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Collateralized debt obligations, the complex financial instruments that cratered disastrously in the financial crisis, are back.

Financial Crisis-Era Derivatives Are Making A Comeback – Business Insider

The company calls it “the world’s first Quad HD AH-IPS LCD panel for smartphones.” It packs its 2,560 x 1,440 resolution into a 5.5-inch LCD form factor.

LG reveals world’s first ‘Quad HD’ smartphone display – News – Trusted Reviews

A housing crash, rising unemployment and weak growth leaves the AAA-rated Netherlands teetering on the brink of a credit downgrade. But analysts said more is at risk than the country’s perfect credit rating, with political tensions and dismal domestic consumption at risk of dragging down the euro zone’s fledgling recovery.

‘Abysmal’ Dutch economy threatens euro zone recovery

A toxic combination of depressed employment participation rates, weak real growth and the onset of Obamacare, will force the Federal Reserve to increase rather than decrease quantitative easing next year, according to the chief economist at SaxoBank.

Why tapering talk may be a ‘temporary sideshow’

Redox Power Systems promises $800-per-kW SOFC cells—one-tenth the price of Bloom. Now it has to build one.

Could This Be the Fuel Cell to Beat All Fuel Cells? : Greentech Media

Walking through Le Corbusier’s exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, I was surprised by how many of the great modernist architect’s designs were never built. They were simply too radical, and none more so than his 1925 proposal to demolish two square miles of downtown Paris.

Le Corbusier’s Plan Voisin For Paris – Business Insider

Harvard professor John Kotter decided to find out. He shadowed 15 high performing executives, interviewed them, and talked to their subordinates. This took months.

12 Things That Effective Leaders Actually Do – Business Insider

The IMF admitted for a second time in almost as many months that it had misjudged the effect of austerity on a country that has been mired in recession for six years.

IMF admits it misjudged impact of austerity on Greece – Telegraph

The $9 trillion (£5.8 trillion) accumulation of foreign bonds by the rising powers of Asia, Latin America and the emerging world risks going into reverse as one country after another is forced to liquidate holdings to shore up its currency, threatening to inflict a credit shock on the global economy.

Emerging market rout threatens wider global economy – Telegraph

We tend to assume that since we’re the largest economy, the temporary sole superpower, the longest standing democracy, that we must be No. 1 in most things. And we’re not. We’re below average on the state of our critical infrastructure. We’re below average with regard to healthcare outcomes, K-12 education, the amount of public resources we’re allocating to research and development. We spend over twice per person what other industrialized nations spend on healthcare and K-12 education and yet we get below-average results. So the answer is not to spend more money. The answer is you’ve got to dramatically reform the system.

Former Top US Accountant: Govt ‘Spends a Trillion Dollars Like It’s Nothing’

Emerging market nations can be adversely affected by large swings in investment, and must therefore develop tools to control credit flows or risk relinquishing any independent monetary policy.

Emerging countries must be able to control capital flows: study | Fox Business

There is nothing wrong with the US economy that a measure of redistribution towards both the less well-paid and public services would not put right.

Yes, productivity matters – but it is not everything – FT.com

As Bruce Katz and Jennifer Bradley point out in their important new book, The Metropolitan Revolution , US cities are positioning themselves at the cutting edge of reform, investment and innovation. It is, they write, “city and metropolitan leaders” who are reshaping America, – along with university leaders, chief executives, unions, environmental groups, civic organisations and charities.

America’s last frontier shows the need for government – FT.com

The question some are asking is whether this is just a contagion-driven panic or are there fundamental flaws in the economy? Just as the case with India (see post), trade imbalance in Indonesia is behind some of this adjustment. In the past, foreign investment covered up the problem, but the party is now over. Investors – not surprisingly – have become uneasy with the chart below:

The End Of Cheap US Cash Claims Another Victim: Indonesia – Business Insider

Scientists may have just invented an amazing new way to clean up oil spills by mimicking the ingenious physics of cactus needles.

Cactus Needles Clean Up Oil Spills – Business Insider

Harper says to drink 16 oz of water before every single meal, which makes you feel full. Previous studies have suggested that drinking water 20 to 30 minutes before a meal causes people to eat fewer calories later on, perhaps because they are not confusing hunger with thirst.

Lose Weight Drinking Water Before Meals – Business Insider

There was the housing bubble, of course. But before that there was the dot-com bubble; before that the Asian bubble of the mid-1990s; before that the commercial real estate bubble of the 1980s. That last bubble, by the way, imposed a huge cost on taxpayers, who had to bail out failed savings-and-loan institutions. The thing is, it wasn’t always thus. The ’50s, the ’60s, even the troubled ’70s, weren’t nearly as bubble-prone. So what changed?

This Age of Bubbles – NYTimes.com