Linkfest: How much slack? Weakening economy, or bad weather? US CFOs hoard foreign cash

Categories: Linkfest

Today’s most shared:

  • How close is US to full employment? NAIRU is as NAIRU does.
  • Weakening economy, or just severe weather? (and mortgage rate rebound/housing weakness)
  • US companies’ hoard of cash trapped overseas grows.
  • A primer on money creation.
  • The perils of subscription ‘signals.’
  • Inequality and capture of democratic institutions by the elite; the coming inherited wealth transfer.
  • When trading geniuses footnote ‘material weakness’ in counting their profits while IPO-ing their possibly poorly quantified gold mine.

A few points on slack
The Economist
A debate has broken out over just how close America is to full employment: over how much slack there is in labour markets.
shared by @ObsoleteDogma, @rortybomb, @JustinWolfers, @moorehn, @CardiffGarcia
 
Known unknowns about labour market slack
Financial Times
Here are questions to which the answers remain disputed.
shared by Free Exchange, @IvanTheK, @moorehn, @M_C_Klein
 
Weakening Economy or Just Bad Winter?
houseofdebt.org
Retail spending by households in January 2014 was a major disappointment, coming in well below expectations. January 2014 was also one of the coldest months in memory in many parts of the country. Was the extreme cold weather to blame for weak retail spending? Or is the economy weakening?
shared by @BCAppelbaum, @davidmwessel, @JustinWolfers, @M_C_Klein
 
Cash Abroad Rises $206 Billion as Apple to IBM Avoid Tax
Bloomberg
The largest U.S.-based companies added $206 billion to their stockpiles of offshore profits last year, parking earnings in low-tax countries until Congress gives them a reason not to.
shared by Business Insider, @EddyElfenbein, @markgongloff, @counterparties, @nasiripour
 
The spectre of eurozone deflation
Financial Times
The European Central Bank is failing to hit its own target for price stability. The difficulty is that the bank’s governing council may be unable to agree on effective measures, largely because of splits on national lines.
shared by @SonyKapoor, @FGoria, @D_Blanchflower, @tylercowen, @YanniKouts
 
Bitcoin exchange for high-frequency traders is launched
MarketWatch
High-speed telecommunications provider Perseus Telecom and digital currency trading platform Atlas ATS formally launch Wednesday a globally integrated bitcoin exchange system in New York, Hong Kong and Singapore.
shared by @Alea_, @gusbaratta, @michaelsderby, @ChrisAdamsMKTS, @Kiffmeister
 
A man and his signals
The Reformed Broker
Once upon a time there was an egotistical man who sold subscriptions to a stock market research product based on the premise that his “signals” could tell people when to buy and sell. He’d sold a ton of subscriptions for his service and, for a little while, had a lot of people fooled – regular investors, professional traders and the media too. And then it all fell apart.
shared by @ritholtz, @TheStalwart, Abnormal Returns, @IvanTheK, @mark_dow
 
Q&A: Thomas Piketty on the Wealth Divide
New York Times
An interview with the author of a new book, “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” on the dynamics driving the concentration of income and wealth into the hands of the few.
shared by @Nouriel, @davidmwessel, @MarkThoma, @mccarthyryanj
 
High-Speed Trader Isn’t So Good With Numbers
bloombergview.com
If the high-frequency trading firm Virtu Financial Inc. succeeds in becoming a public company this year, it would confirm yet again that the investing public has thrown caution to the wind when it comes to initial public offerings.
shared by @mark_dow, @ritholtz, @LorcanRK, @JacobWolinsky, @JoeSaluzzi
 
Silicon Valley’s Youth Problem
New York Times
In start-up land, the young barely talk to the old (and vice versa). That makes for a lot of cool apps. But great technology? Not so much.
shared by @TheStalwart, @counterparties, @mccarthyryanj, @Techmeme, @Alea_
 

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