Links for 2/16

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The basic idea is that, absent intervention, economic slumps (as measured, say, by an elevated rate of unemployment) can persist for a very long time owing to a self-reinforcing feedback effect. The economy can get stuck in what game theorists would label a "bad equilibrium."

Economist's View: 'A Simple Model of Multiple Equilibrium Business Cycles'

Stig Severinsen, a world record free diver, explains how he focuses and enters in to a state of meditation while holding his breath underwater.  He currently holds the Guinness World Record for holding his breath underwater for 22 minutes.

Free diver on focus and meditation - Business Insider

“When I started working with Pep 18 months ago I noticed how he goes much deeper into football,” Robben says. “His intelligence is obvious. Tactically he’s one of the best in the world and under him I have made more steps in my development. I’ve come quite a long way these 18 months.”

Arjen Robben: ‘You can discuss anything with Pep. At 3am he’s happy to talk’ | Football | The Guardian

But a second is domestic. Given low interest rates, now would be a golden opportunity to borrow and invest more at home, boosting the economy and providing a Keynesian stimulus to the entire sluggish euro zone. Instead, Germany is investing less than in the past and less than most other countries (see chart).

German economic policy is hurting Europe, the world, and itself - Business Insider

“Incumbent center-right governments across Europe know that facilitating a positive outcome for the Greek government will not assist their own prospects of re-election,” Noel Whelan wrote in his weekly column for The Irish Times. “Having implemented various types of what they see as successful austerity programs in their own countries, they’ll be damned if they are going to let the Greeks give credence to the suggestion that there was or is an alternative way.”

Greek View on Austerity Worries Other Governments - NYTimes.com

Russian households are bearing the brunt of the blowback from the crisis in Ukraine and a tailspin in oil prices, setting the stage for the biggest drop in consumption in more than two decades that will deepen the country’s recession.

Putin Lets Russian Consumers Feel the Pain as Economy Succumbs - Bloomberg Business

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As prime minister in 2009-2010, Putin deployed what Goldman Sachs Group Inc. estimated to be the largest stimulus package among Group of 20 nations, totaling 9.8 percent of economic output.

Putin Lets Russian Consumers Feel the Pain as Economy Succumbs - Bloomberg Business

In an in-flight entertainment first, Australian carrier Qantas will soon be making Samsung's virtual reality headsets, called Gear VR, available to premium passengers on some long-distance flights. A three-month trial run begins in mid-March, when Qantas is expected to make the headsets available to first-class passengers on some of the airline's A380 flights between Australia and Los Angeles.

Airline gets virtual with its travel: Qantas to offer VR

The market has always been torn between the ever-increasing grandiosity of Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk’s futuristic ambitions and the brutal economics that any automotive startup faces, but in the wake of the company’s troubling earnings report and Musk’s subsequent earnings-call antics, this split has become downright schizophrenic.

Bloomberg View — Tesla stock shifts into insane mode

Hedge fund manager Bill Browder, once the largest foreign investor in Russia, estimates Russian President Vladimir Putin's wealth at $200 billion — which would make him by far the richest man in the world.

Russia's former largest foreign investor: Putin is worth $200 billion - Business Insider

Close to 90% of all traders lose money (see Why Most Traders Lose Money and the Market Requires It) . The remaining ten percent somehow manage to either break even or even turn a profit — and more importantly, do it consistently. How do they do that?

Five Fatal Flaws of Trading

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Four years since joining the single currency bloc, Estonia is the anti-Greece.  Government debt is forecast by the European Commission to be just 9.6 percent of gross domestic product this year. That's the least in the euro area at barely a tenth of the 94.4 percent regional average and a fraction of Greece's 170.2 percent.

The Corner of Europe That's the Very Opposite of Greece - Yahoo Finance

Credit is, once again, strikingly cheap. By the end of January, the yield on 10-year Treasury notes had fallen to the lowest since May 2013 (since the end of last month, the gauge has ticked slightly ticked back up). It's strange because the U.S. economy has regained its status as the main engine of the world economy and analysts expect the Fed to soon start raising rates. The IMF economists note that the so-called term premium -- the extra yield investors demand for holding long-term debt over short-term paper -- has actually turned negative.

