Democracy)

U.S. corporations have been spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year buying in their own stock, simultaneously increasing the demand for the stock and reducing the supply. And this matters right now because…er…they just stopped. The amount spent on share buybacks plunged by more than 20% last quarter

Uh-oh: Stock buybacks are on the decline - MarketWatch

Between 2007 and 2012, Colorado saw the highest percentage drop in birth rates among teens 15 to 19 in the country, according to a report released today by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics. During that time, its teen birth rates dropped 39 percent compared to 29 percent nationwide. Abortion rates in the state among teens fell 35 percent between 2009 and 2012 and are falling nationally, as well.

The simple policy that led America’s biggest drop in teen birth rates - The Washington Post

The bond market is putting up a red flag,” he says in the attached video. “We’re seeing yields globally [fall]. Look the [German] Bund is under 1%, so I think that is telling us something – proceed with caution, yesterday was the 3rd lowest volume day of the year, so I think it's two different markets yet it feels like the S&P 500 is destined to print 2,000

Stocks at new highs; will drop follow? - Yahoo Finance

Parents of young children are increasingly vocal about these concerns, and studies back them up. A 2007 report by the American Psychological Association found a direct link between pop media being consumed by children and “three of the most common mental health problems diagnosed in girls and women – eating disorders, low self-esteem and depression”. Reg Bailey’s 2011 study for the UK government on the commercialisation and sexualisation of childhood, which the BBFC cites in its own report, echoes these findings. It notes the harmful effects of the media on young girls, and the negative influence on boys in terms of how it affects their behaviour towards, and perceptions of, girls and women.

Will age classifications for music videos work? | Music | The Guardian

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Startup Chemisense is developing a wearable chemical sensor that could help asthma sufferers avoid attacks.

Startup Is Building a Wearable Air-Quality Monitor | MIT Technology Review

The human body undergoes some weird physical changes when it hands the keys to a shiny new car to someone else; the pulse quickens, the throat dries out and the palms get unnaturally clammy. If that shiny new car happens to be a Corvette, though, the human body may be able to worry a little less - Chevy kitted the 2015 model out with a Valet Mode to help you lock down your ride when you're not the one driving it.

The 2015 Corvette has a video recording of everything the valet did in your car

In 1967, a medical researcher, Ethan Sims, carried out an experiment at Vermont state prison in the US. He recruited inmates to eat as much as they could to gain 25% of their body weight, in return for early release from prison. Some of the volunteers could not reach the target however hard they tried, even though they were eating 10,000 calories a day.

BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine | Why do some people never seem to get fat?

95% of the S&P 500 has now reported earnings results for the second quarter of 2014.  On the whole the results were quite strong.  Below is a table of what several earnings measurements look like now versus when we started the year.

Updated Earnings Picture: Stronger Than Expected | Investing.com

Average hourly earnings in the U.S. have yet to recover from the recession that ended in June 2009. German (GRLXISAY) labor cost growth in January-March was the weakest since 2010, while costs in Australia climbed at the slowest annual pace since at least 1998. Subdued wage growth has helped fuel bond gains worldwide.

Abenomics Skepticism Grows as Price Gauge Retreats: Japan Credit - Bloomberg

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It seems legendary hedge fund billionaire George Soros might be souring in his view on the market outlook for U.S. stocks, based on his most recent 13-F filing in the U.S., which showed a 605% increase in his short S&P 500 position (through put options on 11.29 million shares of SPDR S&P 500 ETF) to $2.2 billion.

George Soros Made A Huge Bet That Stocks Will Fall - Business Insider

In recent weeks, the economy that proud German politicians have taken to describing as a "growth locomotive" and "stability anchor" for Europe has been hit by a barrage of bad news that has surprised even the most ardent Germany skeptics.

End Of Germany's Wirtschaftswunder - Business Insider

Russia's state-controlled energy giant Rosneft has asked the Russian government for a $42bn (£25.2bn) loan, as it feels the impact of Western sanctions.

BBC News - Rosneft requests $42bn loan from Russian government

"Given the West's reliance on the Russian energy industry, it is vital governments across Europe reassess their self-sufficiency. This is likely to prompt greater investment in renewable and alternative sources."

BBC News - Rosneft requests $42bn loan from Russian government

The key stock market index for Asia is up 10.2 percent since the beginning of the year (compared with 2 percent for the Dow and 0.5 percent for the euro area),and a whopping 19.3 percent over the last twelve months (compared with 13 percent for the Dow and 10 percent for the euro area).

This is Asia’s investment moment

New parents be warned: It could cost nearly a quarter of a million dollars to raise your child -- and that's not even including the cost of college.

Average cost of raising a child hits $245,000 - Yahoo Finance

U.S. utilities see both threat and opportunity in the rise of customer-owned solar systems. Sure, all that new distributed generation could help them avoid building new power plants in the future. But it could also threaten utility business models, unless they’re able to “flip the DG equation” to make it work for them.

Survey: Utilities See Threat, Opportunity in Distributed Generation : Greentech Media

At the time Johnson took the helm at Aeropostale, margins were running at about 16%. As of the second quarter of this year, those margins had fallen to -8%.

Aeropostale CEO Tom Johnson Stepping Down - Business Insider