"Financial Terrorism"

It's not my week to blog, but I came across this very short and blunt article:

http://gawker.com/rick-perry-is-a-domestic-financial-terrorist-1569225313

Rick Perry appears to have spearheaded a deal to pull 4,000 new jobs into Texas...and out of California and Kentucky. The author of this article thinks that is worse than stupid, but cannibalistic to his fellow countrymen.

What do you all think? Is the author right, or is it okay to have states battling each other for economic progress?

An example of income inequality abroad

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/dr-congo-opens-one-africas-largest-gold-mines-033536849.html

This article is about a new goldmine opening up in DR Congo, reportedly the largest gold mine in the world. I read this article and immediately thought about income inequality and how the workers for these mines are probably struggling just to get by, while the corporations that own the mine will see grand profits. Are the CEOs really going to be working that much harder proportionately to the workers to justify the vast difference in pay?



Please share your thoughts...

Why the US unemployment rate dropped to 6.7 pct.

The U.S. unemployment rate tumbled to 6.3 percent in April from 6.7 percent in March. And rates fell for nearly every demographic group, though not always for encouraging reasons.

Find out why here. What are the implications of these fluctuations? And what all are other factors (not mentioned in the article) are factors influencing the decline?

Should you manage your own money?

This post in the WSJ talks about the costs/benefits about having a financial advisor. The article reminded me of our discussion about financial literacy in the U.S. and world. Do you think you will have a financial advisor in the future, or do you think you will be able to handle your own finances?

http://on.wsj.com/1mqclLP

Goods and inequality

The big take-away many have had from this diagram is that the things that help a person get out of poverty are becoming much more expensive while nonessential "toys" are becoming less expensive.  From The Atlantic :



More than 80 percent of low-income households have a fridge, TV,
microwave, and stove. They can heat food and cool food and watch American Idol, no problem.

But the power to alter the temperature of your food and watch FOX is
not quite the same as being rich. Tens of millions of families remain
uninsured, millions more can't afford to go to (or finish a degree at a
high-quality) college, and millions more struggle to pay for daycare for
their children. Meanwhile, used HD televisions are dirt cheap and it's
never been more affordable to buy simple electronics....When you look at the items in red with falling prices, they
largely reflect industries whose jobs are easily off-shored and
automated. The secret to cutting prices (over-generalizing only slightly here) is
basically to replace American workers. If you can replace U.S. labor
with foreign workers and robots, you're paying less to make the same
thing.



 

Regulation by lobbyists or by those whith no idea?

Great little article here about Supreme Court decisions concerning technology and the internet.  The article implies that the Supreme Court makes bad law when the justices are not personally tech-savvy.  Of course, the other extreme is to trust regulation to those who are not only tech-savvy but who are insiders in the industry.  I think the issue points the difficulty of decision-making in a complex world.







Technology law will soon be reshaped by people who don't use email | Trevor Timm | Comment is free | theguardian.com

Kentucky Derby bets have implications about the economy

http://buzz.money.cnn.com/2014/05/03/kectucky-derby-economy/?iid=SF_E_Lead

This article is talking about how corporate executives and other big shots are betting quite a bit at the Kentucky Derby. It then goes on to say that this means our economy is good.

This graph shows how thoroughbred horse sales and business investment are on the rise in the past few years since the Financial Crisis