“We want to remove the label stuck on divorce as being complicated, bureaucratic and costly, and to make it as easy as going to a supermarket and buying a card,”
Category: News and Views
10 Things I Learned from ‘We Are Anonymous’ | Peter Mehit
I read Parmy Olsen’s ‘We Are Anonymous’ over the weekend. It is the story of the infamous hacker collective that brought down the Church of Scientology, Pay Pal, Master Card, Visa, Sony, the FBI and CIA among their numerous conquests. It’s a fascinating read about a group based on a contradiction: A few very talented, capable, creative people performed truly heinous acts because they thought their lives were pointless. This nihilistic perspective drove them until they were caught.
The participants were young. The oldest was 28, the youngest 16. Uniformly, they were the socially awkward. They were bullied and marginalized for most of their lives. Most left the education system in middle school because they were bored or mistreated. All of them lived with parents or relatives, reeking havoc on some of the largest organizations in the world from their bedrooms.
Anonymous was more of accident than a movement. The book details how the hacker collective transitioned from a chaotic, leaderless group looking for lulz (fun at other people’s expense) to very small team that stole the private information of millions of people only to give it away to secure fame and respect from the hacking community. Without recounting the book, because it’s worth reading to understand hacker culture and the underworld of the internet, I was struck by several points:
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Public Pensions Are Not The Whole Problem | ZeroHedge
While it’s the latest new thing to vilify public employees and their pensions, this little known and understood threat is doing just as much damage:
In 2002 a little-known but powerful state agency in California and Wall Street titans Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, and Ambac consummated one of the biggest deals to date involving … an “interest rate swap.” A year later the executive director of the Bay Area’s Metropolitan Transportation Commission, Steve Heminger, proudly described these historic deals to a visiting contingent of Atlanta policymakers as a model to be emulated.
Because of the economic collapse, and the decline of interest rates in 2008 to virtually zero, the MTA has been forced to pay the amazing sum of $658 million in net swap payments so far.
Lowering interest rates to zero isn’t Fed policy, it’s Wall Street policy – Ed.
I am Woman. . . See Me Grow My $1 Million Business | Entrepreneur.com
The new State of Women-Owned Businesses looked at the past 15 years of business activity to track trends in womens business ownership. It found that American women are starting about 550 new businesses a day, opening more than 200,000 new enterprises in the past year. The rate of startup activity by women leaped 54 percent and far outstripped the overall business creation growth rate of 37 percent.
Diapers to Furniture | CoolBusinessIdeas.com
Each year over 160 million diapers (or nappies as they are known in the UK) are sent to Scotland’s landfills. However a new recycling scheme is aiming to take those used diapers and turn them into park benches, garden furniture, decking, bollards, railway sleepers, fencing, roof tiles and cardboard. Other bathroom wastewill also be recycled, including incontinence products, wet wipes, nappy sacks and cotton wool.
RIM’s BlackBerry 10 delayed again | money.cnn.com
Is this the end of the road for Research in Motion and the once-loved “CrackBerry”?
RIM (RIMM) reported three pieces of awful news Thursday: 5,000 layoffs, a giant quarterly loss and — worst of all — another delay to its next BlackBerry system. Shares plunged 18% Friday on the news.
Untapped Potential for Expanding Women’s Entrepreneurship Holds Promise to Grow the U.S. Economy, According to Kauffman Report
Women who are capable of starting growth companies that serve global markets may be the nation’s secret weapon for achieving sustained economic growth.
Research shows that startup companies – particularly high-growth startups – are the most fruitful source of new U.S. jobs and offer the economy’s best hope for recovery. However, despite the fact that about 46 percent of the workforce and more than 50 percent of college students are female, and that women have risen to top positions in corporate and university hierarchies, they represent only about 35 percent of startup business owners. Their firms also tend to experience less growth and prosperity than do firms started by men.
Brian’s Briefs | Brian Weide
Brian’s Briefs, written and compiled Monday through Friday by Brian Weide, SunStar Mortgage Services
Friday, June 29, 2012
As I mentioned yesterday, bonds and Mortgage-backed Securities have been flip-flopping around like water on a hot skillet the last 10 days or so, and today was no exception. While closing off their lows, both securities closed lower today after having rallied yesterday. Data was mildly bond-friendly overall. Personal Income rose by .2%, which was twice the rate expected (see Moving the Market). Personal Spending was unchanged for May against expectations of +.1%. Core PCE Prices, which is a favorite gauge of the Fed in measuring inflation, as it works with consumer’s actual spending habits instead of a fixed “basket of goods” as does the CPI, was up by .1% vs. consensus estimates of .2%.
The Chicago Purchasing Managers’ Index landed at 52.9 for June- real close to estimates of 53.0 but not quite there. Finally, the final read for June for the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment survey reported at 73.2; again, below estimates of 74.1. So with the exception of Personal Income, all the stats were below estimates, but yet very close; hence my insinuation that bonds were mildly supported by these numbers. However, data was not the main driver for bonds today. First off, stocks were strongly into rally mode (Dow +277.83 at 12880.09, Nasdaq +85.56 at 2935.05, S&P +33.12 at 1362.16), being buoyed by news that Eurozone officials have opened the door for Spain’s banks to be directly recapitalized with bailout funds once Europe sets up a single banking supervisor. Moreover, Spain will not have to take on additional sovereign debt.
Weekly Economic Update | LADEC
THIS WEEK’S HEADLINES:
- May Home Sales and Prices Up in Southern California
- U.S. Travel & Tourism Spending Up in First Quarter 2012
- Events of Interest
- July 25: 2012 LAEDC Mid-Year Economic Forecast
Dispatches From The Front 