[Winstonm]

I wonder what percentage of voters are giving credence to Devin Nunes's newest maneuver to attack the Russian investigation? Has he reached the Chicken Little point with Republicans?

[Al_U_Card]

Speaking of Russians, Bolshevism, Domino Theory, Red Menace etc., it seems that the populace is constantly being goaded into fearing imminent peril at the hands of forces against which their freedoms must be protected by removing them.... Seeing as Terrorism is the latest bogey-man, where did all the commies go? Were they beaten? Are they in hiding? Ahhh, where might their nefarious plans for coercion and control be maintained covertly since the current Russian "menace" is quite overt, if not ostentatious.

[RedSpawn]

Superb article about who's to blame for HOUSING BUBBLE COLLAPSE in 2008:

https://www.publicin...risis-who-blame

Covers the blame from a comprehensive angle. . .

[y66]

From Redesigning the toilet for areas without running water at Financial Times December 8, 2017

Quote

“We’ve proved that the technology works but now we’re testing how rugged its components are and what materials might be used to increase longevity and drive down costs,” says Mr Elledge. “Then there’s the challenge of processing human waste, figuring out the differences between vegetarian and nonvegetarian diets in terms of the carbs coming into the system and the impact that this has on its energy-capture capabilities,” he says.

Two years from now, RTI hopes to commercialise the system through manufacturing partnerships with local companies, the priorities being India and South Africa. This way the project could create jobs as well as boosting hygiene. As Dr Parker at Cranfield puts it: “Good sanitation isn’t just an end in itself. It has huge knock-on benefits that can really change people’s lives for the better.”

One of several interesting topics discussed recently by Bill Gates, Steven Pincker and Philip Galanes at NYT.

[y66]

This item made Rana Foroohar's top 4 list of Magic Mountain moments at Davos:

Quote

Human capital may get its own line on the balance sheet. Why can business write off investments in factories or software but not talent? Public officials and private sector leaders alike agreed that retraining workers – and fast – to cope with the digital revolution is key to maintaining social and political stability. But businesses in the US need incentives of the sort offered in countries like the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden or Singapore in order to make the necessary investments. The week before Davos, twelve US Senators discussed the issue, and there’s now growing interest on both sides of the aisle in applying tax breaks to human capital as we do to financial capital in any future tax reform package. That would require new accounting methods.

Good idea to get companies thinking about how to quantify this. Ditto for anyone who cares about the long term future of the water cooler and its effect on BBO ad revenue.

[y66]

This appeared on the chalkboard at my neighborhood coffee shop:

How did the coffee-loving hipster burn his tongue?

Spoiler

He drank it before it was cool.

[y66]

From Amazon, Berkshire, JPMorgan Move to Target Health-Care Costs by Zachary Taylor and Chitra Somayaji at Bloomberg:

Quote

Three corporate giants are teaming up to combat what billionaire Warren Buffett calls a “hungry tapeworm” feasting on the U.S. economy: health care.

Amazon.com Inc., Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. said they plan to collaborate on a way to offer health-care services to their U.S. employees more transparently and at a lower cost. The three companies plan to set up a new independent company “that is free from profit-making incentives and constraints,” according to a short statement on Tuesday.

[y66]

Nothing new for wc people in this story at The Economist titled A revolution in health care is coming. Good summary.

Sure, a lot of people don't want to be in charge of their health care but it's not all or nothing. Owning our health records, in the same way we own our bank accounts, is revolutionary. Once that happens, the tools for collecting, managing and sharing health data will explode. This has risks. What doesn't?

Looks like Google is taking a second look at some of the ideas Adam Bosworth tinkered with a few years ago. Training AI on patient owned medical life history data (and family history data) is also revolutionary.

[Winstonm]

Some things are too good not to share.

[y66]

From Yellen, Departing Fed, Will Join Brookings by Binyamin Appelbaum:

Quote

WASHINGTON — Janet L. Yellen, who completed her term as Federal Reserve chairwoman on Friday, plans to start a new job on Monday morning as a fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution.

Ms. Yellen will follow a well-worn path from the Fed’s marble headquarters on Constitution Avenue to the nearby Brookings building on Massachusetts Avenue. The roster of Brookings fellows includes her immediate predecessor as Fed chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, and no fewer than three of her predecessors as Fed’s vice chairman: Donald Kohn, Alice Rivlin and Alan Blinder.

“I’m delighted to be joining the Brookings Institution,” Ms. Yellen said in a statement released by the Brookings. “I look forward to continuing to study the economy, especially issues related to the labor market, and contributing to public policy debates on a range of economic issues.”

