Remarkable stories from the web in a new, easier format.
The scientists say that males die in large numbers after mating with as many partners as possible in sex sessions lasting up to 14 hours at a time. A key factor in this costly coitus is the promiscuous behaviour of females who all breed at the same time of year.
BBC News – Sex is matter of life, then death for male marsupials
U.S. economic confidence plunged more in the past week than in any week since the collapse of Lehman Brothers on September 15, 2008 — the catalyst for the financial crisis and U.S. recession.
Biggest Confidence Drop Since 2008 – Business Insider
Despite all of the uncertainties in the world today, Goldman Sachs’ David Kostin sees the S&P 500 rallying to 1,750 by the end of the year. But Kostin’s team doesn’t think every stock is a winner.
Goldman: Stocks With Most Downside – Business Insider
“We view the upcoming ruling from the German Constitutional Court on the ECB’s OMT program as a bigger tail risk than U.S. government shutdown or default,” says Guha in a note to clients.
German Court Ruling Versus US Default – Business Insider
There was a fantastic piece in The Atlantic back in 2000 about psychiatrists dealing with people who wanted to have their limbs cut off because it would make them feel more like themselves to be amputees. The doctors’ big dilemma was whether or not to treat “apotemnophilia” as a diagnosable mental illness. If they engaged with it as a mental illness that existed and was recognized by the medical community, they ran the risk of encouraging more patients to identify with it.
What are Conservative Experts Saying About Breaking Through the Debt Ceiling? | Next New Deal
The Federal Reserve shows banks have an astonishing $2.3 trillion in excess reserves — that is capital available for lending but merely sitting on bank balance sheets. Prior to the financial crisis, that figure was at about $1.5 billion.
Why Banks Aren’t Lending – TheStreet
That said, in a head to head comparison Janet Yellen emerges as the much better choice. Here’s why:
1) The simplest reason is that she is more conventionally qualified for the job, boasting a much longer entry in her CV as a monetary policymaker. That includes her current gig as Fed vice chair. Not much more to add here.
2) Yellen has a much better track record than Summers at diagnosing economic conditions in real-time. A perusal of the 2007 FOMC transcripts reveals that she was much more worried than her colleagues about the potentially systemic damage that a housing downturn would bring about, and even pointed to shadow banking as a locus of trouble. This was before many others, even high-level policymakers, understood how these markets could pose a threat (or even how they worked). Bill McBride rounds up several more examples of her prescience dating back to 2005. The contrast with Summers is stark.
Why Yellen should be the next Fed chair | FT Alphaville
In his role at the ECB, Asmussen has had to address concerns that ordinary European savers could be affected, if the ongoing bailout of struggling economies like Portugal and Greece means deposits could be called on. Depositors could still be tapped if a European bank lender failed in the future, he conceded but stressed it would only be as a last resort.
Bank depositors may still be tapped: ECB – Yahoo Finance
But how often is the crystal ball gazing generated by Wall Street analysts about prescription drug sales actually accurate? Well, it turns out, not so often, at least according to a new analysis by Nature Reviews Drug Discovery.
How Much Do Analysts Hype Drug Launches?
Fortunately, thanks to advances in technology, to include the Internet, financial information is more readily available and accessible to investors than it has ever been. Therefore, due diligence is significantly easier to conduct today than it was in years gone by. Even better, much of the essential information can be gathered at little or no cost.
Medtronic, Inc. (MDT): What Is Due Diligence? Here’s How I Do It – Seeking Alpha
British industrial output suffered an unexpected fall in August as factories cut production, official data showed on Wednesday, casting some doubt on the positive message about the economy from private-sector surveys.
UK factories drive shock fall in August industrial output
Fears that struggling euro zone country Slovenia are closer to asking for an international bailout re-emerged this week with lawmakers warning that the country might soon not be able to fund itself.
Slovenia reaching ‘tipping point’ as bailout looms
“We do not think that China or Japan would sell significant amounts of the U.S. Treasury holdings. These holdings were built up as part of their FX reserve diversification programs and these flows are unlikely to be unwound,” said David Forrester, senior vice president, G10 FX Strategy at Macquarie.
If US defaults, will China bail on Treasurys?