Yes, Yellen Can Have It All as She Gets Ready to Raise Rates - Bloomberg Business

There was once a city called Crocodilopolis, where they worshiped the crocodile god Sobek. The people of Crocodilopolis paid devotion to an earthly representative of Sobek, a living crocodile they called Petsuchos and covered in gold and gems and kept in a temple, though it is unclear how they did this without loss of life or limb. When one Petsuchos died, they simply replaced him with another, like a fairground goldfish.

What is the oldest city in the world? | Cities | The Guardian

Charlene Dill, a 32-year-old mother of three, collapsed and died on a stranger’s floor at the end of March. She was at an appointment to try to sell a vacuum cleaner, one of the three part-time jobs that she worked to try to make ends meet for her family. Her death was a result of a documented heart condition — and it could have been prevented. Dill was uninsured, and she went years without the care she needed to address her chronic conditions because she couldn’t afford it.

This 32-Year-Old Florida Woman Is Dead Because Her State Refused To Expand Medicaid | ThinkProgress

A survey from William Hill has come up with a deeply dull list of 50 things that every man needs to know. Wiring a plug, knowing the offside rule, polishing shoes, changing tyres … and 46 other things that even the world’s most boring dad would think are cliches. So here’s an alternative rundown of 50 tasks that modern males really do need to master:

Actually these are the 50 things every man needs to know | Michael Hogan | Comment is free | The Guardian

And Dill won’t be the only one. A recent study conducted by Harvard researchers estimated that as many as 17,000 people will die directly as a result of their states refusing to expand Medicaid.

This 32-Year-Old Florida Woman Is Dead Because Her State Refused To Expand Medicaid | ThinkProgress

MANY Westerners find Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine mystifying. It has brought Russia economic woe (sanctions and a shattered credit rating) and international isolation. Why fight so hard for a slice of another country’s rust-belt?

The Economist explains: What Russia is up to in Ukraine | The Economist

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The UK charity has just launched a new campaign that lets anyone submit their contact details (ironic, eh?), which are then collated and sent off to the UK’s Investigatory Powers Tribunal (via TNW). If you want to sign up, follow this link and fill in the form. Should it turn out that GCHQ has spied on you, you'll be informed in due course.

Did GCHQ snoop on you? Find out now - News - Trusted Reviews

So far, no one has figured out how to intelligently and automatically filter out the junk from the stuff that actually matters. Instead, you're forced to see it all, whether it matters to you or not. And as I learned last week, only about 3% of the emails I receive are worth reading. That's pitiful.

Email is broken - Business Insider

Scientists have found a method which could potentially stop the growth of Alzheimer’s disease in its tracks, raising the prospect of a wave of new treatments for the condition. A team at Cambridge University, working with partners in Sweden and Estonia, has identified a molecule which can block the progress of Alzheimer’s at a crucial stage in its development.

Alzheimer’s breakthrough: scientists home in on molecule which halts development of disease - Telegraph

Britain is a nation of tea lovers, but on one great question, we stand divided: do you put the milk in first, or last? The answer to the question may lie with the British Standards Institution (BSI), which, unbeknownst to many, offers a set of rigorous guidelines to making the perfect cuppa.

Is this how to make the perfect cup of tea? - Telegraph

Japanese corporates are notorious for hoarding cash, but there's a revolutionary shift underway, with shareholder returns set to reach their highest level ever this fiscal year, according to Goldman Sachs.

Goldman sees 'revolutionary' shift in Japan Inc

Apple has put a few hundred people, including some new hires from the auto industry, on a skunkworks project to do the early development of an electric vehicle resembling a minivan. Such a car would challenge Tesla Motors Inc. as well as electric and hybrid cars sold by Nissan Motor Corp., General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co. and other companies.

Apple’s Electric Car Dreams May Bring Auto Industry Nightmares - Bloomberg Business

Yet Sovaldi is also the poster child of a U.S. health care system that is being bankrupted by greed, lobbying and indefensible policies on drug pricing.

The Drug That Is Bankrupting America | Jeffrey Sachs

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What is decided in the coming days and weeks will determine Greece's economic future. It may even decide the future of Europe. These are the possible options.

BBC News - Greece: What are the options for its future?

The basic facts are these. In December 2013, the Food and Drug Administration approved Sovaldi, and another formulation, Harvoni, which is sofosbuvir used in combination with another drug. Gilead set the price for a 12-week treatment course of Sovaldi at $84,000, amounting to $1,000 per pill. Gilead set the price of Harvoni at $94,000. According to researchers at Liverpool University, the actual production costs of Sovaldi for the 12-week course is in the range $68-$136. Indeed, generic sofosbuvir is currently being marketed in India at $300 per treatment course, after India refused to grant Gilead a patent for the Indian market. In other words, the U.S. price-cost markup is roughly 1,000-to-1!

