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Global deleveraging continues to be a major force shaping the 2014 investment outlook, according to Gary Shilling. This implies, “Continuing slow U.S. economic growth at about 2% annually; further reduction in the Fed’s security purchases; slow inflation worldwide with deflation a strong possibility; uncertainty over gridlock in Washington including troubled Obamacare; rising protectionism; further regulation of financial institutions here and abroad; and slow growth in developing economies that depend on exports to developed lands that will also continue to grow slowly at best.”

FINANCIAL ADVISOR INSIGHTS: January 8 – Business Insider

This question reflects a really poor level of understanding of some basic economic principles. The statement “only fools save” can only be consistent with the data if the number of fools has increased dramatically in recent years. Interest rates are low because saving is high (and investment is low). Not the other way around.

Antonio Fatas on the Global Economy: The increasing number of Euro fools.

Meanwhile, in other nations with low rates of social mobility, such as Italy, greater government redistribution softens the blow. The children of the poor may end up poor, but their poverty is less biting than in the United States. And of course there are some countries that are both equal and enjoy mobility, such as those in Scandinavia. Inequality and immobility are a toxic combination regardless. An unequal, immobile society will mutate into a stratified one with sharply separated classes, generation after generation.

What the Inequality Debate Leaves Out | Brookings Institution

Manufacturing output is returning to pre-recession levels, exports are continuing to grow,and the trade balance is shrinking.

Econbrowser: Progress in Rebalancing

So, here’s a scatterchart of the effective marginal corporate tax rate—the tax on the marginal cost of capital in the corporate sector—against employment growth

Take a Walk on the Supply Side…Actually, Don’t | Jared Bernstein | On the Economy

Efforts to shrink government deficits and debts have been economically painful and have held back short-term growth. But in 2014, that fiscal drag is expected to ease significantly in the much of the developed world.

Reduced Fiscal Drag In US, UK, Euro – Business Insider

Razer wants Project Christine to be the last computer you ever buy—an easily upgradeable, modular PC that, if concept becomes reality, gives anyone the power to customize their machine with little technical know-how. Each component—the CPU, the GPU, the hard drive—is separate and simply inserts into one of the PCI-Express slots on the central backbone.
Want to replace your graphics card? No need to wrangle wires or fret about touching your exposed motherboard—you just pull the old card out of its slot and put the new one in.

The PC’s weird and wonderful future | PCWorld

AMD’s unnamed “Envelope PC” is one of the most interesting proof-of-concepts at CES this year. The nickname is appropriate—this tiny case is about as large as a business-size mailing envelope, and as thick as a smartphone. AMD built the device to show off the power of its upcoming “Mullins” chip—an extremely low-power, high-performance chip that AMD claims delivers desktop performance in a size mobile devices can accommodate.

The PC’s weird and wonderful future | PCWorld

And Acer’s not the only one. Lenovo’s 28-inch ThinkVision 4K monitor also doubles as an Android all-in-one.

The PC’s weird and wonderful future | PCWorld

Amprius, a startup working on a new type of long-lasting lithium-ion batteries for laptops and electric vehicles, has started to sell its batteries for use in portable electronics. The company recently raised $30 million in venture capital to develop its next-generation batteries, which use high-energy silicon electrodes. The company says the batteries will store about 50 percent more energy than the battery cells in today’s electric vehicles.

High Energy Silicon Batteries Edge Closer to Market | MIT Technology Review

Demand for euro zone peripheral government bonds helped the euro extended its rebound from a one-month low against the dollar on Friday, as investors looked to U.S. jobs data for direction on the dollar.

FOREX-Euro edges higher on demand for peripheral bonds – Yahoo Finance

Worryingly low inflation in the euro zone may have spurred deflation fears, but it’s actually a sign that the region’s economy is recovering from its crisis, Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem told CNBC.

Europe’s disinflation isn’t a worry: Eurogroup President

Skagen AS, a Norway-based investor that has outperformed funds run by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) over the past decade, is telling clients to ignore Wall Street’s biggest banks and buy emerging markets.

