Links for 12/22

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Good corporate governance is, once again, for wimps. Shares in Alibaba, a Chinese internet giant that listed in New York in September using a Byzantine legal structure, have risen by 58%. Executives at startups, such as Uber, a taxi-hailing service, exhibit a mighty hubris. Yet judged by the financial yardsticks of the dotcom era there is as yet no bubble. The NASDAQ index of mainly technology stocks is valued at 23 times expected earnings versus over 100 times in 2000.

Technology firms: Frothy.com - Business Insider

An orangutan held in an Argentine zoo can be freed and transferred to a sanctuary after a court recognized the ape as a "non-human person" unlawfully deprived of its freedom, local media reported on Sunday.

Argentina Has Declared An Orangutan A ‘Person’ And Granted It The Right To Freedom - Business Insider

According to data gathered by Tom Lee at Fundstrat, a whopping 71 percent of active fund managers are trailing their benchmarks. That would be the worst since 1998 and go a long way to explaining why stocks have rallied so hard in the waning days of 2014.

Here's a fascinating explanation for why stocks are going higher | Talking Numbers - Yahoo Finance

And while the European hand-wringing was going on in Brussels, China's Prime Minister Li Keqiang was beaming at a ribbon-cutting ceremony of a China-built and financed 1.5 kilometer bridge over the Danube in Serbia. Yes, the Chinese apparently built it on time and on the budget -- to the delight and admiration of their Serbian hosts.

Asia builds while the EU talks about it

One of our most popular professional portfolios is that of David Einhorn's Greenlight Capital. As we look forward to 2015, we thought we'd single out some of Greenlight's recent top buys.

10 Stocks Billionaire David Einhorn Loves for 2015 - TheStreet

With superb electrical properties, germanium has always promised to make speedier circuits than silicon. But engineers were unable to use it to make compact, power-efficient circuits based on the industry’s established manufacturing technique, known as complementary metal-oxide semiconductor, or CMOS, technology.

Germanium Chip Promises Post-Silicon Computing | MIT Technology Review

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Office-supply retailer Staples said about 1.16 million payment cards might have been affected by the data breach announced in October.

Staples Admits Hackers Could Have Stolen 1.16 Million Credit Card Numbers - Business Insider

In the world of central banking slow, steady and predictable decisions are the aim. So when bankers meet in the dead of night and raise interest rates by a massive 6.5 percentage points it suggests something is going very wrong. It is: the Russian currency crisis many feared is now a reality (see chart) and the mood in Moscow close to panic. Russians are right to worry: they are heading for a lethal combination of deep recession and runaway inflation.

Things Could Get Much Worse For Russia - Business Insider

The market for behind-the-meter solar photovoltaics (PV) paired with energy storage will surpass $1 billion by 2018 in the United States, according to the latest report from GTM Research. The report, The Future of Solar-Plus-Storage in the U.S., forecasts the nation to install 318 cumulative megawatts of behind-the-meter solar-plus-storage capacity through 2018.

US Solar-Plus-Storage Market to Surpass $1 Billion by 2018 : Greentech Media

The way the Land of the Rising Sun built and lost its dominance in photovoltaics shows just how vulnerable renewables remain to changing politics and national policies.

Post-Fukushima, Japan Looks for a Solar Renewal | MIT Technology Review

Russia's top oil producer Rosneft said on Monday it had met a $7 billion loan repayment, partially easing fears among investors that Western sanctions banning major Russian firms from access to European and U.S. capital could prompt mass defaults.

RIGZONE - Top Russian Oil Firm Rosneft Repays Around $7B in Debt

Only three out of the top four international oil companies generate enough free cash flow to cover spending, including shareholder distributions, in a $60/barrel environment, Wood Mackenzie noted. As a result, spending would need to be cut by $170 billion, or 37 percent year-on-year, at $60/barrel to keep net debt flat.

RIGZONE - Report: Only Three out of Four IOCs Generating Enough Free Cash at $60/bbl

These days, oil, cocoa and precious metals aren't the only things that are attracting foreign investors to Africa. A middle class has formed on the continent, and it's transforming Africa's investment landscape, according to experts. Instead of focusing on extracting commodities, investors are shifting gears to take advantage of Africa's increasing consumer demand.

Investors bet on the world's newest middle class - Yahoo Finance

China will provide help if needed and is confident Russia can overcome its economic difficulties, Foreign Minister Wang Yi was cited as saying in Bangkok in a Dec. 20 report by Hong Kong-based Phoenix TV. Commerce Minister Gao Hucheng said expanding a currency swap between the two nations and making increased use of yuan for bilateral trade would have the greatest impact in aiding Russia, according to the broadcaster.

