There is basically no such thing as a “banned book” in the United States in 2015.
Graham, Ruth. "Banned Books Week is a Crock," Slate, Sept. 28, 2015, Accessed on September 30, 2015, http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2015/09/banned_books_week_no_one_bans_books_anymore_and_censorship_of_books_is_incredibly.single.html
A fast-growing cottage industry makes sex toys that work with Oculus Rift and other VR headsets. There is also much excitement about “teledildonics”: remote-control technologies that allow people thousands of miles apart to control each other’s gadgets.
"Pornography (2): Naked Capitalism," The Economist, Accessed on September 29, 2015, http://www.economist.com/news/international/21666114-internet-blew-porn-industrys-business-model-apart-its-response-holds-lessons?frsc=dg%7Ca
The primary emphasis in the book is on how Mr. Kissinger arrived at the set of core ideas and convictions that he would bring with him into high office.
Many of these convictions—the idea that “most strategic choices are between lesser and greater evils,” for instance, or that history provides a crucial guide to any nation’s policies and self-understanding—will be quite familiar to those who have heard Mr. Kissinger’s story before.
Brands, Hal, "The Definitive Biography of Henry Kissinger," The Wall Street Journal., Accessed on September 28, 2015, http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-definitive-biography-of-henry-kissinger-1443209592
The book describes another contest, this time run by America’s spies in the wake of the disastrous misadventure in Iraq. Begun in 2011, it posed hundreds of geopolitical questions (“Will Saudi Arabia agree to OPEC production cuts in November 2014?” for instance) to thousands of volunteer participants. A small number of forecasters began to pull clear of the pack: the titular “superforecasters”. Their performance was consistently impressive. With nothing more than an internet connection and their own brains, they consistently beat everything from financial markets to trained intelligence analysts with access to top-secret information.
They were an eclectic bunch: housewives, unemployed factory workers and professors of mathematics. But Mr Tetlock and his collaborators were able to extract some common personality traits. Superforecasters are clever, on average, but by no means geniuses. More important than sheer intelligence was mental attitude. Borrowing from Sir Isaiah Berlin, a Latvian-born British philosopher, Mr Tetlock divides people into two categories: hedgehogs, whose understanding of the world depends on one or two big ideas, and foxes, who think the world is too complicated to boil down into a single slogan. Superforecasters are drawn exclusively from the ranks of the foxes.
"Predicting the future: Unclouded vision," The Economist, Accessed on September 27, 2015, http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21666098-forecasting-talent-luckily-it-can-be-learned-unclouded-vision
One thing I have in abundance here are bags. They're not much different from kitchen trash bags, though I'm sure they cost $50,000 because of NASA.
Weir, Andy. The Martian. New York: Broadway Books, 2014, 31.
"Anger carried to excess begets madness." How true this is you're bound to know, having had both slaves and enemies. It is a passion, though, which flares up against all types of people. It is born of love as well as hate, and is as liable to arise in the course of sport or jesting as in affairs of a serious kind. The factor that counts is not the importance of the cause from which it springs but the kind of personality it lands in, in the same way as with fire what matters is not the fierceness of the flame but where it catches - solid objects may resist the fiercest flame while, conversely, dry and inflammable matter will nurse a mere spark into a conflagration. It is true, my dear Lucilius. The outcome of violent anger is a mental raving, and therefore anger is to be avoided not for the sake of moderation but for the sake of sanity.
Seneca translated by Campbell, Robin. Letters from a Stoic. New York: Penguin Books, 2004, 69.
Many teenagers have seen a greater number of sex acts than the most debauched Mughal emperor.
"Pornography: Generation XXX," The Economist, iPad app, Accessed on September 24, 2015, http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21666614-free-pornography-ever-more-plentiful-online-right-response-involves-better-sex
It makes sense for investors to consider what assets they should buy to hedge against a sudden plunge in the value of equities or bonds.
New research by AQR, a fund-management group, looks at the ten worst quarters for global equities and government bonds between 1972 and 2014. On average, equities lost more than 18% during such quarters while bonds, a less volatile asset, lost 3.9%.
