Archive for the 'Elite' Category
How Wall Street Has Turned Housing Into a Dangerous Get-Rich-Quick Scheme—Again
March 12th, 2014Via: Mother Jones: You can hardly turn on the television or open a newspaper without hearing about the nation’s impressive, much celebrated housing recovery. Home prices are rising! New construction has started! The crisis is over! Yet beneath the fanfare, a whole new get-rich-quick scheme is brewing. Over the last year and a half, Wall […]
Rapid Advances in Artificial Intelligence and Job Losses
March 4th, 2014Via: Financial Times: The impact of IT and automation on the world of work – and dire warnings about the job destruction they might cause – are as old as the technology itself. But the convergence of a number of tech trends has made the threat more immediate. As a result, 47 per cent of […]
The Derelict Mansions on Britain’s Billionaires’ Row
March 2nd, 2014Via: CNN: A third of the houses on Britain’s second most expensive street are lying vacant, many abandoned for decades and left to rot. Behind the padlocked gates and long driveways, up to 20 mansions stand empty on London’s The Bishops Avenue, despite a reported combined value of around £350 million ($582 million). Dubbed “Billionaires’ […]
Gold Fix Study Shows Signs of Decade of Bank Manipulation
March 1st, 2014Via: Bloomberg: The London gold fix, the benchmark used by miners, jewelers and central banks to value the metal, may have been manipulated for a decade by the banks setting it, researchers say. Unusual trading patterns around 3 p.m. in London, when the so-called afternoon fix is set on a private conference call between five […]
Exxon CEO Tries to Stop Fracking Near His Land
February 26th, 2014Via: Globe and Mail: Rex Tillerson’s company may be a big player in fracking, but the chief executive of Exxon Mobil Corp. has a problem with what the related issues could mean to the value of his ranch. The chief executive officer of Exxon Mobil Corp., a major player where the controversial technique is concerned, […]
Use of Prescription Drugs in Kentucky and West Virginia [???]
February 23rd, 2014I was reading this piece about the most miserable states in the U.S. when I came across this sentence in the section on Kentucky: The state’s population was the nation’s most reliant on prescription drugs, with 19.3 prescriptions filled per capita in 2011, tied with West Virginia. 😯 Would that be a world leading statistic? […]
Plutocrats in Drag Joke About Financial Crisis at Private Party
February 18th, 2014Via: New York Magazine: “Good evening, Exalted High Council, former Grand Swipes, Grand Swipes-in-waiting, fellow Wall Street Kappas, Kappas from the Spring Street and Montgomery Street chapters, and worthless neophytes!” It was January 2012, and Ross, wearing a tuxedo and purple velvet moccasins embroidered with the fraternity’s Greek letters, was standing at the dais of […]
‘American Dream Seen as Out of Reach’
February 13th, 2014Any excuse to post this clip… Via: McClatchy: Racing into a new century in which many of the old rules don’t seem to apply anymore, Americans are overwhelmingly pessimistic about their chances of achieving and sustaining the American dream, according to a new Marist-McClatchy Poll. They see an economic system in which they have to […]
Foxconn Working With Google on Robotics
February 11th, 2014Via: Wall Street Journal: People familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal that Foxconn has been working with former Android executive Andy Rubin since last year to carry out the U.S. company’s vision for robotics. To speed up robot deployment at its own factories, Foxconn Chairman Terry Gou met with Rubin in Taipei […]
Google to Run and Renovate U.S. Government Airfield
February 11th, 2014Via: AP: The U.S. government has picked a Google subsidiary to run and renovate a federal airfield that is frequently used for the personal flights of the Internet company’s billionaire executives. The decision announced Monday clears the way for Google’s Planetary Ventures LLC to take over management of the 1,000-acre Moffett Federal Airfield, a former […]
