Links for 11/18

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The results haven't been good. It's ironic that between 2007 and 2014 Italy has done better than most in keeping its cyclically adjusted deficit under control -- yet its debt-to-GDP ratio has risen sharply. The reason is persistent lack of growth in nominal GDP, itself partly due to an overvalued currency and tight budgetary restraint.

Jim O'Neill: Crazy Idea About Italy - Business Insider

Russia's international reserves have fallen from $509 billion at the start of the year to $439 billion at October 24, as the central bank has bought roubles to soften the currency's decline against the dollar and the euro. This has raised concerns that, if sanctions continue and the country's reserves fall further, it could threaten the country's ability to import crucial goods and services.

Russia Building Its Gold Reserves - Business Insider

The Mittelstand: Its core strengths Tuesday, 4 Nov 2014 | 9:00 PM LT What are the core strengths of the Mittelstand, and why are they so important?

The Mittelstand: Its core strengths

To be precise, the Copenhagen Wheel is not truly an e-bike at all. It’s a wheel that can be attached to a regular bike. That wheel, equipped with a motor, batteries, sensors and wireless connectivity, transforms the bike into a smart bike that multiplies pedal power and even measures the rider’s heart rate and monitors potholes.

Reinventing the wheel: new tech turns regular bikes into hybrids – and a traffic tool | Guardian Sustainable Business | The Guardian

Toyota Motor Corp. (7203) said it’s chosen the name “Mirai,” which means “future” in Japanese, for a fuel-cell powered sedan that travels 300 miles (483 kilometers) with a hydrogen tank that can be refilled in less than five minutes.

Toyota Plans ‘Mirai’ Fuel-Cell Car Traveling 300 Miles Per Tank - Bloomberg

What Does $75 Oil Mean to the Solar Industry?

What Does $75 Oil Mean to the Solar Industry? : Video - Bloomberg

As President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans profess to search for common ground, both sides are preparing to lob grenades: the president with an executive action on immigration, the new Congress by making the repeal of Obamacare one of its first initiatives.

Next Obamacare Fight Has Peril for Both Sides - Bloomberg View

Writing in the Postgraduate Medical Journal (PMJ), the doctors said a Mediterranean diet quickly reduced the risk of heart attacks and strokes. And they said it may be better than low-fat diets for sustained weight loss.

BBC News - Mediterranean diet is best way to tackle obesity, say doctors

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We all resist changing our beliefs about the world, but what happens when some of those beliefs are based on misinformation? Is there a right way to correct someone when they believe something that's wrong? Stephen Lewandowsky and John Cook set out to review the science on this topic, and even carried out a few experiments of their own. This effort led to their "Debunker's Handbook", which gives practical, evidence-based techniques for correcting misinformation about, say, climate change or evolution. Yet the findings apply to any situation where you find the facts are falling on deaf ears.

BBC - Future - How to debunk falsehoods

Dear California readers: if you drank tapwater this morning (or at any point in the past few weeks/months), you may be in luck as you no longer need to buy oil to lubricate your engine: just use your blood, and think of the cost-savings. That's the good news.

3 Billion Gallons Of Fracking Wastewater Pumped Into Clean California Aquifiers: "Errors Were Made" State Admits | Zero Hedge

A $3.2 billion Goldman Sachs Group Inc. hedge fund that pools some of the firm’s best ideas declined 5.6 percent last month as a bet on the direction of U.S. interest rates went wrong

Goldman Fund Said to Fall 5.6% on Interest Rate Position - Bloomberg

Shinzo Abe has helped make investors in Japanese stocks $1 trillion richer over the last two years, and many are betting he will make them even richer.

Abe’s $1 Trillion Gift to Stock Market Shields Recession Gloom - Bloomberg

As Israel seeks to boost growth and reduce income inequality, one issue putting the brakes on both are the large numbers of Haredi men who opt out of the workforce in favor of religious study, living on their wives’ salaries, government stipends and child allowances. That’s because Haredim typically believe that a man’s highest calling is learning ancient Jewish texts -- and that secular values threaten their traditional lifestyle.

Tanks vs. Talmud: Israel’s Ultra-Orthodox Soldiers - Bloomberg

We see prices being very robust over the longer term, for fundamental reasons of growth in prosperity and demand. It's harder to find oil and more difficult to develop it, so I still see a very robust outlook.

Why oil prices will be 'robust' long-term: Shell CEO

The Economist, traditionally a pro-capitalism, pro-business publication, is now blaming bankers for defaming the good name of capitalism.