China Offers Russia Help With Currency Swap Suggestion - Bloomberg

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What do you get when you add slower economic growth, greater volatility, and rising competition to more international flights and genuine Chinese innovation? McKinsey director Gordon Orr’s annual predictions.

What could happen in China in 2015? | McKinsey & Company

Many U.S. companies aren't doing enough to secure their sensitive data and could easily face the same kind of hacking problem now bedeviling Sony (SNE) , experts say. "The problem is that many companies don't understand the absolute necessity to spend money to secure their assets properly," says Craig Williams, head cyber-threat researcher for Cisco (CSCO) . "Events like this put the need in perspective."

Why Most Companies Could Be Hacked Just as Easily as Sony - TheStreet

With 3.9 gigawatts of solar photovoltaics installed in the U.S. through September, pushing the country past 16 gigawatts of cumulative capacity, the industry enters 2015 with a lot of momentum.  Like many solar CEOs, I’m left pondering exactly how next year's growth will play out. So I've come up with five questions that I think address the fortunes of large-scale commercial and industrial (C&I) development in the new year.

5 Questions to Help Us Understand How Commercial Solar May Grow in 2015 : Greentech Media

America’s energy fundamentals of aging infrastructure, difficulty siting new generation, and retiring centralized generation keep pushing average power prices higher -- from 7.61 cents per kilowatt-hour in 2004 to 10.52 cents per kilowatt-hour in September. Meanwhile, two other factors are pushing solar's competitiveness on the grid in as many as 47 states by 2016. Increased appreciation for solar among investors is making more funds available, while driving down the cost of capital and financing (more on this later), but underpinning all this is the decline in solar panel prices.

5 Questions to Help Us Understand How Commercial Solar May Grow in 2015 : Greentech Media

One answer to “why Orwell?” is because of his posthumous career. Five years before his death in 1950, he was, in the words of one of his biographers, D.J. Taylor, “still a faintly marginal figure”. He had published seven books, four of them novels, none of which put him in the front rank of novelists, two of which he had refused to have reprinted. He was acknowledged as a superb political essayist and bold literary critic, but his contemporary and friend Malcolm Muggeridge, first choice as his biographer, frankly considered him “no good as a novelist”.

ORWELL'S WORLD | More Intelligent Life

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We're always on the lookout for ways to transform our lives, but sometimes we forget that — along with exercise — there's another miracle drug within our control: sleep.

Why Sleep Is Important - Business Insider

Only if leading your country to economic ruin is a form of leadership. And this is not Monday-morning quarterbacking. It has been obvious for months that Putin was fighting the market, Moore’s Law, Mother Nature and human nature all at once.

Who’s Playing Marbles Now? - NYTimes.com

The country has quietly joined Asia’s escalating currency wars, steering the yuan down by 2pc against the dollar since early November. This looks increasingly like a move to protect itself against Japan’s dramatic devaluation and against weakening currencies in Korea and other key Asian states.

China quietly joins Asia's currency wars to avert deflation - Telegraph

The currency has since stabilised at 60 to the dollar. But it has lost half its value in a year. Russia’s $2.1 trillion (£1.3 trillion) economy has shrunk to $1.1 trillion, half the GDP of California. The external debt of Russian banks and companies has by mathematical effect ballooned to 70pc of total output. “A Russian downgrade to junk is only a matter or time,” says Tim Ash, from Standard Bank.

The week the dam broke in Russia and ended Putin's dreams - Telegraph

For decades, futurists have worried about computers getting human intelligence. Dystopian films from Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” to the “Terminator” and “Matrix” movies showed smart machines wreaking havoc on humans. Now serious thinkers have sounded the alarm about artificial intelligence, while robotics and automation already have caused profound social and economic dislocation.

Here’s the biggest threat we’re ignoring: machines - MarketWatch

Consider that up to 16 million Americans may have Intermittent Explosive Disorder, which causes them lash out inappropriately at people and things – and that's when they're nowhere near an airport.

Why Airplane Behavior Problems Are Common - Business Insider

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Haider Ali Motar was convicted of terrorism charges about a month ago for helping to carry out a string of Baghdad car bombings on behalf of the Islamic State extremist group. Now, the 21-year old is a reluctant cast member in a popular reality TV show.

Iraq Is Airing A Reality Show That Makes ISIS Terrorists Confront Their Victims - Business Insider

A New York City charter school offers a whopping $125,000 salary to staff its classrooms with top-tier teachers. A new study suggests the model has worked.

High-paying charter school shows big results

Cylinders are firing in the U.S. Monthly job gains averaged 227,000 through the third quarter of 2014, and the economy will add jobs at about the same monthly rate in 2015, says global economic forecasting and analysis firm IHS. Unemployment could sink to 5.5% by the end of 2015. Wages will tick up in coming months, with more midsize and small businesses saying they expect to boost pay for employees by 3% or greater.