The Drug That Is Bankrupting America | Jeffrey Sachs

Broadcasting everything your smartphone sees and hears could be the next trend in social media.

App Creates Your Own Reality TV Channel | MIT Technology Review

China new home prices registered their fifth month of annual drops in January, as tepid demand dragged on sentiment despite moves by the government to encourage buying.

China new home prices drop at record pace - Yahoo Finance

Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Shiller has a grim message for investors: Save up, because in the years ahead, assets aren't going to give you the type of returns that you've become accustomed to. In his third edition of "Irrational Exuberance," which will drop later this month, the Yale professor of economics warns about high prices for stocks and bonds alike.

Shiller's back, and he has more depressing news - Yahoo Finance

The idea is at one glance you can see what you've got on today, rather than unlocking your phone and opening the calendar. But it can do more than that. It can also show the weather and your calendar, emails and reminders, track shares, show Facebook likes, and act as a sign to say if a room is reserved. If that's not enough, you can make your own widgets for it too, if you're a dab hand with a bit of code.

Displio is a Wi-Fi display that shows appointments and reminders - News - Trusted Reviews

Jesse Livermore’s legacy is a bit of a double-edged sword… On the one hand, he was the first to codify the ancient language of supply and demand that is every bit as relevant 100 years later as it was when he first relayed it to biographer Edwin Lefèvre. Livermore himself sums it up thusly: “I learned early that there is nothing new in Wall Street. There can’t be because speculation is as old as the hills. Whatever happens in the stock market today has happened before and will happen again. I’ve never forgotten that.”

Surprising quotes from trader Jesse Livermore - Business Insider

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I see Russia as a country in decline. It's a one-crop economy; two-thirds of its exports are energy. It has a terrible demographic problem; the number of Russians is shrinking. It has a huge health problem; the average Russian male dies at about age 61. And it's got such enormous corruption that it can't reform itself. So I think it's a country that's seriously in decline. Putin's adventurism, such as we've seen in Ukraine, which has led to Western sanctions, cuts him off from the sources of Western technology that they really need for modernisation and he's turning Russia into China's gas station. So I'm very pessimistic about the future of Russia.

Russia in decline - Joseph Nye quote - Business Insider

The Ray remote controls more than 200,000 devices and can run applications that will enable it to control other Internet-connected home appliances, such as Google's Nest thermostat. The search and recommendation features are set up to eliminate the need to spend a lot of time looking for content.

This is the newest ultimate remote - Business Insider

Hundreds of thousands of Muslims vented their anger in unison, shouting “Allahu Akbar!” as their leader condemned supporters of the satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo after militants murdered five of its cartoonists. The protest against caricatures of Muhammad and the policies of the U.S. and its allies was organized by the state and televised live across the country for more than an hour, but it wasn’t in Iran or Pakistan. It was in Russia, where Vladimir Putin came to power vowing to “wipe out” Muslim extremists, even “in the outhouse.”

Putin Points Muslim Rage at Cold War Foes as Jihadis Vow Attacks - Bloomberg Business

Islamic State militants are planning a takeover of Libya as a "gateway" to wage war across the whole of southern Europe, letters written by the group's supporters have revealed. The jihadists hope to flood the north African state with militiamen from Syria and Iraq, who will then sail across the Mediterranean posing as migrants on people trafficking vessels, according to plans seen by Quilliam, the British anti-extremist group.

Islamic State 'planning to use Libya as gateway to Europe' - Telegraph

BP has warned that carbon dioxide emission levels from burning fossil fuels are unsustainable unless the international community unilaterally introduces tougher binding regulations on atmospheric pollution. The stark warning from the UK’s second-largest oil company came with the publication on Tuesday of its closely-watched long-term outlook for global energy markets, which predicts that CO2 emissions will increase by 1pc per year, or 25pc in total, through to 2035.

BP says CO2 emissions unsustainable, warns on global warming - Telegraph

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But will Tesla be the next Apple … or will Apple be the next Tesla? Apple has itself poached 50 Tesla employees, supposedly “offering $250,000 signing bonuses and 60 percent salary increases” — a heck of an incentive to work at a company so successful, its market capitalization just hit the all-time record of $700 billion! Business Insider reports that an email from an Apple employee says its still-secret effort, “will change the landscape and give Tesla a run for its money.”

