Remarkable stories from the web in a new, easier format.
Entrepreneurs in the United States are one step closer to being able to raise capital from just about anyone via online investment platforms.
BBC – Capital – How to navigate the crowdfunding landscape
In today’s labor market, the unemployment rate drastically understates the weakness of job opportunities. This is due to the existence of a large pool of “missing workers”—potential workers who, because of weak job opportunities, are neither employed nor actively seeking a job.
Missing Workers: The Missing Part of the Unemployment Story | Economic Policy Institute
Cheap, simple water filters made of plant xylem could dramatically reduce the incidence of water-borne diseases in places without access to clean drinking water, say engineers.
How to Build a Plant Xylem Water Filter | MIT Technology Review
end-market demand in Asia accounted for over 45% of annual demand, while European demand share had declined from approximately 80% in 2010 to less than 35% today…
NewEnergyNews: THE WORLD’S MANY AND SHIFTING PV MARKETS
In 1979, 12 years after the original report calling attention to the appalling hunger in the Deep South and Appalachia, the Field Foundation sent another medical team to roughly the same areas, and it found that despite no sizable improvement in the condition of poverty, there had been a dramatic reduction in hunger and malnutrition as a result of food stamps and other nutrition assistance. The data shows that while a significant number of nonelderly households left the program as their income improved, the group whose participation had increased the most was the working poor.
Why The GOP Really Wants To Decimate Food Stamps – Business Insider
As it turns out, however, Yellen is hardly the dove she is made out to be. Indeed, when it comes to money supply, Dr. Yellen seems, well, downright hawkish.
Yellen, The Hawk? – Business Insider
I’ve never watched a movie monster, heard a fairy tale, or seen a video game with a villain more horrifying than this one. And unlike those monsters, this one is real. To understand the full terror of this monster, you have to put yourself in the place of another animal.
Earlier this month, the former front man for Talking Heads, David Byrne, wrote an essay about how New York was losing its artistic heart and creative edge because of the rising cost of living. “Middle-class people can barely afford to live here anymore, so forget about emerging artists, musicians, actors, dancers, writers, journalists and small business people,” wrote Byrne. “Bit by bit, the resources that keep the city vibrant are being eliminated.”
The Grim Math of the Working-Class Housing Crisis – Sarah Goodyear – The Atlantic Cities
There is a motif, in fiction and in life, of people having wonderful things happen to them, but still ending up unhappy. We can adapt to anything, it seems—you can get your dream job, marry a wonderful human, finally get 1 million dollars or Twitter followers—eventually we acclimate and find new things to complain about.
How to Build a Happier Brain – Julie Beck – The Atlantic
The problem is precisely that the people who really need insurance will be patient and persistent. The people who don’t need insurance as badly may not be. And if that happens, then in year two, costs are going to rise sharply for those sicker, older people left in the exchanges. And Republicans who see Obamacare’s problems as a path to success in 2014 won’t even think about expanding Medicaid.
Sorry liberals, Obamacare’s problems go much deeper than the Web site
JP Morgan has reached a $5.1bn (£3.2bn) settlement with the US Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) over charges it misled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac during the housing boom. A separate settlement with the US Justice Department is expected to be announced soon.
BBC News – JP Morgan settles for $5.1bn with US housing regulator
The state has a planned 2017 launch of the nation’s first universal health care system, a sort of modified Medicare-for-all that has long been a dream for many liberals.
Vermont Is Pushing Ahead With A Healthcare Plan That Goes Far Beyond Obamacare – Business Insider
CEO Elon Musk might be arrogant about his Model S, but he is also realistic about the company’s share price, and he hinted at a warning Thursday that the stock is overvalued.
ELON MUSK: Tesla Stock Is Overvalued – Business Insider
Concern is consequently growing that the downtrend in inflation over the past year or so will continue until the euro area is extremely close to, or in, deflation.
Draghi on the edge of deflation | FT Alphaville
When I first visited Scotland’s distilleries back in 1977, the master blenders scoffed at the new fad for single malt whiskies. Yet every marketer now acknowledges that single malts saved the Scotch industry from a dizzying fall from favor in the 1970s, when white spirits like vodka, rum and tequila grabbed market share.
Whisky Wars: Single Malt Battle with Blended Scotch Rages – Yahoo Finance
Microsoft (MSFT) has kicked off the marketing push for its second generation of Surface tablets. But the company is still missing a huge opportunity by failing to connect with its base of some 50 million active Xbox video gamers.
A lot of investment advisors are calling clients now to suggest investments in Europe, and some of these conversations are probably pretty tortuous. Much of Europe, with its ongoing credit crises and 25%-ish unemployment (as in Spain) in parts, still looks like a mess unfit for conservative investors. Even bullish investment gurus occasionally describe economies there in worrisome phrases like “getting less bad.” So why should a cautious, risk-averse investor take a chance on anything over there now?
If Europe’s the Place, What’s the Investment Play?
The euro is only set to get stronger this week, according to currency analysts, with the dollar weakening further against the single currency as the U.S. Federal Reserve is poised to put delay “tapering” its bond-buying program.
Currency markets reach ‘Europhoria’ amid dollar dip
