Links for 3/23

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However, not all of the PIIGS have continued to struggle. One of the PIIGS in particular has risen (flown?) above the rest in recent years: Ireland. And what better time to point out the country’s superior performance than St. Patrick’s Day.

Dana Lyons' Tumblr — Ireland: One “PIIG” That Can Fly

The ensemble, named after a Havana members’ club that closed in the 1940s, started as a collaboration between the American guitarist Ry Cooder and the Cuban bandleader Juan de Marcos González, the pair summoning a number of feted Cuban musicians to record an album in just six days. It became a global phenomenon and led to live performances in Amsterdam and New York, as well as an Oscar-nominated documentary directed by Wim Wenders.

Buena Vista Social Club: the legends look back | Music | The Guardian

“Something is clearly happening,” she says, “because I am seeing the evidence in the numbers of depressive, anorexic, cutting children who come to see me. And it always has something to do with the computer, the Internet and the smartphone.”

Are smartphones making our children mentally ill? - Telegraph

A decade ago, Magnus Carlsen, who at the time was only 13 years old, created a sensation in the chess world when he defeated former world champion Anatoly Karpov at a chess tournament in Reykjavik, Iceland, and the next day played then-top-rated Garry Kasparov—who is widely regarded as the best chess player of all time—to a draw.

The 10,000 hour rule is wrong and perpetuates a cruel myth - Business Insider

All too often left out of these arguments is mention of perhaps the most important dynamic impacting inflation today: technology. Put simply, technology is reshaping the entire economic, social, inflation and investment landscape. And some of the benefits, especially to the U.S., are profound.

BlackRock: The most important dynamic impacting inflation - Business Insider

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The capability of processing awesome amounts of data, combined with deep learning instead of fixed algorithms will be characterize the computers that eventually control robot cars. Even next-generation driver assistance systems will use multiple data sources and apply sensor fusion algorithms to find the right decisions for driving. Chipmaker Nvidia now packs the required number crunching capability for such tasks into a developers board.

Nvidia computer as processing hub for self-driving cars - Electronics Eetimes

China National Chemical Corp (ChemChina) is to buy Pirelli (PECI.MI), the world's fifth-largest tire maker, in a 7.1 billion euro ($7.7 billion) deal that will place one of the symbols of Italy's manufacturing industry in Chinese hands.

ChemChina to buy Italian tire maker Pirelli in $7.7 billion deal - Yahoo Finance

The health warning on a MarkTen electronic cigarette package is 116 words long. That's much longer than the warnings on traditional cigarette packs in the United States. Nicotine, the e-cigarette warning says, is "addictive and habit-forming, and it is very toxic by inhalation, in contact with the skin, or if swallowed."

When it comes to e-cigs, Big Tobacco is concerned for your health - Business Insider

The gains in those stocks wouldn't matter if the fund wasn't actively hedging against euro weakness, which it is, helping the fund rise 8.8 percent so far in 2015, putting it among the top-performing global stock funds this year.

Currency hedging takes on new importance - Business Insider

If you’ve been following the income inequality debate, you’ll know there’s been much discussion on the question in the headline above. Until just a few years ago, it’s probably fair to say that mainstream opinion leaned towards the “good for growth” side of the debate. Yes, inequality might leave a bad taste in the mouth, but it was worth it if it meant a strong economy.

Is inequality good or bad for growth? - OECD Observer

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It might sound counterintuitive, but using too much detergent will actually leave your laundry dirty. This happens because the base components of detergent work in specific concentrations. When those concentrations are too high bad laundry mishaps can occur. So let's get into it, shall we?

For Cleaner Laundry You Should... Use Less Detergent? - Reviewed.com Laundry

Much of the coverage of rising inequality has focused on the incomes of “the 1%” at the top. But the OECD research, which was led by Michael Förster and Federico Cingano, indicates that it’s the situation of people at the other end of the earnings scale that has the biggest impact on growth. These lower-income households are not a small group. They represent some 40% of the population, comprising families that, from a social perspective, might be called lower-middle and working class. Where overall inequality is higher in a society, a clear pattern emerges: people from such backgrounds invest much less in developing their human capital–essentially their education and skills. By contrast, it has almost no impact on the educational investment of middle-income and wealthy families. The implications for social mobility are clear–an ever-widening education and earnings gap between society’s haves and have-nots.

Is inequality good or bad for growth? - OECD Observer

Risky assets such as equities are not yet in bubble territory, Goldman Sachs Chief Global Equity Strategist Peter Oppenheimer said Monday.

