1
Automobiles
Media Previews in Beijing Feature Many Debuts From Global Automakers
This year’s edition of China’s show includes many models custom-tailored to the Chinese auto market.
2
Automobiles
Auto China Opens to the Public in Beijing
Volkswagen showed off its redesigned Touareg S.U.V., and Japanese automakers made a push into the Chinese market.
3
Opinion
No Time to Waste: Students Pursue Environmental Progress Instead of Exam Grades
College students get out of the classroom and pursue environmental initiatives with partners in surrounding communities.
4
N.Y. / Region
Effort to Remove Landlord Who Made Units Unlivable
Officials said families were forced to move into a homeless shelter after a Brooklyn landlord wrecked apartments to drive out tenants.
5
World
Ebola Outbreak in West Africa Kills Over 140, U.N. Agency Says
The World Health Organization said on Tuesday that at least 230 suspected or confirmed cases of Ebola had been recorded in Guinea and Liberia.Outbreak Update
April 23, 2014
"The Ministry of Health (MoH) of Guinea’s reported 208 suspect and confirmed cases of Ebola hemorrhagic fever (EHF), including 136 deaths, on April 20, 2014 according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Of these suspect cases, 112 have been laboratory confirmed positive cases of Ebola hemorrhagic fever (EHF). One additional health care worker has been reported among the suspect and confirmed cases bringing the total to 25, including 16 deaths. Other districts reporting suspect and confirmed cases remain Guekedou, Macenta, Kissidougou, Dabola, and Djingaraye.WHO reports that the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare (MOHSW) of Liberia announced the cumulative total of suspect and confirmed cases of EHF is 34, including 11 deaths, on April 21, 2014. Six (6) samples have tested positive for Ebola virus. Samples from Mali and Sierra Leone have, thus far, been negative for Ebola virus though investigations and monitoring of reports of suspect cases is ongoing.
Médecins sans Frontières (MSF/Doctors without Borders) is helping the Ministry of Health of Guinea in establishing treatment and isolation centers in the epicenter of the outbreak. In Liberia, several international organizations including the International Red Cross (IRC), Pentecostal Mission Unlimited (PMU)-Liberia, and Samaritan’s Purse (SP) Liberia are aiding the MOHSW of Liberia by supporting awareness campaigns and providing personal protective equipment (PPE) for healthcare workers. The Institute Pasteur in Lyon, France, the Institut Pasteur in Dakar, Senegal, the European Consortium mobile laboratory, and the Metabiota supported laboratory in Kenema (Sierra Leone) and Monrovia (Liberia), and CDC Atlanta are some of the laboratories collaborating to test samples. CDC is in regular communication with its international partners, WHO, and MSF regarding the outbreak. Currently CDC has a 7 person team in Guinea and a 3 person team in Liberia assisting the respective MOHs and the WHO-led international response to this Ebola outbreak."
http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/notices/alert/ebola-guinea
Ebola in Guinea
| Warning - Level 3, Avoid Nonessential Travel |
| Alert - Level 2, Practice Enhanced Precautions |
| Watch - Level 1, Practice Usual Precautions |
6
Sports
A Double Standard in Doping Punishments
Lance Armstrong can never again compete in an Olympic sport, while three of the people who helped facilitate doping in the peloton will be free to return in eight years or less.
7
Business Day
Alaska Lawmakers Back Natural Gas Plans
Alaska’s legislature on Monday approved Gov. Sean Parnell’s plan to join four energy companies in moving ahead on plans to build infrastructure to transport and market 35 trillion cubic feet of North Slope gas to be shipped by an 800-mile pipeline to a liquefied natural gas export plant.
8
Opinion
Piketty and the Petits Rentiers
What “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” Gets Right.Piketty and Pareto
"Well, it’s Piketty day at the Times,
with David
Brooks and yours
truly even having more or less matching headlines. And David’s take
reminds me of something I’ve been meaning to do: explain one important
point in Piketty that even economist readers have, it seems, tended to
miss.
In his critique David says of Piketty,
He predicts that family fortunes will concentrate, though big ones in the past have tended to dissipate and families like the Gateses give a lot away.
So, two points. Piketty doesn’t just assert
that fortunes will concentrate, he shows that they have in fact
concentrated in the past. That’s the whole point of his extended
analysis of Belle Epoque France, with its dominance by inherited wealth.
And for every Bill Gates, there are many families that do all they can
to perpetuate dynastic wealth. Remember, the 10 wealthiest Americans
include 4 Waltons and two Kochs.
Second, Piketty predicts a high concentration
of wealth, but not concentration without limit. He alludes to his
modeling here rather than presenting it explicitly, but maybe he should
have said more.
