Inspiring Economic Growth

Robert J. Shiller :

Fear causes individuals to restrain their spending and firms to withhold investments; as a result, the economy weakens, confirming their fear and leading them to restrain spending further. The downturn deepens, and a vicious circle of despair takes hold. Though the 2008 financial crisis has passed, we remain stuck in the emotional cycle that it set in motion.

It is a bit like stage fright. Dwelling on performance anxiety may cause hesitation or a loss of inspiration. As fear turns into fact, the anxiety worsens – and so does the performance. Once such a cycle starts, it can be very difficult to stop.

→ Project Syndicate

Beau Biden, Dies at 46

Many in Delaware expected Mr. Biden to run for his father’s Senate seat after the 2008 election, but the younger Biden, who was elected attorney general in 2006, declined, saying he was still needed in his state as he pressed ahead on a major child molestation case his agency was pursuing against a pediatrician.

“I have a duty to fulfill as attorney general, and the immediate need to focus on a case of great consequence. And that is what I must do.”

→ The New York Times

How the Cayman Islands Became a FIFA Power

It might seem unlikely that FIFA, soccer’s world governing body, has spent $2.2 million since 2002 to build a new headquarters for the soccer association and to fund two planned fields, given that the land is swampy and a grass field struggled to exist in brackish conditions.

FIFA’s generosity might seem even more improbable, considering that the Cayman Islands, a Caribbean tax and tourist haven, is ranked 191st among the world’s 209 national soccer teams. The team has never played in a World Cup. And the entire population of the islands, about 58,000, would not come close to filling the world’s biggest soccer stadiums.

While $2.2 million seems peanut for the FIFA, there’s a twist to it :

Seven years later, though, the first field remains weeks away from completion. Plans for a dormitory and a gym have not materialized. A final grant, for $500,000 in March 2014, was for the installation of artificial turf, FIFA noted on its website, because “the current grass field cannot survive in the low-level saltwater environment.”

→ The New York Times

I Fooled Millions Into Thinking Chocolate Helps Weight Loss. Here’s How.

A great reminder that medias can easily be fooled and help propagate false informations with pointless headlines.

Other than those fibs, the study was 100 percent authentic. My colleagues and I recruited actual human subjects in Germany. We ran an actual clinical trial, with subjects randomly assigned to different diet regimes. And the statistically significant benefits of chocolate that we reported are based on the actual data. It was, in fact, a fairly typical study for the field of diet research. Which is to say: It was terrible science. The results are meaningless, and the health claims that the media blasted out to millions of people around the world are utterly unfounded.

Here’s how we did it.

→ io9

Mr. Bleu

ikb128

Delighted to hear Bill Gross’ point of view regarding art collecting. He and his wife seem more impressed by stamps, which they’re renowned collectors.

I’ve never been much of an art aficionado myself, having settled for framing some All American Rockwells neatly clipped from old Saturday Evening Post covers. There was a time though when a well-publicized Rockwell came to auction and Sue and I expressed some interest. Ever since, we’ve been on the art house’s mailing lists and I must admit, it’s fun to browse through the Picassos, Rothkos, and whatever else currently frenzies modern collectors. I’m no expert though, and if I begin to pretend that I am, Sue puts me in my place because she’s the artist in the family. She likes to paint replicas of some of the famous pieces, using an overhead projector to copy the outlines and then just sort of fill in the spaces. “Why spend $20 million?” she’d say – “I can paint that one for $75”, and I must admit that one fabulous Picasso with signature “Sue”, heads the fireplace mantle in our bedroom

→ Janus Capital