U.S. Economy Pulling Away From Rest of World-Kiplinger

New players in China's shadow banking sector are growing rapidly despite attempts to clamp down on opaque lending, taking advantage of a regulatory anomaly to prosper but also raising the risks of a build-up of debt in the slowing economy.

China's shadow banking adapts and grows as rules tighten

This year, the S&P's up another 12 percent, but the market laid lots of traps for investors. You could have owned lots of energy stocks while the price of oil was plunging. Or, almost anything in Russia or Eastern Europe while the Ruble was in free fall. You could have easily panicked and sold out during the intense sell-offs in late January, October and December, then missed out on the market's rebounds.

The Best and Worst Investments of 2014 - Bloomberg

An experimental lithium-ion battery based on materials developed at a U.S. Department of Energy lab stores twice as much energy as the batteries used in most electric cars. If the technology can be commercialized, it could give affordable electric cars a range of over 200 miles per charge, says Hal Zarem, CEO of Seeo, a startup that’s working on the technology. Today the cheapest electric cars, which cost around $30,000, typically have a range of less than 100 miles.

A Solid-State Battery Could Double Electric Car Range | MIT Technology Review

Along with vast troves of credit card information and celebrity snapshots, hackers stole a record number of medical records from U.S. health-care facilities this year. In 2015, attacks targeting health data will become even more common, according to security researchers.

Hackers May Target the Health-Care Industry in 2015 | MIT Technology Review

Some economists believe the reform will boost consumption - which Berlin is relying on to drive economic growth - while others say it could reduce purchasing power if it causes firms to cut jobs or hike prices. More than one in four German firms expect to be directly affected. Of those, more than half said they would need to take counter-measures such as cutting staff or increasing prices, a survey by the Munich-based Ifo institute found. The law comes at a time when Europe's largest economy has cooled and the government faces pressure from European partners to boost weak investment.

Anxious German employers gear up for minimum wage revolution | Reuters

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The OnePlus One is among the more interesting phones we’ve seen over the last year. At first it seems too good to be true. It has a 1080p screen, the same processor as the Galaxy S5, a respectable camera and 4G, but costs less than half the price of the rivals from the bigger names. Are you going to get stung if you buy a OnePlus One?

OnePlus One Problems: Is it too good to be true? - Opinion - Trusted Reviews

The Federal Reserve is taking "unacceptable" inflation risks, raising the specter of Japanese-style deflation, Minneapolis Fed President Narayana Kocherlakota said Friday. Kocherlakota, who dissented from Wednesday's Fed statement, said the central bank's communicated intent to gradually raise rates "creates an unacceptable downside risk to inflation and inflation expectations."

Kocherlakota, in strong Fed rebuke, says FOMC taking 'unacceptable' inflation risks

We are bullish for the rest of the decade and anticipate a compounded single-digit rate of return for the US stock market.  A longer term target for US stocks at the end of the decade is 2600 to 3000 with end of decade estimated annualized earnings for the S&P 500 index between $160-$180.

US Stock Market Year End, 2014 - Business Insider

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The scientists used something called electroencephalography (EEG) to measure brain activity. They found distinct differences between smartphone users and people who used 'conventional' cellphones.

BBC News - Smartphone use 'changing our brains'

How they’re trained: Mirim University produces most of the hackers that get placed in Bureau 121. It’s a highly competitive program, with each class accepting only about 100 students out of 5,000 applicants. They take six 90-minute classes every day, learning different coding languages and operating systems, from C to Linux. Jang says a lot of time was spent dissecting Microsoft programs, like the Windows operating system, and how to attack the overall computer IT systems of enemy countries like the US or South Korea.

North Korean Defector Jang Se Yul Trained WIth Hackers - Business Insider

UBS Group AG is flagging risks from China's $1 trillion worth of unhedged foreign debt as forecasters see bets against the greenback unwinding in 2015.

UBS Raises Flag on China’s $1 Trillion Overseas Debt Pile - Yahoo Finance

Hackers don't take a holiday, it seems. Hours after Microsoft’s Xbox Live went down earlier today, Sony’s PlayStation Network is now down, too.

PlayStation Network And Xbox Live Are Down, And The Notorious Hacker Gang 'Lizard Squad' Is Taking Credit - Business Insider

Not only are solid state drives, or SSDs, significantly faster than traditional hard disk drives (HDDs), but, since they have no moving parts, SSDs are also more reliable. To find out just how durable the leading SSDs really are, back in August 2013 The Tech Report Web site pitted several leading SSDs, from Intel, Kingston, Samsung, and Corsair, against each other, in a runoff to the death—to see, first, how well they held up to their HDD counterparts, and second, how long they lasted compared to each other.