Here’s how I think of it. Imagine that once a
family acquires a certain level of wealth, it tends to engage in
dynastic accumulation, consuming only a fraction of its asset returns
while saving the rest and passing it on. However, there is in each
generation some probability that the family fortune will be squandered
by a wastrel.
In this case there will be an equilibrium
distribution of family fortunes, comprising families that have
accumulated wealth for three generations, a smaller number who have
accumulated for four generations (smaller because some fortunes get
squandered), a still smaller number who have accumulated for five
generations, and so on.
How much wealthier will five-generation
dynasties be than four-generation? It depends on the rate of return r —
and their share of wealth also depends on the growth rate g.
Furthermore, six-generation dynasties will be to five-gens as five gens
are to four, etc.. The distribution of wealth will follow a Pareto
distribution (which is true of actual wealth distributions at the top),
with the exponent depending on r minus g.
So no dynasty lasts forever; there will be a
slow “circulation of elites.” But some dynasties will last a long time —
and if the after-tax rate of return is high, those dynasties will
control a large share of wealth.
And let me add something here: if you think
you’ve found an obvious hole, empirical or logical, in Piketty, you’re
very probably wrong. He’s done his homework!"
I am not wealthy by these standards.
I will be "financially able" with care and luck.
9
Business Day
As Wine Fetches Staggering Sums, Fakery Claims Rise
Connoisseurs driving up the prices of rare and collectible wines have spurred a wave of counterfeiters who target collectors eager to flaunt their trophies.
10
World
F.B.I. Informant Is Tied to Cyberattacks Abroad
While it is unclear whether the F.B.I. ordered the attacks by Hector Xavier Monsegur, the agency may have used hackers to gather intelligence even as investigators were trying to dismantle hacking groups.
11
World
Women Go Topless for Equal Rights
A group of young Chinese feminists staged a protest calling for an end to gender discrimination in employment. They highlighted the issue by going topless and holding up banners.
12
U.S.
Maryland Reaches Deal on ‘House of Cards’
An agreement will keep filming of the series in the state.Mr. O’Malley has been blackmailed.
The production company settled for half price.
13
U.S.
National Advocacy Group Takes Local Political Turn
Americans for Prosperity, a force in this year’s midterm congressional elections, has surprised people in Columbus, Ohio, with a campaign against a tax increase to benefit the local zoo.
14
Automobiles
The Horseless eCarriage Is an Option for a Horse-Free Central Park
On display at the New York auto show, the 7,500-pound Horseless eCarriage was conceived as a potential replacement for horse-drawn carriages.
15
Opinion
The Horseless eCarriage Is an Option for a Horse-Free Central Park
On display at the New York auto show, the 7,500-pound Horseless eCarriage was conceived as a potential replacement for horse-drawn carriages.A Deeper Look at a Study Finding High Leak Rates From Gas Drilling
A closer look at a hot study on high gas leak rates in Pennsylvania’s fracking zone raises coal questions.
Less methane is what is required.
16
World
Egypt: U.S. to Deliver Helicopters
The United States will deliver to Egypt 10 Apache helicopters that were held up last year after President Mohamed Morsi was deposed.
17
N.Y. / Region
Panel Orders Four to Testify in George Washington Bridge Inquiry
A New Jersey legislative committee has issued subpoenas to two current and former aides to Gov. Chris Christie and two Port Authority officials.
18
Sports
Goalie Ballot Is Announced
Semyon Varlamov of Colorado, Ben Bishop of Tampa Bay and Tuukka Rask of Boston are finalists for the Vezina Trophy, given to the N.H.L.’s top goalie.
19
Opinion
Autism and the Agitator
Jenny McCarthy got a crazy amount of traction. She shouldn’t get a whitewash.
20
Opinion
Sweden Turns Japanese
The sadomonetarists, with their gut dislike of low interest rates, have claimclaimedclaimeded another victim.
Economic Conditions and Trends; Deflation (Economics); Interest
Rates; Banking and Financial Institutions
Jenny McCarthy
Sweden has entered a deflationary spiral for no good reason.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/18/how-do-you-say-nobody-could-have-predicted-in-swedish/
Eurostat
And The Wall Street Journal’s review, predictably, goes the whole distance, somehow segueing from Mr. Piketty’s call for progressive taxation as a way to limit the concentration of wealth — a remedy as American as apple pie, once advocated not just by leading economists but by mainstream politicians, up to and including Teddy Roosevelt — to the evils of Stalinism. Is that really the best The Journal can do? The answer, apparently, is yes.
|
I shall reboot this system and see where it is now.
|
Sweden has entered a deflationary spiral for no good reason.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/18/how-do-you-say-nobody-could-have-predicted-in-swedish/
Eurostat
“Capital
in the Twenty-First Century,” the
new book by the French economist Thomas Piketty, is a bona fide
phenomenon. Other books on economics have been best sellers, but Mr.