For Brookings, Ms. Yellen’s arrival fortifies its recent focus on monetary policy, a subject that has commanded significantly greater public interest and scholarly debate since the 2008 financial crisis.

“I congratulate Janet on her outstanding public service and look forward to being her colleague at the Brookings Institution,” Mr. Bernanke tweeted.

For Ms. Yellen, 71, it is a new professional home. She and her husband, George Akerlof, were longtime professors at the University of California, Berkeley, where they still own a house, but Mr. Akerlof is now a professor at Georgetown University.

Ms. Yellen’s four-year term at the Fed ended on a high note Friday. The government estimated that the economy added 200,000 jobs in January, while the unemployment rate held at 4.1 percent. It is the first time the economy has added jobs during every month of a Fed chair’s tenure.

Fed Up, a coalition of unions and community groups, said it would deliver a giant “Thank You” card to the Fed on Friday afternoon to celebrate Ms. Yellen’s success in reducing unemployment.

Fed employees have celebrated Ms. Yellen’s tenure this week by wearing shirts or jackets with the collar turned up, or “popped,” a style that Ms. Yellen has made familiar in her public appearances.

wdj

[y66]

Highlights from Janet Yellen's exit interview with Judy Woodruff at PBS.:

Quote

The job market and the economy are growing stronger and at a healthy pace.

For “almost all groups in the American economy … you’re seeing plentiful jobs and wages beginning to rise at a slightly faster pace.”

Stock market valuations are elevated beyond their usual historic levels, including the ratio of price to earnings. Yellen stopped short of characterizing the market’s rise in recent months as a bubble.

The financial system is more resilient now than it was during the financial crisis of 2008. Still, she said, “investors should be careful and, I would say, diversified in their investments.”

Productivity — a key barometer watched by the Fed — has been weaker than hoped. The pace of new firms being created over the past decade was slower than usual.

Yellen stressed the importance of maintaining financial regulations, arguing that demands for higher capital from large banks was a crucial buffer for the economy. She also criticized Republican efforts to roll back regulations in the Dodd-Frank law. “I think all of us need to remember the financial crisis, the terrible toll it took on Americans — the lost jobs, lost homes, lost retirement savings.”

[y66]

From German union wins right to 28-hour working week and 4.3% pay rise by Guy Chazan at FT:

Quote

German workers won a key victory in their fight for a better work-life balance when a big employers’ group agreed to demands from the country’s largest trade union for the introduction of a 28-hour working week.

The agreement between IG Metall, which represents a wide swath of industrial workers, and the Südwestmetall employers’ federation, shows how unions in Germany, that for years have been a model of wage restraint, are flexing their muscles in ways more typical of organised labour in France, home of the 35-hour working week.

It also comes with Germany in the midst of its longest postwar stretch without a government and Angela Merkel struggling through her fifth month of coalition negotiations, raising questions about whether a country that once lectured Europe on economic and political stability is suddenly losing its way.

The labour agreement is a product of Germany’s economic boom, which has given unions an unusually strong hand in collective bargaining talks this year. Last year, the economy grew at its fastest rate since 2011 and unemployment is at its lowest since reunification in 1990.

Stefan Wolf, Südwestmetall’s chief negotiator, warned that the agreement was a “burden, which will be hard to bear for many firms”.

The wage settlement was reached in the early hours of Tuesday after six rounds of often bruising talks and a series of 24-hour strikes.

The two-year deal covers 900,000 workers in the metals and electrical industries in Baden-Württemberg, home to several of Germany’s most high-profile industrial groups, including Daimler, the carmaker, and Bosch.

But IG Metall’s agreements tend to be seen as benchmarks for the whole of German industry, and it is now expected to be rolled out in other sectors.

The parties agreed on a 4.3 per cent wage raise from April, and other payments spread over 27 months. Workers will be allowed to reduce their working week from the standard 35 hours to 28, while preserving the right to return to full-time work.

Employers successfully resisted IG Metall’s demand that workers receive the same, or similar, pay for fewer hours worked a week.

Experts said the deal reflected a new mindset among younger workers. “More and more people have periods in their lives when they want to work less, for example to look after elderly relatives, or to take a sabbatical or unpaid leave,” said Hanna Schwander, professor of public policy at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin.

The days when employees joined a company at an early age, worked full time most of their lives and retired early were “long gone” and it was becoming “increasingly important for people to reconcile their personal and professional lives”, she said.

In an editorial, the business daily Handelsblatt said the deal reflected “the credo of the new age: that time is more valuable than money”.