Economist: Bankers Defame Capitalism - Business Insider

Now aged 80, Manson has been granted a licence to marry Afton Elaine Burton, a 26-year-old who moved from the Mid West to live near the prison where he is an inmate in Corcoran, California. "I love him," she declares. "I'm with him." But that closeness is unlikely to extend to living with Manson, who isn't eligible for parole until 2027.

BBC News - What explains the continuing fascination with Charles Manson?

Xiaomi is one of the buzziest smartphone makers out there today, even though it sells phones only in China and a few other markets. It recently just passed Samsung to become the No. 1 smartphone maker in China during the second quarter of this year, as the research firm Canalys reported.

Xiaomi Mi5 Photos Leak - Business Insider

I always thought of the Internet as an unstoppable democratic force that would always let the truth slip out through the cracks in even the most determined wall of propaganda. I was wrong. After watching Russian TV, you would not want to read the Western press, because you'd be convinced it was lying.

Russia's Showdown With West Will Worsen - Business Insider

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This first post has to do with the cross-country literature on institutions. The 1st-generation of this research (Mauro, 1995; Knack and Keefer, 1995; Hall and Jones, 1999; Easterly and Levine, 2003; Rodrik et al, 2004; Acemoglu and Johnson, 2005) regressed either growth rates or the level of income per capita on an index of institutional quality along with other controls. In general, this literature found that institutions “matter”.

The Skeptics Guide to Institutions – Part 1 | The Growth Economics Blog

Ordinarily, installing and connecting a new array of rooftop solar panels takes days, weeks, or even months because the hardware is complex and various permits are needed. Yesterday, on a frigid day in Charlestown, Massachusetts, researchers completed the process in about an hour.

Solar Panels Up and Running in an Hour | MIT Technology Review

A new kind of battery that stores energy from solar and wind power cheaply and cleanly has hit the market. It is by far the cheapest of a new generation of large, long-lived batteries that could make it possible to rely heavily on intermittent, renewable energy sources.

A Much Cheaper Grid Battery Comes to Market | MIT Technology Review

But back to the road. I’m driving a 2015 Buick Regal with what may be the newest must-have feature: a 4G LTE cellular connection that turns this unassuming sedan into a powerful rolling hotspot.

The Internet is about to transform your car - Yahoo Finance

Stocks rally due to lack of alternatives: Wilbur Ross

Stocks rally due to lack of alternatives: Wilbur Ross | Watch the video - Yahoo Finance

Japanese exports grew in October at the fastest pace in eight months, an encouraging sign that global demand could help the country recover from recession and support the central bank's optimistic economic outlook. The 9.6 percent annual rise in exports in October was more than double the 4.5 percent gain expected

Japan exports grow strongly in Oct, cutting economic gloom - Yahoo Finance

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When Japanese economist Etsuro Honda heard that Paul Krugman was planning a visit to Tokyo, he saw an opportunity to seize the advantage in Japan’s sales-tax debate.

How a Limo Ride With Paul Krugman Changed the Course of Abenomics - Bloomberg

W hen the global financial crisis broke in 2008, Sweden’s central bank seemed to be one of the best-equipped to fight it. The Riksbank was led by Stefan Ingves, a former senior official at the International Monetary Fund whose expertise lay in financial crises and how to avoid them. One of its deputy governors was Lars Svensson, an expert on Japan’s long battle against deflation and a top thinker on monetary policy.

Central banks: Stockholm syndrome - FT.com

Car sickness is essentially the same as sea sickness or air sickness - it all comes under the banner of motion sickness. Basically your brain is receiving conflicting signals from your eyes and ears. If you are looking at the floor when in a car or on a bus or a book your eyes are telling you that you are not moving. But your ear is telling your brain that you are indeed moving. So instead of your body realising you are reading a book on a bus, your body thinks it is being poisoned and the only way to deal with poison is to vomit it all up. One way of getting around this is to look out of the window into the distance. It will mean that the signals from your eyes and ears match.

BBC - Future - Why do we get car sick?

Foldable bikes have always promised flexibility for bikers.  But most end up being far too inconvenient to ever use in a city. They are often too expensive, difficult to ride, and too big or heavy to realistically carry around with you.

Foldable Electric Bike Fits In A Backpack - Business Insider

Here, I go through the probabilities of drawing each five-card poker hand from a deck of cards. These probabilities are handy to have in the back of your head in a poker game

Here's How Likely Each Poker Hand Is - Business Insider

Just a 10 percent cut to Petrobras' investment budget could cause Brazil's economy to grow 0.5 percentage points less next year, some economists said.