No bubble trouble for stocks yet: Goldman Sachs - Yahoo Finance

Two lost decades have taken a toll on Japan’s competitiveness, but the nation has a window of opportunity to shift its trajectory. A new McKinsey Global Institute report, The future of Japan: Reigniting productivity and growth, highlights potential avenues for growth and renewal, emphasizing areas where the private sector can take the lead. With its working-age population shrinking, Japan will have to rely on productivity as the main catalyst for economic momentum. While continued policy reform is necessary, the private sector is critical to capturing new growth opportunities. If individual companies take action to improve their performance, they could add trillions of dollars of value annually to the world’s third-largest economy.

How a private-sector transformation could revive Japan | McKinsey & Company

However, the hope burns bright that, unlike previous generations of mobile technology, 5G will be a true global standard—allowing travellers to use their personal phones anywhere in the world, without the hassle of having to swap their SIM cards for local ones bought on arrival. What to expect from 5G? At this stage, one of the few things that can be said about 5G with certainity is that—if it is to meet society’s growing demands for ubiquitous and instantaneous connectivity—such networks will need to have a “latency” (ie, response time) of about one millisecond. The speed at which two devices can begin to communicate with one another over today’s 4G networks is about 50 milliseconds, and around 500 milliseconds for the still widely used 3G services.

Difference engine: Your phone on steroids | The Economist

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What began as a €17.1m transfer deal is on its way to becoming the most expensive deal in the history of the game. Right now, if we total up everything that has already been paid and everything the club will have to pay if the prosecutors get their way, the deal will top €158m.

Neymar deal hits €158m - MARCA.com (English version)

Unless markets start to believe that U.S. interest rates are on their way up there could be a "potentially violent" reaction when they actually do, Federal Reserve policymaker said on Tuesday.

'Violent reconciliation' likely if markets misjudge rate hike plans: Fed's Bullard - Yahoo Finance

Halfway around the world, a crucial European manufacturing indicator hit a 46-month high, with German activity leading the way. The results were stronger than forecast, offering hope that a pickup in growth on the Continent is taking hold.

Buyback slowdown in the U.S. & manufacturing in China, Europe: What to watch today - Yahoo Finance

A long expansion is a persuasive argument for buying stocks even though forward P/Es are historically high. Investors are likely to be willing to pay more for stocks if they perceive that the economic expansion could last, let’s say, another four years rather than another two years. The more time we have before the next recession, the more time that earnings can grow to justify currently high valuations.

Bull markets don't die of old age - Business Insider

A relatively new, alternative hypothesis – proposed in 2013 by former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers – is that the feeble performance of the past decade reflects an unusually prolonged shortfall of aggregate demand rather than diminished supply. Summers’ argument echoes a 1937 warning (renewed shortly after World War II) from another Harvard economist, Alvin Hansen. Three-quarters of a century ago, Hansen argued that the United States would be stuck perpetually in a situation with excess savings, with the result that a large portion of U.S. productive capacity would remain permanently underutilized.

A Simple Guide to "Secular Stagnation" — Money, Banking and Financial Markets

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On average, about three pounds of our body weight is accounted for by bacteria alone.

Trying to avoid germs is useless - Business Insider

Purchases of foreign stocks and bonds by Japan's giant pension funds and other big investors in 2015 could be their highest for at least a decade, if they keep pace with the $42 billion splurged during the first two months.

Japanese investors' mega buying spree overseas keeps yen low

Its assessment of 34 previous studies covering 8.2 million people, more than 24,500 of whom had liver cancer, revealed “strong evidence” linking intake of three drinks a day to the disease. “Around three or more drinks per day can be enough to cause liver cancer,” said Amanda Mclean, director of the charity’s UK branch. “Until now we were uncertain about the amount of alcohol likely to lead to liver cancer. But the research reviewed in this report is strong enough, for the first time, to be more specific about this.”

Consuming three alcoholic drinks a day may cause liver cancer – study | Society | The Guardian

German business sentiment in March hit its highest level in eight months, the Ifo index showed Wednesday, in the latest sign that a weak euro and monetary stimulus are working their magic on Europe's biggest economy.

German business sentiment rises in March

Startup and app discovery platform Product Hunt is rolling out a Chrome extension, the company announced Wednesday. Product Hunt lets users submit apps, websites, startups, and tech products every day, which are then upvoted by members of the PH community. Often, the product's founders will jump into the comments to chat and answer questions.