“The wage settlement is a milestone on the path to a modern, self-determined world of work,” said Jörg Hofmann, IG Metall’s chairman.

[Winstonm]

Just a reminder that when organized crime investigations come to a close, they do so in one fell swoop: (This is from archives and is not current news)

Quote

NEW YORK — The FBI arrested more than 40 alleged members of New York City mobs Thursday on suspicion of arson, health care fraud and illegal gambling, among other charges, officials said.

Those arrested include members of four of the five major Italian mafia families that allegedly dominate organized crime in the New York City area: the Genovese, Gambino, Luchese and Bonanno families. Also arrested were suspected members of the Philadelphia Organized Crime Family.

Most of the criminal activities were based in New York City, federal officials said. Arrests were carried out in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Florida.

Tick-tock, tick-tock...

[y66]

From Tim Harford’s guide to statistics in a misleading age at the Financial Times:

Quote

... my statistical postcard begins with advice about emotion rather than logic. When you encounter a new statistical claim, observe your feelings. Yes, it sounds like a line from Star Wars, but we rarely believe anything because we’re compelled to do so by pure deduction or irrefutable evidence. We have feelings about many of the claims we might read — anything from “inequality is rising” to “chocolate prevents dementia”. If we don’t notice and pay attention to those feelings, we’re off to a shaky start.

What sort of feelings? Defensiveness. Triumphalism. Righteous anger. Evangelical fervour. Or, when it comes to chocolate and dementia, relief. It’s fine to have an emotional response to a chart or shocking statistic — but we should not ignore that emotion, or be led astray by it.

There are certain claims that we rush to tell the world, others that we use to rally like-minded people, still others we refuse to believe. Our belief or disbelief in these claims is part of who we feel we are. “We all process information consistent with our tribe,” says Dan Kahan, professor of law and psychology at Yale University.

In 2005, Charles Taber and Milton Lodge, political scientists at Stony Brook University, New York, conducted experiments in which subjects were invited to study arguments around hot political issues. Subjects showed a clear confirmation bias: they sought out testimony from like-minded organisations. For example, subjects who opposed gun control would tend to start by reading the views of the National Rifle Association. Subjects also showed a disconfirmation bias: when the researchers presented them with certain arguments and invited comment, the subjects would quickly accept arguments with which they agreed, but devote considerable effort to disparage opposing arguments. 

Expertise is no defence against this emotional reaction; in fact, Taber and Lodge found that better-informed experimental subjects showed stronger biases. The more they knew, the more cognitive weapons they could aim at their opponents. “So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature,” commented Benjamin Franklin, “since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.”

This is why it’s important to face up to our feelings before we even begin to process a statistical claim. If we don’t at least acknowledge that we may be bringing some emotional baggage along with us, we have little chance of discerning what’s true. As the physicist Richard Feynman once commented, “You must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.”

[Winstonm]

Quote

Budget adds hundreds of billions of dollars for defense, domestic kickback and skimming programs

FTP

[y66]

From In Conversation: Quincy Jones by David Marchese at Vulture:

Quote

Wasn’t Hendrix supposed to play on Gula Matari?

He was supposed to play on my album and he chickened out. He was nervous to play with Toots Thielemans, Herbie Hancock, Hubert Laws, Roland Kirk — those are some scary mother*****ers. Toots was one of the greatest soloists that ever ***** lived. The cats on my records were the baddest cats in the world and Hendrix didn’t want to play with them.

What’d you think when you first heard rock music?

Rock ain’t nothing but a white version of rhythm and blues, mother*****er. You know, I met Paul McCartney when he was 21.

What were your first impressions of the Beatles?

That they were the worst musicians in the world. They were no-playing mother*****ers. Paul was the worst bass player I ever heard. And Ringo? Don’t even talk about it. I remember once we were in the studio with George Martin, and RingoJones arranged a version of “Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing” for Starr’s 1970 solo debut album Sentimental Journey, which was produced by the Beatles’ frequent collaborator George Martin. The song, and album, are more than a bit gloopy. had taken three hours for a four-bar thing he was trying to fix on a song. He couldn’t get it. We said, “Mate, why don’t you get some lager and lime, some shepherd’s pie, and take an hour-and-a-half and relax a little bit.” So he did, and we called Ronnie Verrell, a jazz drummer. Ronnie came in for 15 minutes and tore it up. Ringo comes back and says, “George, can you play it back for me one more time?” So George did, and Ringo says, “That didn’t sound so bad.” And I said, “Yeah, mother*****er because it ain’t you.” Great guy, though.

Were there any rock musicians you thought were good?