Solid state drives outlast their claimed reliability | Digital Trends

A handful of girls seem to defy one of the biggest certainties in life: ageing. Virginia Hughes reports on the families wrestling with a condition they can’t explain, and the scientist who believes that these children could hold the key to immortality.

BBC - Future - Ageing: The girls who never grow older

Oil prices have plunged recently, affecting everyone: producers, exporters, governments, and consumers.  Overall, we see this as a shot in the arm for the global economy. Bearing in mind that our simulations do not represent a forecast of the state of the global economy, we find a gain for world GDP between 0.3 and 0.7 percent in 2015, compared to a scenario without the drop in oil prices. There is however much more to this complex and evolving story. In this blog we examine the mechanics of the oil market now and in the future, the implications for various groups of countries as well as for financial stability, and how policymakers should address the impact on their economies.

Seven Questions About The Recent Oil Price Slump | iMFdirect - The IMF Blog

In 1985, two British climbers, Joe Simpson and Simon Yates, became the first to ascend the west face of Siula Grande, a 21,000-foot peak in the Peruvian Andes. What happened next is one of the most remarkable and inspiring survival stories ever. It's also an extraordinary example of self-reliance, decision-making under duress, and force of will.

TOUCHING THE VOID - Business Insider

Every time, the attacks are accompanied by a spate of over-the-top rhetoric and threats, and the North makes every effort to portray itself as dangerously irrational, and an unpredictable threat to world peace. It is certainly dangerous, but it's anything but irrational or unpredictable.

Here's the real reason North Korea hacked Sony. It has nothing to do with The Interview. - Vox

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US Internet announced Tuesday that it will use that network to offer 10-gigabit-per-pecond Internet speed, which is among the fastest Internet service available today. That’s 400 times faster than the average download speed in Minnesota, 25 megabits per second, according to Ookla, an Internet diagnostic firm.

Next Big Future: Fastest Internet in the world is in Minneapolis with 10 gigabits per second

Forgetfulness, it turns out, is all in the head. Scientists have shown fading memory and clouding judgment, the type that comes with advancing age, show up as lost and altered connections between neurons in the brain. But new experiments suggest an existing drug, known as riluzole and already on the market as a treatment for ALS, may help prevent these changes.

An existing drug, riluzole, may prevent foggy 'old age' brain | EurekAlert! Science News

According to a PwC report from September, cyber hacks are increasing at 66% year-over-year, and cybersecurity investments are responding in kind: IDC is expecting the cybersecurity sector to have a 7% compound annual growth rate through 2017.

Cybersecurity Investments Promise Returns for Investors Looking to Capitalize on Hacks - MainStreet

Back in 1990, about 8 percent of the U.S. population had no religious preference. By 2010, this percentage had more than doubled to 18 percent. That’s a difference of about 25 million people, all of whom have somehow lost their religion.

Best of 2014: How the Internet Is Taking Away America’s Religion | MIT Technology Review

Motley Fool writer Morgan Housel recently came up with an impressive list of 122 investing aphorisms that distill the wisdom he has gleaned from years of writing about markets and the financial industry. Most are either insights into human psychology or historical facts and figures.  Almost all of them, in my humble opinion, are good advice.

Ten Investing Facts of Life - Bloomberg View

Vladimir Putin faces a catastrophic shortfall of at least $80bn (£51bn) in oil export revenue over the next year, after Opec kingpin Saudi Arabia signalled there will be no easing in the price war it has launched to recapture market share. According to US Energy Information Administration (EIA) figures, oil and gas shipments accounted for 68pc of Russia's total $527bn of gross exports in 2013, when Brent crude - comparable to Russian Urals - traded at an average of $108 per barrel. Should the current price of Brent, at around $60 per barrel, be sustained over the next 12 months, that would result in Russia's export income from crude dropping to $95bn, from $174bn in 2013. However, these losses will be amplified by the total loss of revenue accrued from lower prices for refined petroleum products and domestic sales of crude, which totalled $122bn in 2013, according to the EIA.

Russia faces oil export catastrophe, snared in Opec price trap - Telegraph

Nevertheless, the combination of economic contraction, a liquidity crunch and the falling exchange rate is likely to lead to the failure of a number of banks. Russia has more than 800 banks, many them with low capitalisation, weak finances and weak corporate oversight. As of December, the RCB had withdrawn licences from more than 80 banks in 2014 alone. While the sector is in need of consolidation, however, the disorderly failure of a large number of banks could cause significant economic disruption, deepening the recession and further undermining public confidence in the financial sector.

Pressures Intensify On Russia's Banking Sector - Business Insider