Business Day

Taking a Closer Look at a Proposal to Limit Tax-Deferred Savings

By PAUL SULLIVAN | May 15, 2013

The proposed $3.4 million threshold would affect few people and raise relatively little money in taxes, but it has caused great consternation.

Retirement; Tax Shelters; Pensions and Retirement Plans; Federal Taxes (US); Savings; 401(k), 403(b) and 457 Plans; High Net Worth Individuals;

Starve the beast . . .

Playing with fixed numbers is just bait for the no taxes gang.

There is no middle ground.

Death and taxes are inevitable.

Science

Building a $325,000 Burger

By HENRY FOUNTAIN | May 14, 2013

A researcher in the Netherlands wants to show the world — including potential donors — that in-vitro meat is a reality.

Meat; Research; Stem Cells;

This will never satisfy the vegans or the carnivores.

As an omnivore I dislike the aesthetics.

We need the knowledge.

The product is not food but understanding.

This looks like "A cure for cancer".

Business Day

Covering the Rising Cost of Long-Term Care

By CAITLIN KELLY | May 15, 2013

After the stock market crash of 2008 and a collapsing housing bubble diminished the value of many nest eggs, the cost of long-term care is now a concern for many aging Americans.

Retirement; Long-Term Care Insurance; Nursing Homes; Retirement Communities and Assisted Living; Health Insurance and Managed Care;

Traditionally the less than wealthy did not get old.

Long term care is a luxury and an aesthetic decision.

There are penalties for breach of contract, even social contract.

World

Meet the Upwardly Mobile Middle Class Indian

By SAMBUDDHA MITRA MUSTAFI | May 14, 2013

The Chile family’s struggle to break into the middle class spanned more than six decades.

Economic Conditions and Trends; English Language; Immigration and Emigration; Parties (Social);

"how you gonna keep em down on the farm"

Arthur Fields - How Ya Gonna Keep'em Down On The Farm, 1919

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYflT3h6lCQ

Business Day

As Culture Moves Online, France Tries to Follow It With a Tax

By DAVID JOLLY | May 15, 2013

A government adviser has suggested that manufacturers pay a 1 percent levy on the price of the devices to finance French movies, music and books.

Taxation; Smartphones; Tablet Computers; Culture (Arts);

This seems to be a proposal for a tariff on devices capable of internet connection. It would be a trade barrier such as the EU was formed to prevent.

It is yet another reason to break the EU.

The rupture will not come this month.

Opinion

Angelina Jolie’s Preventive Surgery

May 15, 2013

Readers discuss an Op-Ed essay by Angelina Jolie about her double mastectomy.

Ovarian Cancer; Breast Cancer; Health Insurance and Managed Care; Women and Girls; Genetics and Heredity; Mastectomy;

There are no negative letters in this list.

You will feel better for knowing. Offer her the testing.

The big negative is removed by the affordable care act.

Fashion & Style

Hey Mom, Call Me When You Find My Wife

By JI HYUN LEE | May 12, 2013

Some think they are entitled to help in the choice of a mate because marriage unites not only a man and a woman, but two families.

Dating and Courtship; Marriages; Weddings and Engagements; Families and Family Life; Computers and the Internet; Parenting; Online Dating;

http://jezebel.com/

Grandchildren.

World

French Lawmakers Loosen Labor Rules in a Victory for the President

By STEVEN ERLANGER and DAVID JOLLY | May 15, 2013

The measures, an important win for President François Hollande, give employers more flexibility to lay off employees, but also contain concessions for workers.

Legislatures and Parliaments; Law and Legislation; Labor and Jobs; Layoffs and Job Reductions; Wages and Salaries;

Sad. Socialism really does not work.

Regulation works.

Health

Temporary Limit Put on Sales of Morning-After Pill

By PAM BELLUCK | May 14, 2013

The Justice Department appealed the Obama administration’s request for a stay of an order that the pill be available without a prescription for everyone.