I used to like Clapton’s band. What were they called?

Cream.

Yeah, they could play. But you know who sings and plays just like Hendrix?

Who?

Paul AllenThe Microsoft co-founder and multibillionaire has a collection of yachts and guitars to rival the world’s finest, both of which he apparently makes good use of. .

Stop it. The Microsoft guy?

Yeah, man. I went on a trip on his yacht, and he had David Crosby, Joe Walsh, Sean Lennon — all those crazy mother*****ers. Then on the last two days, Stevie Wonder came on with his band and made Paul come up and play with him — he’s good, man.

[y66]

Matt Levine at Bloomberg on corporate culture:

Quote

Here is a business story that I really want to read:

XYZ Co. is well-known for its chill corporate culture. It is common for bosses to ask their teams to ship a new product within a week, and for the teams to say "man actually we have Warriors tickets that week how is next month for you?" Managers demand the possible and take no for an answer; they set easily achievable goals and then, when their subordinates fail to achieve those goals, they chuckle and say "ehh what are you gonna do."

The results are undeniable: Sales have grown at 500 percent a year for five years, XYZ is a leading technological innovator, and it is on its way to overtake Apple Inc. as the most valuable public company in the world.

I am not saying that those companies are out there. Though I hope they are? Don't you want to think that capitalism and success and a nice life are compatible? Wouldn't it be nice if people were pushing the envelope of technological innovation, you know, when they got around to it?

But instead there are basically two kinds of business story:

1. XYZ Co. is well-known for its hard-charging corporate culture where managers demand the impossible and don't take no for an answer, and the result is wild success and regular appearances by the CEO on the cover of magazines as a corporate hero.

2. XYZ Co. is well-known for its hard-charging corporate culture where managers demand the impossible and don't take no for an answer, and the result is misery, fraud, and regular appearances by the CEO on the cover of magazines as a cautionary tale.

I am sure that there are identifiable cultural differences that distinguish category 1 from category 2. (Maybe you have to demand the impossible politely to get your underlings to deliver it? Or you have to add "but don't do fraud!" at the end of every impossible demand?) But it is tempting to imagine that the outcome is random, that a hard-charging demand-the-impossible never-take-no-for-an-answer culture is just a way to achieve high variance in outcomes, and that the leaders who end up on the right tail of the distribution are praised for that culture while the ones who end up in the left tail are blamed for it. Even if it's the same culture.

Anyway here's a story about General Electric Co. and its former chief executive officer Jeffrey Immelt called "How Jeffrey Immelt's 'Success Theater' Masked the Rot at GE":

Mr. Immelt and his top deputies projected an optimism about GE’s business and its future that didn’t always match the reality of its operations or its markets, according to more than a dozen current and former executives, investors and people close to the company.

This culture of confidence trickled down the ranks and even affected how those gunning to succeed Mr. Immelt ran their business units, some of these people said, with consequences that included unreachable financial targets, mistimed bets on markets and sometimes poor decisions on how to deploy cash. ...

There's a little chart of the stock price under Immelt (down) and under his lionized predecessor Jack Welch (up). Did the culture change that much? "GE itself has never been a culture where people can say, ‘I can’t,’" says a consultant. But sometimes they could, and that culture was good, and sometimes they couldn't and it was bad.

[y66]

For real HTT fans there's only one Olympic sport that matters and although Saturday's final match is a near foregone conclusion, the comeback of the USA men's curling team to get that far will live in glory forever on this thread.

[Al_U_Card]

y66, on 2018-February-22, 15:50, said:

For real HTT fans there's only one Olympic sport that matters and although Saturday's final match is a near foregone conclusion, the comeback of the USA men's curling team to get that far will live in glory forever on this thread.

Having curled for over 50 years (a few of them competitive) Shuster is a poster-child for the ugly duckling turned swan. He has been in a zone and came through with his back to the wall.
In a recent bonspeil, we were in the A final, down 5-0 at the break and I told my team that it was on me as they had played well and I had missed the key shots so far....BUT that we could still come back with a litle luck... they hung in there and a couple of TV shots later, we ran the opps out of rocks in the last end. Shuster has inspired his team to well beyond anything they have shown to date and they well deserve their berth in the final. As much as I like Nick and the Swedes (and their chances) I will be rooting for the US as a worthy underdog.

[y66]

y66, on 2018-February-22, 15:50, said:

For real HTT fans there's only one Olympic sport that matters and although Saturday's final match is not a foregone conclusion, no matter what happens, the comeback of the USA men's curling team will live in glory forever on this thread.

fmp