@22:00 7/11/14

|

1

U.S.

Among Justices, Considering a Divide Not of Gender or Politics, but of Beliefs

By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN | Jul 11th 2014

Most analyses of recent church-state decisions have gone along the lines of politics or gender, yet it is at least as com

pelling to consider the Catholic-Jewish divide.

Religion-State Relations; Jews and Judaism 

I fear it is true.  

2

Automobiles

Fixes for Pistons and Driveshafts

By SCOTT STURGIS | Jul 11th 2014

The latest technical service bulletins include BMWs, Fords and Hondas.

Automobiles

The problems are trivial like the windows or good reasons to sell the car.  

If you own one of these cars get it checked and price the repair.

3

Opinion

Rules to Run By

By GAIL COLLINS | Jul 11th 2014

Good news, people! There have already been many insightful and helpful hints gleaned from this election year that we can now share with 2014 hopefuls.

United States Politics and Government; Midterm Elections (2014) 

I am not laughing.

4

Automobiles

Wheelies: The Classic Gas Prices Edition

By BENJAMIN PRESTON | Jul 11th 2014

Hagerty’s offers year-of-manufacture gas prices to classic-car owners Friday morning; top Toyota designer moves to Yamaha.

Antique and Classic Cars; Electric and Hybrid Vehicles; Automobiles 

All promotions.

5

Business Day

Agencies Set Sights on Marketing for a Cause

By STUART ELLIOTT | Jul 10th 2014

Several advertising agencies are trying to capitalize on a boom in cause-related marketing, also known as pro-social marketing and purpose marketing.

Advertising and Marketing; Political Advertising; Online Advertising; Public Relations and Publicity; Sustainable Living 

Unfortunately advertising is art.

 

6

Fashion & Style

Turning ‘Likes’ Into a Career

By SHEILA MARIKAR | Jul 11th 2014

There’s a star-making machinery behind the emerging generation of Instagram, Vine, Twitter and Pinterest celebrities.

Social Media; Video Recordings, Downloads and Streaming; Computers and the Internet; Advertising and Marketing 

It will doubtless be done.

I don't want to play at this time.

7

Opinion

From Twitter, a Growing Collection of Communicative Conservationists

By ANDREW C. REVKIN | Jul 11th 2014

A list of communicative conservationists who press the case for animal care on Twitter.

Animal Abuse, Rights and Welfare; Endangered and Extinct Species; Environment; Fish and Other Marine Life; Social Media; Wildlife Sanctuaries 

Andrew Revkin is playing the digital management game.

I would rather read the science.

The politics of faith (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith) are beyond my skills as yet.

8

U.S.

Campaign Atmosphere Amid Detroit Vote on Debt Plan

By MONICA DAVEY and STEVEN YACCINO | Jul 9th 2014

The deadline is Friday for public workers and retirees to cast ballots on a plan that depends in part on cutting their benefits.

Bankruptcies; Pensions and Retirement Plans; Government Employees 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/13/magazine/the-post-post-apocalyptic-detroit.html?ref=magazine

"Economists fret that Detroit, in the absence of the manufacturing economy that built it, no longer has any reason to be. And indeed, large chunks of the sprawling, 139-square-mile city have literally vanished: Of Detroit’s 380,000 properties, some 114,000 have been razed, with 80,000 more considered blighted and most likely in need of demolition. But the new prospectors have an abiding faith that cities, like markets, are necessarily cyclical, and that the cycle has finally come around. It is the same ethos that turned other urban disasters into capitalist boomtowns — New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina or the cities of Western Europe after World War II. If the scale of Detroit’s failure is unprecedented, then so (the local reasoning goes) is the scale of its opportunity."

The problem is Detroit has lost its industry and most of its skilled population. 

Half its titled properties are foreclosed or in foreclosure.  About a third are demolished.  

If the city survives it will be a much smaller city and unable to support its retired for the next twenty years.  By then almost all the 65 and over will be dead.  There is a smaller cohort that is vested but not yet retired.  

Transitions in a depression are a problem.  

9

Business Day

Buick Sheds Its Old Fogy Image and Lifts G.M.

By JAMES B. STEWART | Jul 11th 2014

Sales at General Motors rose 1 percent in June despite the crisis over faulty ignitions that has prompted lawsuits and huge product recalls, in large part because of rising Buick sales.

