Archive for the 'Economy' Category
Third Banker Suicided
January 31st, 2014We have Gabriel Magee and William ‘Bill’ Broeksmit from a couple of days ago and now Mike Dueker. Any more? Via: Bloomberg: Mike Dueker, the chief economist at Russell Investments, was found dead at the side of a highway that leads to the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Washington state, according to the Pierce County Sheriff’s […]
Google and DeepMind Technologies
January 30th, 2014Via: MIT Technology Review: How much are a dozen deep-learning researchers worth? Apparently, more than $400 million. This week, Google reportedly paid that much to acquire DeepMind Technologies, a startup based in London that had one of the biggest concentrations of researchers anywhere working on deep learning, a relatively new field of artificial intelligence research […]
Two Top American Bankers Commit Suicide in London
January 29th, 2014Oh sure. Via: Daily Mail: Two top ranking American bankers working in senior positions in London have committed suicide in the space of two days. Gabriel Magee, a 39-year-old JP Morgan bank executive, died early this morning after he jumped 500ft from the top of the bank’s European headquarters. His body was discovered on the […]
Iceland Let Banks Fail, Jailed Criminal Bankers and Now Has Only 4% Unemployment
January 29th, 2014Via: Bloomberg: Iceland let its banks fail in 2008 because they proved too big to save. Now, the island is finding crisis-management decisions made half a decade ago have put it on a trajectory that’s turned 2 percent unemployment into a realistic goal. While the euro area grapples with record joblessness, led by more than […]
Baltimore: Speed Cameras Issue Hundreds of Thousands of “Erroneous” Tickets
January 28th, 2014Via: Baltimore Sun: Baltimore’s speed cameras likely charged motorists for thousands more erroneous tickets than previously disclosed, according to data from a secret audit conducted for the city last year and obtained by The Baltimore Sun. Consultant URS Corp. evaluated the camera system as run by Xerox State and Local Solutions in 2012 and found […]
Dimon Gets 74 Percent Raise After Billions in Fines
January 27th, 2014Via: Bloomberg: After agreeing to pay $23 billion in penalties and settlements in 2013, JPMorgan Chase (JPM) Chief Executive Jamie Dimon was rewarded today by the board he chairs, receiving a 74 percent pay raise to $20 million. Dimon has presided over a series of costly settlements with government investigators, including paying $13 billion for […]
Legal Pot: The Gateway Drug to State-Run Banking?
January 27th, 2014Via: Bloomberg: If ever a hippie dream existed, it would probably look something like what’s being proposed in Washington by Democratic State Senator Bob Hasegawa. He wants to open a state-run bank specifically to serve Washington’s newly legal marijuana industry. The proposal would solve two real problems: Pot businesses would no longer be trapped in […]
Why Are U.S. Corporate Profits So High? Because Wages Are So Low
January 27th, 2014Automation is the key, but this piece doesn’t mention it. The companies have, “Still managed to boost profits beyond anything ever seen before because they’ve got away with employing as few workers as possible at as low a rate as possible.” I’ve got news for Jamie McGeever at Reuters: Companies only ever employ as few […]
Recovery: Working Age People Make Up Majority of Those Receiving Food Stamps
January 27th, 2014Via: AP: In a first, working-age people now make up the majority in U.S. households that rely on food stamps — a switch from a few years ago, when children and the elderly were the main recipients. Some of the change is due to demographics, such as the trend toward having fewer children. But a […]
Bank of America Investigated for Front Running
January 25th, 2014Via: Reuters: The U.S. Department of Justice and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission have both held investigations into whether Bank of America (BAC) engaged in improper trading by doing its own futures trades ahead of executing large orders for clients, according to a regulatory filing. The June 2013 disclosure, which Reuters recently reviewed on a […]