Product Hunt introduces new features, Google Chrome extension - Business Insider

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But not much has changed. In fact, things are getting worse. Lisda Sundari, deputy director for education and advocacy at the local children NGO Lentera Anak, said the number of children aged 10 to 14 who smoke has doubled over the past 20 years, and has at least tripled for 5- to 9-year olds. Sixty-seven percent of Indonesian men and 41 percent of 13 to 15 year-old boys smoke. Indonesia is one of the few countries in the world that hasn’t signed the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. This means cigarettes are still extremely cheap (about one dollar a pack) and cigarette advertising is not forbidden.

The number of children smoking in Indonesia is getting out of control - Business Insider

While Bauer said his employees are generally honest, people do lie all the time. During a 10-minute conversation, 60% of adults will lie at least once, according to a 2002 University of Massachusetts. Most of those are “social lies”, the little white lies that we all tell, but some are bigger and have serious consequences, said Michael Floyd, co-founder of QVerity, a behavioural analysis firm that helps people and companies detect lying.

BBC - Capital - How to catch a liar at the office

Mr Bullard said investors are far too complacent about the pace of monetary tightening and could be in for a nasty shock as the policy cycle turns over coming months.

Fed's Bullard sees roaring boom for US economy, but nasty shock for markets - Telegraph

RESEARCHERS HAVE UNCOVERED a way to make faster and more efficient chips while saving on manufacturing costs. The new semiconductor technology was developed by Stanford University, and uses gallium arsenide as opposed to silicon. It can handle data at higher speeds, or high-frequency radio signals, because the material allows electrons to move through it up to six times faster.

Breakthrough chip research brings faster and cheaper semiconductors- The Inquirer

I think there’s a very simple explanation for the high stock market valuations since 1990: demographics. From 1981-2000, the baby boom generation came into their peak earning and investing years. Is it just coincidence that during that very same time we witnessed the largest stock market valuation bubble in history? No.

Jesse Felder's Tumblr — How the baby boomers have blown up the stock market

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Are we at the start of a tightening cycle, or not? That seems to be the question. The answer: We seem to be in that shadowy period leading up to a tightening cycle. That's an important distinction for stocks, because equities tend to gain in the period leading into those cycles, then reverse when the tightening begins.

Stocks need to know: Where are we in the tightening cycle?

"Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise" — Ben Franklin, famously

Benefits of waking up earlier - Business Insider

Now may be a good time to start normalizing U.S. monetary policy, Federal Reserve policymaker James Bullard said on Thursday.

now may be good time to normalize U.S. monetary policy: Fed's Bullard - Yahoo Finance

The Fede0ral Reserve's efforts to stimulate the U.S. economy after the financial crisis ended up costing savers nearly half a trillion dollars in interest income, according to report released Thursday.

Fed policies have cost savers $470 billion: Study - Yahoo Finance

Panic reached the inner sanctum of the Russian central bank. It was Dec. 16 -- the day Russian traders would later christen Black Tuesday -- and the ruble was in a freefall. “Intervene! Intervene!” a central bank official shouted. Governor Elvira Nabiullina watched the currency on her tablet screen react to her emergency rate increase. No, she said, not this time: Russia would no longer fight the market. Speculators needed a cold shower, she said.

The Central Banker Who Saved the Russian Economy From the Abyss - Bloomberg Business

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For investors, finding the right hedge fund can be a lot like dating. Which one matches your goals? Do your personalities connect? Is it worth investing time…and money? Well, one start-up is trying to make the process easier by matching investors with the right hedge fund – think of it as a matchmaking website for those wanting top returns.

iMatchative: The dating website for hedge funds?

Russian blogger Marat Burkhard told Radio Free Europe that working in an infamous "troll factory" generating fake internet posts and comments was "Orwellian." "Whatever we're told, that's what we'll write about, no questions asked, and we don't want to know." Using the word "absurd" no less than five times, he detailed how a typical day went at "Internet Research," a company run by a Vladimir Putin crony. The team of around 300 employees reportedly puts out about 30,000 pro-Kremlin comments a day from fake accounts on Twitter, Facebook and websites like the New York Times. Burkhard took the job because it was an "adventure" and pays considerably more than a professional journalist makes in the nation.

How Russia's 'troll factory' pumps out online propaganda

SSDs and other flash memory devices will soon get cheaper and larger thanks to big announcements from Toshiba and Intel. Both companies revealed new "3D NAND" memory chips that are stacked in layers to pack in more data, unlike single-plane chips currently used. Toshiba said that it's created the world's first 48-layer NAND, yielding a 16GB chip with boosted speeds and reliability.