Skagen Says Ignore Wall Street, Bet on Emerging Markets – Bloomberg

The European Central Bank is ready to take “decisive action” using all available tools to spur the Eurozone’s weak recovery, President Mario Draghi said Thursday.

European Central Bank ready for ‘decisive action’ to aid economy – latimes.com

TABLET FLOGGER Microsoft is rumoured to be putting the Nvidia Tegra K1 processor, announced at CES in Las Vegas this week, its next generation of Surface tablets.

Microsoft is expected to put the Nvidia Tegra K1 in Surface tablets- The Inquirer

The Australian TV company may have just launched the 4K bargain of the year with its 55-inch UHDTV model that costs AUS$999. This equates to just £542 in the UK.

Kogan launches 55-inch 4K TV for £540, could come to UK – News – Trusted Reviews

The cold snap has sparked the inevitable snow trolling—that this weather somehow disproves climate change’s existence

Polar Vortex: Republican Reaction Explains Why Scientists Are Democrat | New Republic

Americans, like the tourists of Maldives who are unwittingly helping bury the nation under garbage, are pushing one of the country’s most important resources to the limits. Namely, spectrum, which carries our mobile data. The advances to fix the congestion around mobile data in the next decade could determine whether or not we unlock the next great technology revolution.

Technology’s Next Big Thing Is Almost Here…

Aquion Energy says its sodium-ion battery technology can solve these problems. The Pittsburgh, Pa.-based startup says its technology can deliver round-trip energy efficiency of 85 percent, a ten-year, 5,000-plus-cycle lifespan, energy storage capacity optimized to charge and discharge for multi-hour applications, and perhaps most notably, a price point of $250 per kilowatt-hour — much lower than the $500-and-up per kilowatt-hour of today’s competing technologies.

Aquion Energy Closes $55M VC Round for Grid-Scale Battery Plans : Greentech Media

The move, Verbanac said, supports a growing trend toward distributed energy sources. “Significant cost reductions in recent years,” Verbanac said, “permit this type of energy source to compete with many of the traditional generation sources.”

Leading Utility Holding Company Integrys Moves Into Residential Solar : Greentech Media

The economy has been changing, and new forces are causing inequality to feed on itself.

The Vicious Circle of Income Inequality – NYTimes.com

The link between higher national income and higher national life satisfaction is critical to economic policymaking. This column presents new evidence that the connection is hump-shaped. There is a clear, positive relation in the poorer nations and regions, but it flattens out at around $30,000–$35,000, and then turns negative.

GDP and life satisfaction: New evidence | vox

Put all these advances together, say the authors, and you can see that our generation will have more power to improve (or destroy) the world than any before, relying on fewer people and more technology. But it also means that we need to rethink deeply our social contracts, because labor is so important to a person’s identity and dignity and to societal stability.

If I Had a Hammer – NYTimes.com

“2014 will be the year the ’quantified self’ goes mainstream.” Those were the words Silicon Valley prodigy Marc Andreessen used in a recent article to describe changes about to happen to American healthcare. The ‘quantified self,’ also known as lifelogging, is a trend toward gathering all possible data about our daily life, such as the food we eat, quality of the air we inhale, our mood, oxygen levels, as well as our physical and mental performance.

Eight Reason Why Future Computers will make better Decisions than Doctors

More than ever recently, industry pundits have been warning that the progress of the semiconductor industry is grinding to a halt — and that the theory of Dr. Moore, an Intel co-founder, has run its course.

Designing the Next Wave of Computer Chips – NYTimes.com

Healthcare spending only increased 3.7 percent in 2012, and actually fell as a share of GDP. Will it last or is this just a blip?

Everything You Need to Know About the Healthcare Slowdown – Matthew O’Brien – The Atlantic

For the right-wing American libertarian with deep-seated problems with Big Government, the 19th century challenge to “Go West, young man” retains a powerful appeal. But for the current target audience – the free-wheeling capitalist dotcom millionaire in Silicon Valley – going west means getting wet.

Not an issue, according to a new design report investigating the feasibility of “seasteads”, communities of like-minded, self-governing individuals established on the high seas, free from what proponents see as the restrictions of nations, welfare systems and punitive taxes.

Floating laboratories for libertarian dream – Technology – NZ Herald News