Plan B (Contraceptive); Birth Control and Family Planning;

Big sisters will do the buying.

U.S.

Lawyers Press Pentagon to Abide by Detainee Deal

By CHARLIE SAVAGE | May 15, 2013

The possibility that the detainee, a Sudanese man, may not be released from the Guantánamo Bay prison threatens to undermine the ability of prosecutors to persuade other detainees to plead guilty.

Detainees; Military Tribunals;

Just cut the Gordian knot.

Opinion

‘A Long Ride Toward a New China’

By STEPHEN MAING | May 15, 2013

Every summer, the blogger "Tiger Temple" bikes around China to report on rural news stories censored by state-run media.

Blogs and Blogging (Internet); Censorship;

Dorothea Lang; Farm Security Administration.

Opinion

Sunday Dialogue: How Goods Are Produced

May 12, 2013

Unsafe factory conditions overseas: who is culpable?

Consumer Behavior; Labor and Jobs; Accidents and Safety; Factories and Manufacturing; Human Rights and Human Rights Violations; International Trade and World Market;

Work will go to the lowest satisfactory bidder.

There is nothing to be done about the low bid.

Satisfactory we can work with.

Make the factor responsible for injury suffered in the execution of the contract.

Business Day

4% Rule for Retirement Withdrawals Is Golden No More

By EILENE ZIMMERMAN | May 15, 2013

A rule stated that if retirees withdrew 4.5 percent of their savings every year — adjusted for inflation — their nest eggs would last 30 years. Not anymore.

Retirement; Stocks and Bonds; Savings; Inflation (Economics);

The four percent rule depends on the interest rate for savings.

That interest rate has fallen almost to zero.

The "rule" was fiction from the start.

Business Day

Making a Move Abroad, and Working There, Too

By KERRY HANNON | May 15, 2013

Attracted by lower costs of living, more retirees seem to be moving to Latin America and the Caribbean, but they are becoming entrepreneurs and continuing their professions remotely.

Retirement; Americans Abroad; Labor and Jobs; Part-Time Employment; Longevity; Income;

The problems are world wide.

There is no place to run from them.

World

Myanmar: Under Siege at Home, Refugees Are Feared Lost at Sea

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS | May 15, 2013

A crowded boat capsized while trying to escape a cyclone bearing down on Myanmar, tossing dozens of Rohingya Muslims into the sea, the United Nations said Tuesday.

Maritime Accidents and Safety; Rohingya (Ethnic Group); Cyclones; Deaths (Fatalities); Refugees and Displaced Persons;

There was no hostile action involved with the boat accident.

The movement of refugees is another matter.

Islam has a problem with neighbors.

Opinion

A Visit to Yemen’s Zoo

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN | May 15, 2013

The state of the endangered Arabian leopard may be a bellwether for Yemen and its people.

Endangered and Extinct Species; Environment; Middle East and North Africa Unrest (2010- );

They are not we.

They are not expected to be.

We do not run Yemen openly.

We may not run them at all.

Opinion

How Austerity Kills

By DAVID STUCKLER and SANJAY BASU | May 13, 2013

People do not inevitably get sick or die because the economy has faltered. Fiscal policy can be a matter of life or death.

Unemployment; Suicides and Suicide Attempts; United States Economy; European Sovereign Debt Crisis (2010- ); Recession and Depression; Medicine and Health;

Austerity is not good medicine unless the disease is obesity.

Health

Vermont Passes 'Aid in Dying' Measure

By PAULA SPAN | May 14, 2013

Vermont is the first state to permit physician-assisted suicide by legislation, rather than referendum or court order.

Elder Care; Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide; Hospice Care;

Euthanasia can be an option rather than a requirement.

U.S.

Cyberattacks Against U.S. Corporations Are on the Rise

By DAVID E. SANGER and NICOLE PERLROTH | May 13, 2013

Officials said the aim in a new wave of attacks was not espionage but sabotage, and that the source seemed to be in the Middle East.