[...]
The AQR numbers show that government bonds do act as a useful hedge for equities, earning an average return of 4.8% in the quarters when shares plummeted. That is good news: both assets may look overvalued but they are unlikely to fall in tandem.
[...]
There are a number of asset-picking strategies that have been shown to work over time. A combination of five of those strategies (value, momentum, carry, defensive and trend-following) would have produced very good returns during past stockmarket sell-offs.
"Buttonwood: Looking for lifeboats," The Economist, Volume 416 Number 8956, September 19th-25th, 68, Accessed on September 23, 2015, http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21665026-which-investments-work-best-when-markets-decline-looking-lifeboats
The global market for electric cars has been weak because of low gas prices and concerns about vehicle price and battery range. To date, Tesla Motors Inc. and Nissan Motor Co. sell two of the best known and highest-volume battery-powered vehicles, but volumes are only a sliver of the industry’s 85 million annual vehicle sales.
Emissions standards are tightening around the world, however, leading most major car companies to invest billions of dollars in plans to launch electric cars between now and the end of the decade. By the time an Apple car would make its debut, brands spanning General Motors Co.’s Chevrolet to Volkswagen AG’s Audi and Porsche will have long-range electric vehicles aimed at the mass market.
Wakabayashi, Daisuke. "Apple Sets 2019 Goal to Build Auto," The Wall Street Journal., Tuesday September 22, 2015, A1, Accessed on September 22, 2015, http://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-speeds-up-electric-car-work-1442857105?mod=trending_now_2
Soylent, a two-year-old startup, is trying to save consumers time and money by selling them a healthy, cheap “meal” that they can drink. Each vegetarian portion has only around 400 calories, costs around $3 and boasts of being as nutritious as, and more environmentally-friendly than, processed food and meat.
[...]
Several years ago Sam Altman, an entrepreneur who is now president of Y Combinator, a startup boot camp, was so cost-conscious and focused on building his first company, Loopt, that for weeks he ate only ramen noodles and coffee ice cream, until he developed scurvy. He later became an investor in Soylent.
[...]
Soylent has proved that it can appeal to a niche, as well as to a handful of financiers: in January the firm raised $20m from investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, a well-regarded venture-capital firm.
"Food technology: Liquid lunch," The Economist, Volume 416 Number 8956, September 19th-29 2015, 58, Accessed September 21, 2015, http://www.economist.com/news/business/21665068-startup-called-soylent-wants-change-way-people-consume-calories-liquid-lunch
Yet where there are pilgrims, there are profits.
"Muslims head for Mecca: Prepping for the pilgrimage," The Economist, Volume 416 Number 8956, September 19th-25th 2015, 45, Accessed on September 20, 2015, http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21665019-logistics-haj-prepping-pilgrimage
Japanese fight over pacifism.
The Wall Street Journal., Facebook timeline photo, Accessed on September 18, 2015, https://www.facebook.com/wsj/photos/a.392580748127.173020.8304333127/10153712465753128/?type=1&permPage=1
Zimbabwe’s president, Robert Mugabe, called parliamentarians back to a special session to hear him read his state-of-the nation address a day after he mistakenly read out a speech he had previously given in August. The 91-year-old has ruled Zimbabwe continuously since independence in 1980.
"Politics This Week" The Economist, Accessed on September 17, 2015, http://www.economist.com/news/world-week/21665047-politics-week
Buying and selling by individual investors is especially heavy in the minutes immediately after the market opens in the U.S. at 9:30 a.m. Eastern time, when the chances of getting the best price for a stock are lower and swings tend to be bigger, traders and other market observers said.
But within minutes, the gap between the price sellers want for a stock, known as the “ask” price, and what buyers are offering, the “bid,” shrinks sharply and continues to narrow up until the end of the trading session. This quirk in the market has been amplified in recent weeks amid the big market swings.
The smaller gap, or spread, is better for investors because they are less likely to overpay for a stock or sell below the prevailing price in the market. The wider the spread, the more exposed investors are to high costs, which can erode returns at a time when major stock indexes are down for the year.
