Financial Markets and Economy
No Clear Winner (Yet) In Global Oil Markets War (Forbes)
Oil market wars may seem like an unusual title for an energy article, but that’s exactly what’s been happening in global oil markets for more than two years.
Negative interest rates will have toxic side effects (Independent)
Since 2008, policymakers have sought to use low rates to boost economic growth and increase inflation in order to bring elevated debt levels under control. Low rates should encourage debt-financed consumption and investment, feeding a virtuous cycle of expansion.
Germany Won’t Bail Out Banks, Including Deutsche Bank, Financial Collapse Possible (The Coin Telegraph)
Germany does not intend to bail out any failing banks, including Deutsche Bank.
According to Hans Michelbach, a senior lawmaker in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s voting bloc, resistance is growing to the possibility of stepping in to rescue a failing financial institution.
Three Chinese cities restrict property purchases (Reuters)
Three Chinese cities have announced new restrictions on property purchases, as second- and third-tier cities across the country to try to cool soaring home prices stoked by property speculators.
Saudi Stocks Plunge to Multi-Year Lows on Austerity (Reuters)
Saudi Arabia’s stock market plunged to its lowest close since March 2011 on Sunday because of fears the government could introduce more austerity measures to curb a big budget deficit caused by low oil prices.
Bonds are way riskier than your financial adviser says (Yahoo Finance)
Last month, I mentioned that retail investors have been seduced by a can’t-lose investing strategy that might stop working (and fail spectacularly) right at the worst possible time.
Here are the top jobs in the next decade (Visual Capitalist)
Are you a job seeker looking to play a very ambitious long game?
While the automation potential of many jobs today is undoubtedly high, we also know that technology is going to create many new positions that we never could have imagined.
Atlantic City's fiscal gamble could end in bankruptcy (The Hill)
After years of rising costs and declining revenues, Atlantic City officials are embarking on an ambitious and risky gambit that could save their city from bankruptcy — or plunge them deeper into the financial doldrums.
China has the markets totally fooled (Business Insider)
For the past few months, markets haven't heard a peep from China.
After an incredibly volatile start to the year, analysts and economists all over the world believe that the Chinese economy has stabilized.
It’s not just Deutsche. European banking is utterly broken (The Telegraph)
A little while back I somewhat unwisely penned a column declaring the financial crisis essentially over. All I meant by this was that with the return of full employment and rising living standards, most of the economic wounds of the crisis had healed, at least in the US and the UK.
Deutsche Bank Charged By Italy For Market Manipulation, Creating False Accounts (Zero Hedge)
One day after its stock soared from all time lows, following what so far appears to have been a fabricated report sourced by AFP which relied on Twitter as a source that the DOJ would reduce its RMBS settlement amount with Deutsche Bank from $14 billion to below $6 billion (and which neither the DOJ nor Deutsche Bank have confirmed for obvious reasons), moments ago Bloomberg reported that six current and former managers of Deutsche Bank, including Michele Faissola, Michele Foresti and Ivor Dunbar, were charged in Milan for colluding to falsify the accounts of Italy’s third-biggest bank, Monte Paschi (which itself is so insolvent it is currently scrambling to finalize a private sector bailout) and manipulate the market.
The Biggest Heist in Human History (Counter Punch)
Here’s your economics quiz for the day:
Question 1– What do you think would happen if you put $3 trillion into the financial system?
Bad Data Costs the U.S. $3 Trillion Per Year (Harvard Business Review)
Consider this figure: $136 billion per year. That’s the research firm IDC’s estimate of the size of the big data market, worldwide, in 2016. This figure should surprise no one with an interest in big data.
Among 41 nations, U.S. is the outlier when it comes to paid parental leave (The Pew Research Center)
In almost half of two-parent households, both parents now work full-time, and in 40% of all families with children, the mother is the sole or primary breadwinner. At the same time, fathers – virtually all of whom are in the labor force – are taking on more child care responsibilities, as fatherhood has grown to encompass far more than just bringing home the bacon.
The Conversation We Should Be Having About Corporate Taxes (Harvard Business Review)
The corporate inversion — when a U.S. company takes on the legal identity of foreign subsidiary, usually in order to reduce its taxes — has become about as controversial as corporate finance topics get. President Obama has called such transactions “unpatriotic.” Others have defended them as a way for American companies to stay competitive in the face of a uniquely intrusive tax code.
Rude awakening as price of coffee and orange juice shoots up 20% (The Guardian)
Savour your morning juice and coffee this weekend, because the price of your favourite breakfast drinks may be on the way up.
Unfavourable weather in Brazil – varying from droughts to heavy rainfall and frosts – has driven up the price of coffee, sugar and orange juice around the world by more than 20% in the past few months.
How to Talk to Your Kids About Money When You Have a Lot of It (Harvard Business Review)
“Hey, dad, how much is your company worth?”
