v.19 n. 33 – Released August 10, 2015
This Week’s Headlines:
- Another Solid Month of Job Growth
- Light Vehicle Sales Accelerate
- Consumer Credit Increases Faster than Expected
- Events of Interest
- September 30: LAEDC Fall Economic Forecast
Category: News and Views
3 million gallons of toxic waste spilled by EPA is turning Colorado waters to orange sludge | Mashable
DENVER — The Environmental Protection Agency says the mine waste spill into Colorado waters is much larger than originally estimated.
The EPA now says 3 million gallons of wastewater spilled Wednesday and Thursday, instead of 1 million. The revision came after the EPA used a stream gauge from the U.S. Geological Survey. An EPA-supervised crew, who was trying to enter the mine to pump out and treat the water, caused the spill. The agency has not said how long cleanup efforts will take.
But an EPA official said Sunday that she doesn’t believe wildlife will suffer significant health impacts from the wastewater from an abandoned mine in southwestern Colorado.
Seattle’s $15 An Hour: Measure The Unemployment Effects And There They Are | Forbes
We do keep being told this most delightful story: that raising the price of something isn’t going to change demand for that same thing that has just risen in price. This does rather contradict most of what we know about economics and the price system: demand curves do slope downwards after all.
True, there is one well known exception, what is called a Giffen Good (the definition of which is a good where the demand curve does not slope downwards). The only proven examples of this are wheat noodles in North China and rice in South China. But the general point is accepted that it probably applies to the subsistence carbohydrate in subsistence economies. People are living so close to the starvation line that when the price of the basic foodstuff goes up they have to cut their expenditures on other foods (possibly, little tasties or sauces to get that basic glop down) and increase their demand for that basic subsistence food in order to stay alive. They’re limited by the fact that they already live so close to the 2,000 or 3,000 calories a day needed to keep going. So, this might also apply to tortillas in the poorer parts of Mexico, or mealie meal in sub-Saharan Africa and so on.
Pfizer and Flynn Pharma accused of overcharging by CMA | BBC News
Pharmaceutical firms Pfizer and Flynn Pharma have been accused by the UK’s competition watchdog of charging “excessive and unfair” prices for an anti-epilepsy drug.
Phenytoin sodium capsules, used by 50,000 people in Britain, are made by Pfizer and sold by Flynn.
Pfizer said it was co-operating with the Competition and Markets Authority.
When Pfizer made the drug under its Epanutin brand name, the NHS spent about £2.3m on the drug, the CMA said.
This amount soared to £50m in 2013.
The CMA said Pfizer sold UK distribution rights to Flynn in 2012, but continued to make and supply the drug to the company.
Harvard MBAs don’t want to go into banking anymore | Business Insider
Harvard Business School graduates are some of the most sought-after new hires in the world.
They’re among the top choices for companies in just about every industry — including Wall Street investment banks.
It turns out, however, many of them are no longer interested in that industry.
Only 4% of the 2015 graduating class said they wanted to work at an investment bank, reports Bloomberg’s Jennifer Surane.
Of the 46 students in the top 5% of the class, only one expressed an interest in banking, according to the report.
The report cited data from a member of the graduating MBA class, who blogged about the findings of a class survey he received from the university.
Weekly Economic Update | LAEDC
v.19 n. 32 – Released August 4, 2015
This Week’s Headlines:
- GDP Growth in Q2, Turnaround in Q1, and Revisions to Annual Rates
- Events of Interest
- September 30: LAEDC Fall Economic Forecast
Mozilla CEO Sends Angry Open Letter To Microsoft Over Changing Windows 10 Browser Defaults | TechCrunch
With Edge in Windows 10, Microsoft has finally delivered a capable browser to replace the aging Internet Explorer. Microsoft likes Windows 10 so much, it makes Edge the default browser in Windows 10, even when you’re updating from a system that previously used Chrome or Firefox as the default.
Unsurprisingly, Mozilla is not amused and its CEO Chris Beard today wrote an open letter to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella to complain that the company is taking away its users’ choices and ignored Mozilla’s calls for keeping the default during the upgrade process.
“When we first saw the Windows 10 upgrade experience that strips users of their choice by effectively overriding existing user preferences for the Web browser and other apps, we reached out to your team to discuss this issue,” Beard writes. “Unfortunately, it didn’t result in any meaningful progress, hence this letter.
Obama Wants the US to Build the World’s Fastest Supercomputer | WIRED
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA has signed an executive order authorizing the creation of new supercomputing research initiative called the National Strategic Computing Initiative, or NSCI. Its goal: pave the way for the first exaflop supercomputer—something that’s about 30 times faster than today’s fastest machines.
Supercomputers are at the heart of a huge number of important scientific and defense research projects. They’re used by aerospace engineers to model planes and weapons, and by climatologists to predict the the near-term impact of hurricanes and the long-term effects of climate change. Researchers involved in the White House’s Precision Medicine initiative believe exaflop speed supercomputers could aid the creation of personalized drugs, while the European Commission’s Human Brain Project hopes they will help unlock the secrets of the human brain.
Weekly Economic Report | LAEDC
v.19 n. 31 – Released July 28, 2015
This Week’s Headlines:
- California Home Sales and Median Prices in June
- Cargo Volumes Slow in June
- Events of Interest
- September 30: LAEDC Fall Economic Forecast
Not just Boston: Why no one wants to host the Olympics anymore | Mashable
Boston revealed Monday afternoon that it had withdrawn itself from consideration to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. The announcement came hours after mayor Marty Walsh said he wouldn’t sign any contracts that left local taxpayers on the hook for cost overruns, which are virtually guaranteed to balloon anytime anyone hosts a global sporting mega-event.
At first glance, his words may have seemed like a relatively minor act of populist defiance. Yet Boston’s thanks-but-no-thanks actually reveals something much deeper. No one wants to host the Olympics anymore — nor should they.
There are, of course, success stories — Barcelona in 1992 is seen as a win for all involved, for example. But for illustrations of why the Olympics have become radioactive for most prospective hosts, one need only look at the recent past.
Surely you haven’t forgotten Sochi last year, when journalists and athletes stepped into a chaotic construction scene just days ahead of the Games. The most expensive Olympics in history cost more than $50 billion to pull off, enriching a small minority as the rest of the country’s economy languishes. Just eight months after the closing ceremony, Sochi was described as a “ghost town.”
Or let’s look back 10 years before Sochi, to the 2004 Olympics in Athens. Greece spent $10 billion to host those Games. Today, Greece’s economy is in tatters. Could these two things somehow be related?
Dispatches From The Front 