Weekend Links 16 to 17 February 2013

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| 19 comments

Here’s a list of things Reynard read over night.

Global Macro/Markets:

North America:

Europe:

Asia:

  • Chinese Securities Firms Are Ballooning, And That Has Experts Worried – Business Insider
  • Revisiting Fukushima’s Ghost Towns: Taking Back a Nuclear No-Man’s Land – Bloomberg
  • North Korea tells China of preparations for fresh nuclear test: source – Reuters

Local:

  • Surplus turne to $10 billion deficit – The Australian
  • Swan’s future in doubt – The Australian
  • No reprieve on mining tax – The AFR
  • Mining tax falls in deep shaft – The Age
  • ANZ upbeat on Asia but Australia “soft” – The AFR
  • Coalition’s coal seam gas buffer zone rejected – The Age
  • Rio can’t afford to sit on assets – The Age

Other:

  • A good documentary on Keynes – SBS
  • Does raising the minimum wage really help workers? – CBS News
  • Labour markets: Minimum human wages – The Economist
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Comments

  2. Revert2Mean

    When significant parts of the corporate media are openly embracing and indeed pushing climate ‘scepticism’, is there any meaningful justification for this in the climate science? No. Geochemist James Lawrence Powell recently conducted an exhaustive study of the peer-reviewed literature on climate science. Going back over 20 years, his search yielded 13,950 scientific papers. Of these, only 24 ‘clearly rejected global warming or endorsed a cause other than carbon dioxide emissions for the observed warming of 0.8 degrees since the beginning of the industrial era.’

    Powell said:

    ‘Only one conclusion is possible: within science, global warming denial has virtually no influence. Its influence is instead on a misguided media, politicians all-too-willing to deny science for their own gain, and a gullible public.’

    Adding:

    ‘Scientists do not disagree about human-caused global warming. It is the ruling paradigm of climate science, in the same way that plate tectonics is the ruling paradigm of geology. We know that continents move. We know that the earth is warming and that human emissions of greenhouse gases are the primary cause.’

    More : Forever Groundhog Day for climate? A tale of ice, smokescreens and rebellion

    • Revert2Mean

      Secret funding helped build vast network of climate denial thinktanks

      Conservative billionaires used a secretive funding route to channel nearly $120m (£77m) to more than 100 groups casting doubt about the science behind climate change, the Guardian has learned.

      The funds, doled out between 2002 and 2010, helped build a vast network of thinktanks and activist groups working to a single purpose: to redefine climate change from neutral scientific fact to a highly polarising “wedge issue” for hardcore conservatives.

  3. Revert2Mean

    Shiller: housing is shelter not “an investment”

    The professor tries to talk sense to the new home buying lemmings. (short Bloomberg video)

    Link

  5. dumb_non_economist

    Stan Fischer saved Israel’s economy. Can he save America’s? – Washington Post

    I’d only read to the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs and I was thinking WTF, hardly a ringing endorsement!

    Hughes 300 Captain, Ben Bernanke speaking to a cohort of CBs;

    “Do you know what everyone at this table has in common?” he mused. “They all had Stan Fischer as their thesis adviser.”

    The article continues, 5th para;

    As a professor at MIT — arguably the best economics department in the world — he helped found a school of economic thought that has come to dominate departments across the country. He also advised an all-star crew of grad students who went on top jobs in the policy world, including Bernanke, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi and former chief White House economist Greg Mankiw.

    Now, I know I’m an economic illiterate, but I would have thought with what the central bankers are doing this is hardly a ringing endorsement of the man!

    Am I missing something here, somebody please help me out!

  6. GSM

    http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/11/usa-gold-export-idUSL1N0BB9CO20130211

    “U.S. gold bars and coins find new home overseas on Asian demand

    By Frank Tang NEW YORK, Feb 11 (Reuters) – Booming demand for gold as a store of wealth among Asian investors is driving physical gold bars and coins out of the United States and into Asia.

    A growing number of gold vaults for affluent Asians and new precious metals investment products, particularly exchange-traded funds, have led to an exodus of gold owned privately from the United States into emerging economic powers such as China. “