Piketty’s contribution is serious, discourse-changing scholarship in a
way most best sellers aren’t. And conservatives are terrified. Thus
James Pethokoukis of the American Enterprise Institute warns
in National Review that Mr. Piketty’s work must be refuted, because
otherwise it “will spread among the clerisy and reshape the political
economic landscape on which all future policy battles will be waged.”
Well, good luck with that.
The really striking thing about the debate so far is that the right
seems unable to mount any kind of substantive counterattack to Mr.
Piketty’s thesis. Instead, the response has been all about name-calling —
in particular, claims that Mr. Piketty is a Marxist, and so is anyone
who considers inequality of income and wealth an important issue.
I’ll
come back to the name-calling in a moment. First, let’s talk about why
“Capital” is having such an impact.
Mr. Piketty is hardly the first economist to
point out that we are experiencing a sharp rise in inequality, or even
to emphasize the contrast between slow income growth for most of the
population and soaring incomes at the top. It’s true that Mr. Piketty
and his colleagues have added a great deal of historical depth to our
knowledge, demonstrating that we really are living in a new Gilded Age.
But we’ve known that for a while.
No, what’s really new about “Capital” is the way
it demolishes that most cherished of conservative myths, the insistence
that we’re living in a meritocracy in which great wealth is earned and
deserved.
For
the past couple of decades, the conservative response to attempts to
make soaring incomes at the top into a political issue has involved two
lines of defense: first, denial that the rich are actually doing as well
and the rest as badly as they are, but when denial fails, claims that
those soaring incomes at the top are a justified reward for services
rendered. Don’t call them the 1 percent, or the wealthy; call them “job
creators.”
But
how do you make that defense if the rich derive much of their income
not from the work they do but from the assets they own? And what if
great wealth comes increasingly not from enterprise but from
inheritance?
What
Mr. Piketty shows is that these are not idle questions. Western
societies before World War I were indeed dominated by an oligarchy of
inherited wealth — and his book makes a compelling case that we’re well
on our way back toward that state.
So
what’s a conservative, fearing that this diagnosis might be used to
justify higher taxes on the wealthy, to do? He could try to refute Mr.
Piketty in a substantive way, but, so far, I’ve seen no sign of that
happening. Instead, as I said, it has been all about name-calling.
I guess this shouldn’t be
surprising. I’ve been involved
in debates over inequality for more than two decades, and have yet
to see conservative “experts” manage to dispute the numbers without
tripping over their own intellectual shoelaces. Why, it’s almost as if
the facts are fundamentally not on their side. At the same time,
red-baiting anyone who questions any aspect of free-market dogma has
been standard right-wing operating procedure ever since the likes of
William F. Buckley tried to block the teaching of Keynesian economics,
not by showing that it was wrong, but by denouncing it as “collectivist.”
Still, it has been amazing to watch conservatives, one after another, denounce Mr. Piketty as a Marxist. Even Mr. Pethokoukis, who is more sophisticated than the rest, calls “Capital” a work of “soft Marxism,” which only makes sense if the mere mention of unequal wealth makes you a Marxist. (And maybe that’s how they see it: recently former Senator Rick Santorum denounced the term “middle class” as “Marxism talk,” because, you see, we don’t have classes in America.)
Still, it has been amazing to watch conservatives, one after another, denounce Mr. Piketty as a Marxist. Even Mr. Pethokoukis, who is more sophisticated than the rest, calls “Capital” a work of “soft Marxism,” which only makes sense if the mere mention of unequal wealth makes you a Marxist. (And maybe that’s how they see it: recently former Senator Rick Santorum denounced the term “middle class” as “Marxism talk,” because, you see, we don’t have classes in America.)
And The Wall Street Journal’s review, predictably, goes the whole distance, somehow segueing from Mr. Piketty’s call for progressive taxation as a way to limit the concentration of wealth — a remedy as American as apple pie, once advocated not just by leading economists but by mainstream politicians, up to and including Teddy Roosevelt — to the evils of Stalinism. Is that really the best The Journal can do? The answer, apparently, is yes.
Now, the fact that
apologists for America’s oligarchs are evidently at a loss for coherent
arguments doesn’t mean that they are on the run politically. Money still
talks — indeed, thanks in part to the Roberts court, it talks louder
than ever. Still, ideas matter too, shaping both how we talk about
society and, eventually, what we do. And the Piketty panic shows that
the right has run out of ideas."
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I shall reboot this system and see where it is now.
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