Recalls and Bans of Products; Small Cars (Compact, Subcompact and Microcars); Sports Utility Vehicles and Light Trucks; Automobile Safety Features and Defects 

The children do not remember and the Chinese did not know.

It is, for the buyers, a new luxury brand.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29_RZ82aZ6A

10

Fashion & Style

Unraveling a Dark Family Secret

By NOMI EVE | Jul 10th 2014

At 21, a writer made a discovery that she feared would betray her beloved grandmother.

Modern Love (Times Column); Families and Family Life; Grandparents 

I and my siblings are unreasonably lucky.

My genetic problems will not kill me early and they have escaped that part of our heritage.

11

U.S.

V.A. Is Accused of Retaliating in 67 Complaint Cases

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS | Jul 8th 2014

A federal investigative agency is examining 67 claims of retaliation by supervisors at the Department of Veterans Affairs against employees who filed whistle-blower complaints — including 25 complaints filed since June 1, after a growing health care scandal involving long patient waits and falsified records at department hospitals and clinics became public.

Veterans; Whistle-Blowers 

I believe it. 

Penny pinching will do that.  

I blame the Republican party.  

It is their policy of irresponsible government.

12

Sports

Sterling Spars With Wife’s Lawyer at Trial That Will Determine Clippers Sale

By BILLY WITZ | Jul 8th 2014

Donald Sterling, the Clippers’ owner, testified at a trial that will determine whether he was legally removed from a trust by his wife, who then sold the team.

Basketball 

It is his money.

It will make no difference.

She made the best deal she could.

The N.B.A. demanded a sale of all Sterling interests in the franchise.

She got him a floor side seat and a parking spot.

13

Fashion & Style

Tangled Web of Memories Lingers After a Breakup

By NICK BILTON | Jul 9th 2014

Scrubbing painful memories from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other sites can be a challenge.

Social Media; Dating and Relationships 

You must try to do it.  I cannot help from here.

14

Opinion

Morning Views

By JAKE FLANAGIN | Jul 8th 2014

Opinions on Middle East rage, military aid, money in politics and Korean suicide.

Campaign Finance; Child Abuse and Neglect; Foreign Aid; Palestinians; Politics and Government; Sex Crimes; Suicides and Suicide Attempts

Israel and Hamas will not reconsider any of their views.
Gaza is happy with Hamas.
Israel will not "ethnically cleanse" Gaza.  Gaza cannot eliminate Israel.
They will fight until Hamas is exhausted.
Hamas will fight again when it recovers.

15

Automobiles

W

in the Garden State

By BENJAMIN PRESTON | Jul 11th 2014

The American Historic Racing Motorcycle Association will hold classic motorcycle racing in New Jersey; drag racing legends reunite in York, Pa.

Automobiles; Motorcycle Racing; Automobile Racing; Motorcycles, Motor Bikes and Motorscooters; Nascar Sprint Cup Series; Drag Racing

It would be more fun to play than to watch.
Motor racing is better on television.
 

16

Technology

You Don't Have to Feel Very Guilty About Using Your Smartphone While Parenting

By FARHAD MANJOO | Jul 9th 2014

A preschool boy has a vacation. And his father finds a way to spend time with him and still get his work done.

Parenting; Smartphones; Work-Life Balance

My attention does not split.  I do one thing at a time these days.

17

Arts

 

In the Language of Romance, Romeo Santos Is a True Supersta

By LARRY ROHTER | Jul 10th 2014

Romeo Santos’s consecutive sold-out shows at Yankee Stadium are a testament to the popularity of bachata music and to the growing influence of Hispanics.

Music; Spanish Language; Hispanic-Americans; Rap and Hip-Hop; Dominican-Americans; Mexican-Americans

You will have to teach your romantic language.  I will try to teach mine.
I have not developed much skill.

18

Business Day

Fed, Confident in Economy, Details End of Bond-Buying Program

By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM | Jul 9th 2014

The decision signals the end of one of the central bank’s most aggressive efforts to stimulate the economy.

Quantitative Easing; United States Economy; Credit and Debt; Interest Rates; Government Bonds

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/07/12/the-meme-is-out-there/

"The Meme is Out There

July 12, 2014 2:14 pmJuly 12, 2014 2:14 pm

 

I just answered some questions for Princeton magazine, and among them was this:

Please comment on how artificially low interest rates have impacted the current value of baby boomers’ retirement portfolios and should this be a consideration of the Federal Reserve?