Elon Musk Is Right: Hydrogen Is 'An Incredibly Dumb' Car Fuel | ThinkProgress

Indian police have charged a millionaire businessman with murder after he allegedly rammed an SUV into his security guard for being slow in opening a gate, an official said. Muhammad Nisham was arrested last month after he allegedly pinned his guard Chandarabose against a wall with his Hummer over a delay in opening the gate of an apartment complex in India’s southern Kerala state.

Indian millionaire accused of murdering guard over delay in opening gate | World news | The Guardian

Let's face it: most projectors aren't very useful outside of home theaters or boardrooms, even if they're packing some smarts. Beam may get you to change your mind, though. Its namesake Android-powered projector runs apps, streams media from your mobile gear (through AirPlay or Miracast) and starts tasks based on the time or what you're doing. You can play a video message when someone gets home, for instance, or load Netflix as soon as you turn on Bluetooth speakers. However, the design is the real party trick. While the 854 x 480 resolution and 100 lumen brightness are no great shakes, you can screw Beam into any standard light socket -- you don't have to hunt for a free wall outlet (or even a wall) if you're just looking to show off some vacation photos.

Beam's Android-powered projector fits in your light sockets

As Paul Krugman always likes to recount, strange things happen at the zero bound. Macroeconomics gets weird. Liquidity traps prevail. And a whole slew of paradoxes come into being. And that’s largely because below the zero bound things get even stranger still.

FT Alphaville | FT Alphaville – Market Commentary – FT.com

Japan's annual exports in January jumped the most since late 2013, data showed Thursday. The 17 percent year-on-year gain in exports marked the fifth straight month of increase, supported by shipments of cars to the United States and of electronics parts to Asia, data by the Ministry of Finance showed.

Japan's Annual Exports Jump Most Since 2013 - NYTimes.com

Some researchers are trying to rewrite the genomes of elephants, with the ultimate goal of re-creating a woolly mammoth. Writing last year in the journal Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology, Motoko Araki and Tetsuya Ishii of Hokkaido University in Japan predicted that doctors will be able to use CRISPR to alter the genes of human embryos "in the immediate future." Thanks to the speed of CRISPR research, the accolades have come quickly. Last year MIT Technology Review called CRISPR "the biggest biotech discovery of the century."

The biggest biotech discovery of the century is about to change medicine forever - Business Insider

It has now been over six years since the most acute phase of the financial crisis. Over the intervening years, market structures have evolved, and financial firms have changed their business models in important respects. Authorities around the world are implementing reforms that address the painful lessons of the crisis, while at the same time keeping the evolution of markets and firms in mind.

FRB: Speech with Slideshow--Powell, Financial Institutions, Financial Markets, and Financial Stability--February 18, 2015

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An 80-year-old woman with Parkinson’s pops a small neurostimulator on her tongue and two weeks later starts walking. Soon she’s balancing on a table, painting the ceiling. Thanks to listening therapy, an autistic 3-year-old stops screaming and starts talking. A modified mix of Mozart, Gregorian chant and his mother’s voice stimulated dormant brain circuits. The radical therapies that transform lives of little hope are vividly described by Norman Doidge, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, in his book The Brain’s Way of Healing: Remarkable Discoveries and Recoveries from the Frontiers of Neuroplasticity.

This Doctor Made a Blind Man See and an Autistic Boy Speak - Bloomberg Business

CEO Kip Tindell’s brand of “conscious capitalism” is being tested in the face of a plunging share price

Container Store: Conscious Capitalism and the Perils of Going Public - Bloomberg Business

Nobel Prize winning economist Robert Shiller, who also teaches at Yale University, likes to troll the global markets for investment opportunities. In a recent interview with Yahoo Finance he explained his investing style. “I believe in value investing and I look at the valuations of the markets.”

Why Robert Shiller likes Europe more than the U.S. - Yahoo Finance

The owners of the Daily Telegraph secured a £250m loan from HSBC for a struggling corner of their business empire shortly before the newspaper’s reporters were allegedly “discouraged” from running articles critical of the bank, the Guardian has learned.

Telegraph owners' £250m HSBC loan raises fresh questions over coverage | Media | The Guardian

It may seem too good to be true, but guilt-free chocolate which promises to slow down the emergence of wrinkles and sagging skin, has been developed by scientists. ‘Esthechoc’ the brainchild of a Cambridge University spin-off lab, claims to boost antioxidant levels and increase circulation to prevent lines and keep skin looking youthful and smooth.