Rousseff Can't Stop Petrobras Investigation - Business Insider

And China's is going to spike, under just about any circumstance, because of the country's controversial one-child policy. In the second half of the 20th century, the population was ludicrously child-heavy (which is why the dependency ratio looks high in the 1960s), so there were a lot of young workers and not many dependents during China's rapid growth spurt.

China's Aging Population - Business Insider

Channel 2 on Friday night showed figures indicating that, in 1967, the population of Jerusalem was 75% Jewish and 25% Arab, and in 2013 had shifted to 63% Jewish and 37% Arab.

Israel Willing To Cede Parts Of East Jerusalem - Business Insider

The pain comes from the day a 14-year-old Guerrero came home from school to an empty house. Neighbours later told her that both her parents and her older brother had been taken by immigration officers who eventually sent her family back to Colombia. The lights in her house were on and dinner had already been started, but from that day on Guerrero had only herself to rely on.

BBC News - The day her family wasn't there

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I haven't predicted a drop like this, though I certainly think one is possible. I also haven't made a specific timing call: I have no idea what the market will do over the next year or two. But I do think it is highly likely that stocks will deliver way below-average returns for the next seven to 10 years.

Stock Market Crash - Business Insider

Specifically, I said that, even if stock prices continue to go higher from here, which they might, I think that they'll eventually crash back down below today's levels — possibly far below. Even if stocks don't eventually crash, but just move sideways, I think returns will be lousy for the next 7 years. In light of that view, several readers have asked why I am not selling my stocks or even going short (betting on a crash).

Why I'm Not Selling Stocks - Business Insider

Governments are not flush enough to contemplate a second wave of bailouts, which leaves the problem of too ‘big to fail’ unsolved, writes Larry Elliott

Bailouts, bail-ins and the banks: why we can’t afford another financial crisis | Business | The Guardian

Just over 45 miles south is Silicon Valley, the home of View, the company making the glass that can be controlled from a smartphone to darken or lighten a window, a technology that promises in many cases to do away with the need for curtains and blinds and save significant amounts of energy spent on cooling.

Smart glass offers window of opportunity for View | Business | The Guardian

However, the last 2 weeks have seen a noticable collapse once again in CEO confidence, according to Bloomberg's Orange Book index, even as stocks reach new higher all-time-er highs. As Bloomberg's Rich Yamarone notes, recent earnings calls highlight the headwinds companies face: Executives cite “softness in consumer spending,” a “challenging” climate, “fairly stagnant economy,” and “cautious” optimism. Currency valuations are front and center.

American CEOs Sum Up The Economic Outlook: "Softness, Stagnant, Cautious, Challenging" | Zero Hedge

Here is the euro area's real problem: bank lending to the private sector has been falling at an annual rate of 1.4 percent during the third quarter of this year, despite the fact that banks can get all the money they need from the European Central Bank (ECB), and more, at an interest rate of 0.05 percent.

Euro area needs more bank lending

The European Union is planning a 21 billion-euro ($26 billion) fund to share the risks of new projects with private investors, two EU officials said.

How the EU Plans to Turn $26 Billion Into $390 Billion - Bloomberg

According to the experts, more than 90% of your ultimate investment return depends on your choices of asset classes. (This assumes that you invest money and leave it invested. If you move in and out of your investments, then your results are totally unpredictable.)

8 lessons from 80 years of market history - MarketWatch

A relatively simple circuit invented by researchers at the University of Texas could let smartphones and other wireless devices send and receive data twice as fast as they do now.

Wireless Data Could Travel Twice as Fast Using a New Circuit | MIT Technology Review

The falling oil price is costing Russia up to $100bn a year, while Western sanctions have hit the country by $40bn, its finance minister has said.

BBC News - Oil price slide and sanctions 'cost Russia $140bn'

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The fact that we’ve spent six years at the so-called zero lower bound is amazing and depressing. What’s even more amazing and depressing, if you ask me, is how slow our economic discourse has been to catch up with the new reality. Everything changes when the economy is at rock bottom — or, to use the term of art, in a liquidity trap (don’t ask). But for the longest time, nobody with the power to shape policy would believe it.

The Inflation and Rising Interest Rates That Never Showed Up - NYTimes.com

A new model lets distributed solar, energy storage and efficiency stand with power plants as grid resources.

Inside SoCal Edison’s Groundbreaking 2.2GW Grid Modernization Plan : Greentech Media

An Israeli company says it has developed technology that can charge a mobile phone in a few seconds and an electric car in minutes, advances that could transform two of the world's most dynamic consumer industries.

Israeli Firm Says It Can Recharge Your Phone In 30 Seconds - Business Insider

Ordinarily, installing and connecting a new array of rooftop solar panels takes days, weeks, or even months because the hardware is complex and various permits are needed. Yesterday, on a frigid day in Charlestown, Massachusetts, researchers completed the process in about an hour.