I could feel the tension rising in my body as I tried to act like my daughter’s question wasn’t a big deal. I slowly continued clearing dishes off the table while deciding how to maneuver around this potential minefield.
Companies
Netflix's catalog has shrunk by a whopping 50% in the past few years (Business Insider)
If you’ve felt like Netflix’s US catalog has shrunk dramatically since the company started making its own shows and movies, you’re absolutely right.
Two Years After Its Blockbuster IPO, Alibaba Ready To Take On World (Investor's Business Daily)
What started as a joke by college students has become the single biggest online shopping day in China, thanks to Alibaba Group (BABA).
Deutsche is proof that bank regulators have just been hoping for the best (The Guardian)
Can the crisis be over at Deutsche Bank? The immediate storm will pass if the US Department of Justice has dropped its demand for $14bn (£10.8bn) to cover mis-sold mortgage securities and is instead close to settling for a much lower sum.
Uber and Lyft are technically illegal in Philadelphia as of today (Mashable Asia)
Legality was short-lived for Uber and Lyft in Philadelphia.
A July agreement to legalize ride-sharing in the city ran out on Friday, leaving the two main ride-hailing companies in limbo.
Calilfornia Suspends "Business Relationships" With Wells Fargo (Occupy.com)
California, the nation’s largest issuer of municipal bonds, is barring Wells Fargo & Co. from underwriting state debt and handling its banking transactions after the company admitted to opening potentially millions of bogus customer accounts.
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Blue Apron is on pace for more than $1 billion in sales as it preps for an IPO (Recode)
Blue Apron, the grocery startup that ships boxes of recipes and ingredients to the homes of wannabe chefs, is on track to surpass $1 billion in revenue over the next 12 months, multiple sources familiar with the company’s financials told Recode.
Tesla delivers 24,500 vehicles in the third quarter (Business Insider)
Tesla announced its third-quarter vehicle-delivery numbers on Sunday. The automaker delivered 24,500 vehicles in total: 15,800 Model S sedans and 8,700 Model X SUVs.
"This was an increase of just over 70% from the last quarter's deliveries of 14,402," Tesla said in a statement, adding that its Q3 count should be "viewed as slightly conservative."
Politics
The New York Times risked legal trouble to publish Donald Trump’s tax return (The Washington Post)
The New York Times executive editor said during a visit to Harvard in September that he would risk jail to publish Donald Trump's tax returns. He made good on his word Saturday night when the Times published Trump tax documents from 1995, which show the Republican presidential nominee claimed losses of $916 million that year — enough to avoid paying federal income taxes for as many as 18 years afterward.
U.K. sets out timetable to leave EU by 2019 (CNN Money)
British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Sunday that the U.K. would begin the formal process of leaving the European Union by the end of March 2017. That means Brexit could happen in 2019.
How Donald Trump Set Off a Civil War Within the Right-Wing Media (NY Times Magazine)
In recent years, one of the most important events on a prospective Republican presidential candidate’s calendar was the RedState Gathering, a summer convention for conservative activists from across the nation. Its host was Erick Erickson, a round-faced, redheaded former election lawyer and city councilman in Macon, Ga., who began blogging in 2004 on a site called RedState.com.
For Some Newspapers, Endorsing Clinton Means Losing Subscribers (NY Times)
The subscription cancellations were coming every 10 minutes. Angry readers have been calling in droves. One caller issued a death threat.
“We’re feeling the weight of our history,” Phil Boas, the editorial page editor of The Arizona Republic, said in a telephone interview on Wednesday. Until it endorsed Hillary Clinton on Tuesday, the newspaper, founded in 1890, had never endorsed a Democrat over a Republican for president.
The alpha dog that wouldn’t hunt: How Trump’s ludicrous “alpha male” act is destroying him (Salon)
This definitely isn’t the first time that “alpha male” rhetoric has been used to describe Trump by his radical right-wing supporters. Indeed, it’s pretty obvious from Trump’s hyper-masculine rhetoric that he views himself as an alpha-male figure — or, at the very least, that he wants to convince others this is the case.
For journalists covering Trump, a Murrow moment (Columbia Journalism Review)
AS EDWARD R. MURROW wrapped up his now-famous special report condemning Joseph McCarthy in 1954, he looked into the camera and said words that could apply today. “He didn’t create this situation of fear—he merely exploited it, and rather successfully,” Murrow said of McCarthy.
The art of the lie: The art forgery guide to Donald Trump’s tall tales (Salon)
There’s a whole lot of lying going on in Trumpland. Old Man Trump has a shaky grasp on reality: from outright denials of something easily provable (like his claim that he didn’t tweet that global warming was a Chinese conspiracy, when anyone with internet access can see that he did) to statements so obviously false that no one needs to prove them otherwise (like his claim, that he finally walked back, that Obama founded ISIS).