Anti-ageing chocolate which reduces wrinkles developed by Cambridge University spin-off - Telegraph

You know you pay stockbrokers too much for investment advice. That's a given. But can we put a number on the cost of their often-conflicted advice? Try this on for size: Up to $17 billion a year, according a White House memo leaked to the press.

Stockbroker conflicts cost Americans billions: White House - MarketWatch

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In the meantime, Musk — whose Tesla bio lists him as “Co-Founder, CEO, and Product Architect” — has been amping up his efforts to be the next Steve Jobs and to make his electric car company, Tesla, the next Apple. Bloomberg reported last week that the 6000-worker company “has hired at least 150 former Apple employees, more than from any other company, even carmakers.”

Elon Musk Is Right: Hydrogen Is 'An Incredibly Dumb' Car Fuel | ThinkProgress

That moment when you walk into a job interview, and the person who greets you is someone you were very rude to earlier that day. That's exactly what happened to one man in London earlier this week. It's been recounted blow by blow on Twitter by Matt Buckland, the recruiter. His description of the scenario has been re-tweeted almost 14,000 times. In the tweet, he describes it as "karma" that a guy who pushed past him on the tube and swore at him "just arrived for his interview with me".

BBC News - Be careful who you swear at on the train

A couple of grandes a day may keep the doctor away, according to a panel of government-appointed scientists charged with proposing changes to U.S. dietary guidelines. Just go easy on the sugar. Three to five daily cups of coffee aren’t associated with long-term health risks, the panel said in a report Thursday, and correlate with reduced risk for heart disease and type 2 diabetes. The panel helps the U.S. government formulate dietary suggestions, guidelines that affect millions of American diets.

Coffee’s Great, U.S. Panel Says in Official Diet Recommendations - Bloomberg Business

There was a time where it was plausible to argue that more education and innovation were the primary solutions to our economic problems. But that time has passed

Over at Equitable Growth: The Intellectual War Over the Rise of the Machines Continues...: Focus (Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality...)

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Google handles 40,000 web searches per second every day. To handle the pressure of serving billions of internet users, the company’s technicians launched a project in 2009 called SPDY (pronounced “speedy&rdquo to improve HTTP. Originally only for internal use, other sites fielding heavy traffic such as Twitter, Facebook, Wordpress and CloudFlare also implemented SPDY having seen its performance improvements.

The internet is about to get faster — here's why - Business Insider

Typically, deep recessions are followed by rapid growth. However, since the second quarter of 2009, when the latest recession officially ended, real (inflation- adjusted) gross domestic product (GDP) has increased at only a 2.3 percent annual rate.1 Prior to the latest recession, the economy’s long-term growth rate of real potential GDP was about 3 percent per year.2 Thus, the current business expansion could not only be the weakest on record—although that conclusion will ultimately depend on its length and future growth—but it could signal a worrisome downshift in the economy’s long- term growth rate of real potential GDP.

Economist's View: 'Faster Real GDP Growth during Recoveries Tends To Be Associated with Growth of Jobs in “Low-Paying” Industries'

There's been a small, but influential, hysteria surrounding the idea is that a huge wave of automation, technology and skills have lead to a massive structural change in the economy since 2010. The implicit argument here is that robots and machines have both made traditional demand-side policies irrelevant or naïve, and been a major driver of wage stagnation and inequality. Though not the most pernicious story that gained prominence as the recovery remained sluggish in 2010 to 2011, it gained an important foothold among elite discussion.

The One Where Larry Summers Demolished the Robots and Skills Arguments | Next New Deal

The influential jobs in German money and finance [Buba/ECB/Finance Ministry] are either staffed by senior German academics, or those that mix with them.  [Like many countries]. German academia is unusually cut-off from American academia.  It’s disporportionately staffed by locals, who trained in Germany.  Partly as a result of this, New Keynesianism and its policy prescriptions did not catch on.  And because of that, German economic policy did not shift with the times either.

Proximate roots of German monetary and fiscal conservatism | longandvariable

According to the University of Virginia's National Marriage Project, the more people that come to a wedding, the happier the couple will be in their marriage — thanks to how the ceremony cements the connection between a couple and their community.

Wedding guests and marriage happiness - Business Insider