Solar Panels Up and Running in an Hour | MIT Technology Review

According to the survey, there are £240m worth of unused herbs and spices languishing in this country’s kitchens. And 13% of us confess to owning jars of spices more than four years out of date.

What should you do with all your old spices? | Life and style | The Guardian

Researchers at Princeton University have developed a 3D printer that can print LEDs in layers -- and it could one day print contact lenses that incorporate heads-up displays.

First 3D LED printer could print heads-up-display contact lenses - CNET

It seemed like such a good idea at the time: A merry-go-round hooked up to a water pump. In rural sub-Saharan Africa, where children are plentiful but clean water is scarce, the PlayPump harnessed one to provide the other. Every time the kids spun around on the big colorful wheel, water filled an elevated tank a few yards away, providing fresh, clean water anyone in the village could use all day.

The Problem With International Development—and a Plan to Fix It | New Republic

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Smartphones are a top choice for today's street criminals, especially teenagers. In the year ending in June 2013, nearly two-thirds of robberies by minors in San Francisco involved cell phones, according to the city's public defender.

Confessions of a smartphone thief - CNET

The title of one of my recent posts was a bit of a cheat. It was meant to surprise, because it contradicted the prevailing view, but the post didn’t actually try to answer the question the title posed. This post does try to assess whether a political party’s place on the left-right spectrum might influence its macroeconomic competence.

mainly macro: Left, Right and Macroeconomic Competence

Gundlach said the company's batteries could "change society" when coupled with one of Tesla founder Elon Musk's other ventures-solar power. "I like Tesla," Gundlach said on " Squawk Alley ." "It's the batteries. It's all about the batteries. I think they can ultimately change society if they pursue battery technology that really creates the ability to store enough energy that you could, say, run a house on, get yourself off the grid."

Gundlach: How Tesla could 'change society' - Yahoo Finance

It's an arrangement that would seem to favor Tehran in some respects, winning it sanctions relief along with some limited international recognition of the legitimacy of their nuclear program. So why didn't Iran take it? And given that the negotiations have gone on for over a year now — with a White House committed to a negotiated way out of the nuclear impasse — what else does Iran really think it can get out of the process?

Why Iran Rejected Nuclear Deal - Business Insider

A new Kickstarter project is promoting something called Pantelligent, which is exactly like a frying pan — only smarter.

Kickstarter's Smart Frying Pan - Business Insider

It's not possible for oil to fall to $60 a barrel after OPEC meets this week to discuss output policy, Jeff Grossman, president of BRG Brokerage, told CNBC on Monday.

$60 oil after OPEC meeting is not possible: BRG's Grossman

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Anytime a bull market gets this long in the tooth it’s a smart idea to pepper your portfolio with “all-weather” names that can keep growing for whatever duration is left in the rally, but that are also poised to at least hold their own when the inevitable turn to bear occurs.

Three safe stocks to own in a bull or bear market - Yahoo Finance

Fears are growing that the next crisis, if it should manifest, won’t come from any of the areas that spawned the 2008 crisis. To the contrary, it will emerge from areas we’ve not really had to worry about to date.

The liquidity monster that awaits | FT Alphaville

I tend to ignore health fads, but “bulletproof” (or paleo) coffee, with its intriguing mix of coffee, butter and oil, recently caught my attention. I’m not the only one – it has been sweeping the food world with a mass of chat claiming that it gives you a prolonged energy hit, sharpens your focus and keeps you feeling full.

Bulletproof coffee: is adding butter to your coffee a step too far? | Life and style | The Guardian

Tennis has been warned it must act quickly to avoid being compromised by organised crime groups, which are already infiltrating the sport.

Organised crime has already infiltrated tennis, says security expert | Sport | The Guardian

A recent “Heard on the Street” column by The Wall Street Journal’s Justin Lahart explores one particular theory that might explain why wage growth has been so slow. Lahart wonders whether the increasing size of businesses allows them to repress wage growth. He zeroes in on wage trends since the end of the Great Recession. While his hypothesis doesn’t mesh well with other research on wage growth, the trends he flags might lead to a different answer.

Are big businesses slowing wage growth? - Washington Center for Equitable Growth

One very strong possibility is that we experience the effects we expect when we drink (or consume most substances). Scientific research going back to the 1960s shows that we "learn" how to behave while drunk, and that our actual drunken behavior is a direct reflection of our expectations.

Mythbusting Health Wisdom And Sayings - Business Insider

The Police Foundation, a nonprofit research group, last year published the results of an impressive study showing that use of body-worn video cameras in one California city “was associated with dramatic reductions in use-of-force and complaints against officers.”