The Time I Found Donald Trump’s Tax Records in My Mailbox (NY Times)
My colleagues make fun of my old-fashioned devotion to my mailbox.
It’s about 30 feet from my desk — among all the other third-floor employees’ mailboxes — and I check it constantly, always hoping a tipster will have sent me some revealing letter or secret document.
Trump Casinos’ Tax Debt Was $30 Million. Then Christie Took Office. (NY Times)
By the time Chris Christie became governor of New Jersey, the state’s auditors and lawyers had been battling for several years to collect long-overdue taxes owed by the casinos founded by his friend Donald J. Trump.
Politico smeared Hillary Clinton (Think Progress)
Earlier last week, hackers released audio stolen from a Clinton campaign staffer’s email account, which captures Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton speaking at a fundraiser last February. In that audio, Clinton explains why she believes many of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT), supporters in the 2016 Democratic primary feel like they’ve gotten a raw deal.
Technology
Everything we expect Google to announce at its biggest product launch event in history (Business Insider)
Google is gearing up for a whopper of an event.
On October 4, the company is expected to announce several new hardware products, ranging from smartphones to speakers to a new intelligent router.
Someone Is Testing Methods for Taking Down the Entire Internet (Fortune)
Earlier this month, security expert Bruce Schneier revealed that companies responsible for the basic infrastructure of the Internet are experiencing an escalating series of coordinated attacks that appear designed to test the defenses of its most critical elements.
This robot will look after your kids so you don't have to (Mashable Asia)
Machines already make your coffee, bot their way around the kitchen floor cleaning up after you and then help drive you to work, so why can't they also help out with the hardest part of a morning (noon and evening) routine: raising kids?
This Is Your Brain on Quantum Computers (Singulalrity Hub)
Machines enrich and enhance our lives, whether it’s the smartphones that allow us to stay connected or the supercomputers that solve our toughest computational problems. Imagine how much more productive and innovative our world will be when computers become infinitely more powerful.
Why IBM Watson is interested in Twitter data and supporting developers (Mashable Asia)
IBM Watson can do much more than answer questions on Jeopardy. Earlier this month, the artificial intelligence system created a movie trailer. It also powers driverless cars and is helping doctors with cancer care and research.
Thanks to Apple, there’s an app for that in hospitals (Mashable Asia)
Apple's app platform has been quietly growing in popularity in U.S. hospitals. Now, the public is getting a look at one of the first apps to be used in a major hospital.
Donald Trump and His Allies Struggle to Move Past Tax Revelation (NY Times)
Donald J. Trump and his allies struggled on Sunday to move beyond the revelation that he might have been able to legally avoid nearly two decades of federal income taxation, putting new pressure on the candidate just as he tries to recover from a lackluster debate performance.
Health and Biotech
At a Loss for Meds, Venezuela’s Mentally Ill Spiral Downward (NY Times)
MARACAY, Venezuela — The voices tormenting Accel Simeone kept getting louder.
The country’s last supplies of antipsychotic medication were vanishing, and Mr. Simeone had gone weeks without the drug that controls his schizophrenia.
Zika vaccine trials have graduated from monkeys to humans, but still far off (The Conversation, Salon)
These stories have spurred hopes that a Zika virus vaccine will be available to prevent this infection, and its secondary effects, such as abnormal fetal development. But, even with pre-clinical and early stage clinical trials underway, we still may not see a Zika vaccine licensed and approved for use in humans for years.
Life on the Home Planet
Earth's atmosphere now has carbon dioxide levels unseen for 15 million years, and we might be past the point of no return (Business Insider)
The world has crossed a major greenhouse-gas milestone, and it may never turn back.
Feds Say They Won’t Evict Sprawling Pipeline Protest Camp (Associated Press)
The sprawling encampment that’s a living protest against the four-state Dakota Access pipeline has most everything it needs to be self-sustaining—food, firewood, fresh water, and shelter. Everything, that is, except permission to be on the federal land in North Dakota.
Biomass—renewable energy from plants and animals (US Energy Information Administration)
Biomass is organic material that comes from plants and animals, and it is a renewable source of energy.
Biomass contains stored energy from the sun. Plants absorb the sun's energy in a process called photosynthesis. When biomass is burned, the chemical energy in biomass is released as heat.
Employment picture darkens for journalists at digital outlets (Columbia Journalism Review)
IT PROBABLY COMES AS NO SURPRISE that jobs for journalists at newspapers continue to disappear. But in a disturbing development, digital news jobs that had been replacing some of the legacy positions appear to have hit a plateau.
Born in early 80s? Then you're half as wealthy as 1970s' children, says IFS (The Guardian)
A slump in home ownership and less generous pensions have left those born in the early 1980s with only half the wealth of those born a decade earlier by the same stage of their lives.