Cyberwarfare; Cyberattacks and Hackers; Corporations;

A robust interface is always required everywhere.

People will poke and wiggle anything that responds.

Opinion

Grotesque Speed for Florida Capital Cases

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD | May 15, 2013

The state’s indisputably defective death penalty system is made more horrifying by attempts to rush inmates to execution. Gov. Rick Scott should veto the Timely Justice Act.

Capital Punishment; Forensic Science;

Yes.

Burying mistakes is very easy.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

@16:22

Business Day

Why Hedge Funds' Criticism of the Fed May Be Right

By JESSE EISINGER | May 15, 2013

What hedge fund investors are expressing should trouble all of us: they have almost no confidence in the Federal Reserve or the economics profession.

Hedge Funds; Inflation (Economics); Recession and Depression; Subprime Mortgage Crisis; United States Economy;

A work of fiction.

Dan Brown could be the author.

Krugman:
"May 16, 2013, 9:08 am 41 Comments

Who You Gonna Bet On?

OK, this is different: Jesse Eisinger of Propublica — Propublica! — defending those poor maligned hedge fund managers against the ridicule of macroeconomists.
And it’s true: we’ve been having a lot of fun over those dire pronouncements that quantitative easing will drain our ~~vital~~preecious bodily fluids, doom western civilization, and all that.What’s odd, however, is that although Eisinger’s piece is titled “Why fund managers may be right about the Fed”, it offers absolutely no analysis to that effect — no channel through which Bernanke’s policies might in fact be a disaster, as opposed to pointing out that the economy hasn’t been doing all that well even though stocks are up.
Eisinger’s main ace in the hole seems to be that economists failed to see the crisis coming:

But what these investors are expressing should trouble all of us: they have almost no confidence in the Federal Reserve or the economics profession. And for good reason.
It’s impressive that the Fed and many economists have successfully predicted the path of interest rates and inflation in the wake of the worst financial crisis in a generation. But neither the central bank nor academicians managed to predict or prevent the crisis in the first place. The failure dwarfs the accomplishment.

I would disagree about the respective importance of failure and accomplishment; I’ve recently argued that it’s just the other way around:

I would argue, however—self-serving as it may sound (I warned about the housing bubble, but had no inkling of how widespread a collapse would follow when it burst)—that the failure to anticipate the crisis was a relatively minor sin. Economies are complicated, ever-changing entities; it was understandable that few economists realized the extent to which short-term lending and securitization of assets such as subprime mortgages had recreated the old risks that deposit insurance and bank regulation were created to control.
I’d argue that what happened next—the way policymakers turned their back on practically everything economists had learned about how to deal with depressions, the way elite opinion seized on anything that could be used to justify austerity—was a much greater sin. The financial crisis of 2008 was a surprise, and happened very fast; but we’ve been stuck in a regime of slow growth and desperately high unemployment for years now. And during all that time policymakers have been ignoring the lessons of theory and history.

Still, in fairness, the fund managers complaining the loudest about Bernanke do seem to be guys who saw the housing bubble and made money by shorting subprime. So they have some right to feel that they have a track record.
But is it the kind of track record that suits them for analyzing monetary policy and macroeconomics? The most famous of the housing shorters, thanks to Michael Lewis, is John Paulson; and, well, Krugman or Paulson: Who you gonna bet on?
The point, I think, is that you can simultaneously fault the Fed and economists in general for failing to see this crisis coming, and ridicule the hedge fund guys for giving advice right now that is both ludicrous and dangerous. And you should."

Health

Temporary Limit Put on Sales of Morning-After Pill

By PAM BELLUCK | May 14, 2013

The Justice Department appealed the Obama administration’s request for a stay of an order that the pill be available without a prescription for everyone.

Plan B (Contraceptive); Birth Control and Family Planning;

I do not understand the political appeal.

U.S.