The Verdict From Ferguson: Put Video Cameras on Cops - Businessweek

Sony (SNE) shares hit three and a half year highs in Tokyo today after the company swallowed its pride and took a step back from the business-as-usual practices that have been plaguing it for more than a decade.

How Sony got its groove back - Yahoo Finance

Options traders keep finding new reasons to get bullish on Chinese stocks.

China Equity Bulls Find New Reasons to Get More Bullish: Options - Bloomberg

If a knowledgeable journalist like the Canadian Kady O’Malley expresses a certain exasperation that think-tank studies always back up “the think-tank’s existing position,” what hope is there for the rest of us?

How to think about “think” tanks | Economics for public policy

An Intel Atom Z3735F Bay Trail processor is found under T01’s hood. It’s joined by two gigabytes of RAM and integrated Intel HD graphics. The HDMI connector is the magic portal to easy TV or monitor use, but incredibly enough, the restricted square footage of the stick PC still allows it to accommodate an extra USB 2.0 and micro USB port. You also get Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity, and either 16 or 32GB internal storage, with a microSD card slot facilitating up to 64GBs of space. Not enough room to hoard your precious data? You can also hook an external HDD of up to 1TB to the system via USB.

This no-name Windows 8 stick PC can be yours now for $100 | Digital Trends

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The Western world's first gene therapy drug is set to go on sale in Germany with a 1.1 million euro ($1.4 million) price tag, a new record for a medicine to treat a rare disease.

Glybera: Gene Therapy Drug For Europe - Business Insider

The report offers insight into the role of government tax and benefit policy in protecting family incomes during the nation’s worst post-war recession. By almost any measure the policy was a resounding success. For middle-income families, tax cuts and higher government benefits erased almost 90% of the market income losses caused by the recession. For Americans with lower incomes the combination of tax cuts and more generous benefits offset virtually all the market income losses.

The Stimulus Program Was a Smashing Success: It Erased Most Middle Class Income Losses in the Recession | Brookings Institution

After an outpouring of at least 11 different economic indicators in just two days’ time, here’s what we know now about the U.S. economy.

Here’s what we know about the U.S. economy after a two-day data deluge - MarketWatch

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York quietly marked the end of a painful phase of U.S. economic history Tuesday, saying that a five year run of household debt deleveraging was over.

Grand Central: New York Fed Declares Household Deleveraging Over - Real Time Economics - WSJ

With crude at $75 a barrel, the price Goldman Sachs Group Inc. says will be the average in the first three months of next year, 19 U.S. shale regions are no longer profitable, according to data compiled by Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

Oil at $75 Means Patches of Texas Shale Turn Unprofitable - Bloomberg

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In a discovery that experts say could revolutionize fuel cell technology, scientists in Britain have found that graphene, the world's thinnest, strongest and most impermeable material, can allow protons to pass through it.

Graphene, Protons, And Fuel Cells - Business Insider

It is no surprise that commercial airlines invest heavily in “revenue management,” trying to figure out the pricing scheme that maximizes their profits. But if this practice ensures that there are seats available for everyone to get where they need to go, then maybe that’s something to be thankful for.

Airline Airfare Price Variability Helps Meet Needs of All Passengers | New Republic

China could quadruple its share of modern renewable energy by 2030 with the right policies in place, according to a new report from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and the China National Renewable Energy Centre.

Can China Get 40% of Its Electricity From Renewables by 2040? : Greentech Media

Chief among the reasons why Africa is not yet close to succeeding East Asia as a manufacturing center may be not that there is a lack of money, raw materials or labor, but rather a lack of governmental will.

How to Build an African Model for Success in Manufacturing

What we’re seeing here is a paradigm shift that goes beyond the current approach that looks for hotbeds of creativity. Why does geography feel less critical to innovation these days?  Twitter The reason, in part, is that all elements of innovation — the innovation value chain, as it were — are slowly decoupling from their traditional physical underpinnings. The innovation value chain — insight, inspiration, design, development and implementation — is shifting to become increasingly virtual and personal.

Nurturing Innovation: Does Geography Matter?

The company created a chip that uses high-frequency radio waves to transfer data extremely quickly between two devices that are touching each other. The plan is to put the chips in gadgets like laptops, computer docks, tablets, and smartphones; users could then transfer entire photo collections or movies in seconds by letting two devices “kiss,” in Keyssa’s parlance. That could be especially useful as higher-resolution video formats like 4K become more widespread.

For Keyssa, Faster File Sharing Starts with a Kiss | MIT Technology Review