You'll soon get 10TB SSDs thanks to new memory tech

Despite four-straight down trading days, longtime stock bull Jeremy Siegel said Friday he feels more relaxed about the prospects for stocks than he did two weeks ago. The last time the Wharton school finance professor was on CNBC's "Squawk Box," a week before the Federal Reserve's mid-March meeting, he said stocks may be in for a correction by summer if the central bank moves to raise interest rates. But now, he's more comfortable with the Fed's more tempered stance on rates. "I think the Fed gets it; mostly gets it. I thought they were being way too aggressive in their projections of interest rates. And they have come down on that."

Jeremy Siegel: Why I'm feeling much better about stocks

An interest rate hike by the Federal Reserve may be warranted later this year, with a gradual path expected to follow, although a downturn in core inflation or wage growth could force it to hold off, the central bank's chief said on Friday.

Fed's Yellen says rate hike may be warranted later this year | Reuters

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The graph shows the number of shares outstanding in the WisdomTree Europe Hedged Equity Fund, an ETF that aims to give investors the returns from European stocks without all the risk from the euro currency. So, in other words, investors really, really, really want to hedge against the euro, causing the ETF to increase shares outstanding by more than 250,000 percent.

Chief Paranoia Officers Aren't so Sure About Those Euro Hedges - Bloomberg Business

But there might be ways for us to learn to change that so we can see more of what's out there. Technology and neuroscience together could potentially give us new senses that open up far more of the world. The key, as Eagleman explains, is the brain's ability to take in information and interpret it in a way that we understand.

David Eagleman TED 2015 talk about new senses - Business Insider

To reclaim their audience, manufacturers need to integrate new technology into their laptops to ensure that they’re thought of as cutting edge. The lengths that Apple has gone to in redefining its flagship MacBook computer demonstrates that even the biggest brands must roll out new innovations to stay relevant. Here’s the technology that’ll make your next laptop better.

4 technologies that will make your next laptop better | Digital Trends

There's no chain as well. So it can't come off halfway through your journey to work, and you won't arrive with oil slicks up your suit trousers. Instead, it uses a mechanical drivetrain that's built into the bike's frame. It's completely maintenance free, so no more oily fingers for you. The battery range is 20 miles, which should be more than enough to get you to work and back.

Jivr | Bike: the chainless, folding, beacon-enabled electric bike - News - Trusted Reviews

The Federal Reserve should remain on track to raise interest rates later this year despite the U.S. economy's weak start to the year and a stock market sell-off this week, two Fed officials said on Thursday.

Fed officials say rate hike plan intact despite weak U.S. data - Yahoo Finance

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It’s comical, but tragic too, as a reminder of the indignity the British accept in their accustomed role as subjects, not citizens. Here are church, royalty and army revering a child-killing, wife-slaughtering tyrant who would be on trial if he weren’t 500 years dead.

Britain mourns a monster – because he was a king. Richard III’s burial was absurd | Polly Toynbee | Comment is free | The Guardian

Nearly six months after Bill Gross’s exit, Pacific Investment Management Co.’s flagship Total Return fund is beating most of its rivals. The world’s biggest bond mutual fund has returned 3.730% from the start of October through Tuesday, ahead of 92% of its peers and its benchmark, according to fund-research firm Morningstar Inc. Gross, founder of the Newport Beach, Calif., firm and the fund’s portfolio manager, left in late September following a year of heavy outflows and conflicts with other executives. In the nine months leading up to Gross’s departure, the Total Return fund was trailing 80% of its peers.

Pimco Total Return fund outpaces most of its rivals - MarketWatch

The 10 Best White Shirts for Every Body Type Find your fit, and buy in bulk, if you’re not looking to go bespoke

The 10 Best White Shirts for Every Body Type - Bloomberg Business

Wealthy, orderly, efficient and honestly governed, it is not the work of Lee Kuan Yew alone. But even his severest critics would agree that Mr Lee, who died this week at the age of 91, played an enormous part.

The world's authoritarians are drawing the wrong conclusions about Singapore's success - Business Insider

Businesses like Theranos have the potential to reduce the costs of keeping Americans healthy "by a factor of 10," according to Forrester's James McQuivey, an analyst who tracks the digital disruption of traditional businesses.

How the world's youngest female self-made billionaire is shaking up the health care industry - Business Insider