In the first half of the year, the difference between the bid and ask prices of shares in the S& P 500 was 0.84 percentage point in the first minute of trading, according to data from ITG, a brokerage. That gap shrinks to 0.08 percentage point after 15 minutes and to less than 0.03 percentage point in the final minutes of the trading day.
This difference often amounts to only pennies a share. But it can add up for the many individual investors who pile into the market early in the trading day.
Strumph, Dan and Driebusch, Corrie. "Early Birds Suffer in Market" The Wall Street Journal., Tuesday, September 15, 2015, A1, Accessed on September 15, 2015, http://www.wsj.com/articles/early-birds-suffer-in-market-1442273794
Every individual thing, and consequently every individual person, strives to preserve and to increase his or her individuality, against the threat of being overcome and absorbed by external forces. The drive to self-assertion, and to an aggressive sense of my own power and distinctiveness as a person, is always present, and some of this sense of unity and this aggressiveness is transferred to communities of persons. Nothing is more useful to a person, [Spinoza] claims, than the added strength that comes from the union with other persons in community, which then becomes itself an individual thing, with its own drive to self-preservation. The aggressive maneuvers of Churches and sects in the seventeenth century, and of nation states in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, are intelligible within Spinoza's natural philosophy and his idea of history. It is natural that every composite entity, whether a nation or a religious sect, should hold itself together by trying to extend its freedom of action and its power as far as they will go, exactly as an individual person does.
Hampshire, Stuart introduction to Ethics by Benedict de Spinoza, xiii. New York: Princeton University Press (Penguin Books), 1994.
For the Lusts, Pleasures, and Profits of this World; in the injoyment of which, I did then promise my self much delight, but now even every one of those things also bite me, and gnaw me like a burning worm.
Bunyan, John. The Pilgrim's Progress. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008, 35.
Recent stock-market volatility caused by jitters about the health of China’s economy and the Federal Reserve’s plans for raising interest rates haven’t helped the IPO pipeline. Companies are more likely to list their shares when markets are strong, to maximize proceeds. Sharp swings in share prices complicate IPO planning and cause potential investors to be more cautious.
Winkler, Rolph and Telis Demos. "Tech Firms are Notably Scarce in IPO Market" The Wall Street Journal., Friday, September 11, 2015, A1, Accessed on September 11, 2015, http://www.wsj.com/articles/ipo-parade-continues-without-many-tech-companies-1441929152
It is impossible for any one to begin to learn what he thinks he already knows.
Epictetus. The Discourses, The Handbook, Fragments. Vermont: Everyman, 1995, 115.
If, then, you do not wish to be ill-tempered, do not feed the habit. Give nothing to promote its growth. Keep quiet to begin with, and count the days on which you have not been angry.
[...]
If you set these thoughts against your impression, you will overpower it, and not be swept away by it. But, in the first place, do not allow yourself to be carried away by its intensity: but say, 'Impression, wait for me a little. Let me see what you are, and what you represent. Let me test you.' Then, afterwards, do not allow it to draw you on by picturing what may come next, for if you do, it will lead you wherever it pleases. But rather, you should introduce some fair and noble impression to replace it, and banish this base and sordid one.
If you become habituated to this kind of exercise, you will see what shoulders, what sinews and what vigor you will come to have. But now you have trifling talk, and nothing more.
Epictetus. The Discourses, The Handbook, Fragments. Vermont: Everyman, 1995, 120-21.
Element is among the last to embrace “bond-auction strategies,” trading maneuvers that have become less popular since the financial crisis.
These trades aim to take advantage of the effects of supply and demand in the $12.8 trillion Treasury market. Demand for these bonds often fluctuates based on factors including investor perceptions of economic growth and market risk, while supply can be affected by regular auctions of different-maturity Treasury securities. A burst of new supply tends to slightly depress prices for short periods, sometimes for less than an hour.
In the past, Wall Street dealers and hedge funds scored profits shorting “when-issued”bonds. These are contracts conferring the right to purchase Treasury securities when they are sold days later at auction. Then, these traders would buy bonds during Treasury auctions at the slightly lower prices and use these newly purchased bonds to close out their short sales.