I don’t blame the editor, who after all isn’t supposed to be an economist. But what this must reflect is what people are hearing on the financial news; I’m pretty sure that a lot of people think that all the experts regard interest rates as “artificially low”, and have no idea that to the extent that such a notion makes any sense at all — which is to say in terms of the Wicksellian natural rate — interest rates are too high, not too low."

"Liquidationism in the 21st Century

July 12, 2014 3:20 pmJuly 12, 2014 3:20 pm

Brad DeLong professes himself confused:

I confess that I do not understand the recent BIS Annual Report. I have tried–I have tried very hard–to wrap my mind around just what the BIS position is. But I have failed.

Actually, I don’t think it’s that hard. But you need to see this in terms of an attitude, not a coherent model.

At least since 2010 the BIS position has basically been the same as that of 1930s liquidationists like Schumpeter, who warned against any “artificial stimulus” that might leave the “work of depressions undone.” And in 2010-2011 it had an intellectually coherent — factually wrong, but coherent — story underlying that position. The BIS basically claimed that mass unemployment was the result of structural mismatch — workers had the wrong skills, and/or were in the wrong sectors. And it therefore claimed that easy money would lead to a rapid rise in inflation, despite the high level of unemployment.

But it didn’t happen. So you might have expected the BIS to revise its policy prescriptions. What it did, instead, however, was to look for new justifications for the same prescriptions. Partly this involved playing up the supposed damage low rates do to financial stability. But the BIS has also gone in heavily for the notion that we’re suffering from a balance-sheet recession, that is, that over-indebtedness on the part of part of the private sector is exerting a persistent drag on the economy.

That’s a reasonable story — it’s a model I like myself. But the BIS either doesn’t understand that model’s implications, or doesn’t care.

Throughout the annual report, balance-sheet problems are treated as if they were equivalent to the kind of real structural problems the bank used to claim were at the root of our troubles. That is, they’re treated as a good reason to accept a protracted period of high unemployment as somehow natural, and to reject artificial stimulus that might alleviate the pain.

That, however –as Irving Fisher could have told them! — is not at all the correct implication to draw from a balance-sheet view. On the contrary, what balance-sheet models tell us is that left to itself, the process of deleveraging produces huge, unnecessary costs: debtors are forced to cut back, but creditors have no comparable incentive to spend more, so there is a persistent shortfall of demand that leads to great pain and waste. Moreover, the depressed state of the economy can cripple the process of deleveraging itself, both because debtors don’t have the income to pay down their debts and because falling inflation or deflation increases the real value of debt relative to expectations.

So the balance-sheet view actually makes a compelling case for activism — for fiscal deficits to support demand while the private sector gets its balance sheets in order, for monetary policy to support the fiscal policy, for a rise in inflation targets both to encourage whoever isn’t debt-constrained to spend more and to erode the real value of the debt.

The BIS, however, wants governments as well as households to retrench — I’m kind of surprised that it doesn’t also call for everyone to run a trade surplus; it wants interest rates raised right away; and — in a clear sign that it isn’t being coherent — it includes a box declaring that deflation isn’t so bad, after all. Irving Fisher wept.

Oh, and about the BIS’s claim that its position is Wicksellian: if you go back just a couple of years, you have William White of the BIS claiming that interest rates were below their natural rate in the ordinary sense that they were inflationary. When it turned out that they weren’t — well, you guessed it — the Bank redefined the natural rate so that it could keep claiming that rates are too low.

Are the BIS’s methods unsound? I don’t see any method at all. Instead, I see an attitude, looking for justification."

19

World

More Charges to Come Against Libyan Over Benghazi

Post settings

By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT | Jul 8th 2014

The Justice Department said Tuesday that it intended to file additional charges against Ahmed Abu Khattala, the man being held in the 2012 attacks that killed the United States ambassador in Benghazi, Libya, and three others.

Benghazi Attack (2012); Diplomatic Service, Embassies and Consulates; International Relations

Charges do not make him guilty.
I do not expect the proper charge of kidnapping to be placed against the U.S. military.

20

Business Day

A Provocateur’s Book on Hillary Clinton Overtakes Her Memoir in Sales

By AMY CHOZICK and ALEXANDRA ALTER | Jul 10th 2014

Edward Klein’s “Blood Feud: The Clintons vs. the Obamas,” a 320-page unauthorized and barely sourced account, has toppled “Hard Choices” from itssettings spot on the best-seller list.settings

Books and Literature

There is an audience for slander.