The difference between the higher price at which they sold the Treasurys and the lower price they paid at auction was their profit.
There are a number of variations to this strategy, traders said. The maneuver involves a bet against bonds, so traders usually purchased hedges such as Treasury futures or interest-rate swaps to protect against rising bond prices while the trade was under way, said Tom di Galoma, head of fixed-income and rates trading at ED&F Man.
[...]
There are dangers with the auction strategy. Once in a while, the prices of bonds being auctioned jump, rather than fall, for reasons such as bad economic news that prompts an investor flight to safety. Hedges sometimes don’t work out. And the strategy relies on inexpensive borrowing because each trade usually yields minimal profits.
In the 1990s, hedge fund Long Term Capital Management used leverage to profit from small discrepancies in the Treasury market before a market reversal swamped the firm. LTCM used much more leverage than Element does.
Cui, Carolyn and Zuckerman, Gregory. "Obscure Funds Buys Billions in Treasurys" The Wall Street Journal., Wednesday, September 9, 2015, A1, Accessed on September 9, 2015, http://www.wsj.com/articles/an-obscure-hedge-fund-is-buying-tens-of-billions-of-dollars-of-u-s-treasurys-1441704601
HOW many times can one man die? At least four, in the case of Abubakar Shekau, the slippery leader of Boko Haram. Nigerian security forces celebrated his demise in 2009, 2013 and 2014, only for him to pop up again, disconcertingly animate, on camera.
"Boko Haram: Shadow army" The Economist, Volume 416 Number 8954, September 5th-11th 2015, 54, Accessed on September 7, 2015, http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21663254-nigeria-has-surprisingly-little-idea-what-it-fighting-against-shadow-army
If this be thy condition, why standest thou still? He answered, Because I know not whither to go.
Bunyan, John. The Pilgrim's Progress. Oxford University Press: Oxford World's Classics, 2008, 11.
The second law of thermodynamics puts into mathematics the commonplace observation that heat flows from hot things to cold ones, and not the other way around. This mathematical treatment, though, has many consequences. One of the best known is that any system will become more disordered as time passes. That applies as much to two gases mixing as it does to a teenager's bedroom.
"Wy does time pass?: The moving finger writes" The Economist, Volume 426 Number 8954, September 5th-11th 2015, Accessed on September 5, 2015, http://www.economist.com/news/science-brief/21663184-our-fifth-brief-scientific-mysteries-we-ask-why-travelling-through-time-unlike
The United States economy is a free enterprise system because anyone is free to start a business. You do not have to get permission from the government to start a business, although you will be expected to obey laws and regulations.
Mariottti, Steve and Glackin, Caroline. Entrepreneurship: Starting and Operating a Small Business. New York: Pearson, 2013, 5.
In attempting to ride social-media trends, companies can easily fall flat on their faces. DiGiorno, a frozen-pizza maker, noticed that a number of people were using the hashtag “#WhyIStayed” on Twitter and sent out a jocular tweet that they had stayed for the pizza. It turned out that the comment thread was about domestic violence and why women remained in abusive relationships.
"Marketing in the digital age: A brand new game," The Economist, Volume 416 Number 8953, August 29th-September 4th 2015, 52, Accessed on September 3, 2015, http://www.economist.com/news/business/21662543-people-spend-more-time-social-media-advertisers-are-following-them-brand-new-game
Some things are hurrying into existence, and others are hurrying out of it; and of that which is coming into existence, part is already extinguished. Motions and changes are continually renewing the world, just as the uninterrupted course of time is always renewing the infinite duration of ages. In this flowing stream, then, on which there is no abiding, what is there of the things that hurry by on which a man would set a high price?
Aurelius, Marcus translated by Long, George. Meditations. New York: Dover Thrift Edition, 1997, 39.
Clouds show a rainbow,
Gardens show flowers.
The roar of Creation
Resolves into music.
Tagore, Rabindranath translated by Radice, William. "Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva" Selected Poems. New York: Penguin Classics, 2005, 46.
