The Big Picture

Wed, 25 Apr 2018 09:00:16 +0000

by Christoph Lakner Co-Authors: Mario Negre, Jose Cuesta, Ani Wilwal In earlier blogposts on recent trends in inequality, we had referred to measurement issues that make this exercise challenging. In this blogpost we discuss two such issues: the underlying welfare measure (income or consumption) used to quantify the extent of inequality within a country, and the fact that…

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Tue, 24 Apr 2018 22:00:02 +0000

Nobel Prize winning economist Richard Thaler and Bloomberg View columnist Barry Ritholtz, discuss the markets and the NFL draft. They speak with Bloomberg’s Vonnie Quinn on “Bloomberg Markets.” (Ritholtz is a Bloomberg View columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.   Richard Thaler Says Round Numbers on Yields Means Nothing Source: Bloomberg, April 24th, 2018…

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Tue, 24 Apr 2018 17:00:39 +0000

  Joel Greenblatt know the challenges of running portfolios intended to outperform their benchmarks as well as anyone. When he was running his concentrated, special situations portfolio at Gotham Capital, he compounded at 50% per year (before fees) for a decade. Despite large drawdowns and high volatility, his investors were understandably unhappy when he returned…

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Tue, 24 Apr 2018 13:00:31 +0000

@TBPInvictus here: There have been a few recent minimum wage related developments that I thought I’d memorialize in one quick post. In no particular order: In March, a minimum wage study was released (pdf) by Kevin Rinz & John Voorheis at Census. You probably didn’t hear about it because it didn’t get much publicity. Herewith…

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Tue, 24 Apr 2018 12:01:50 +0000

My Two-for-Tuesday morning train reads: • How Windmills as Wide as Jumbo Jets Are Making Clean Energy Mainstream (New York Times) see also How to Buy a Wind Farm (Bloomberg) • Yes. It’s a Bubble. So What? (Research Affiliates) • Reed Hastings, the Netflix chief with a global vision (Financial Times) • Exoplanets May Help Us Understand How Venus Turned Into…

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Tue, 24 Apr 2018 10:30:53 +0000

click for ginormous graphic Source: Visual Capitalist

The post Google’s True Dominance Over the Web appeared first on The Big Picture.

Tue, 24 Apr 2018 09:00:21 +0000

The post IMF Fiscal Monitor: Capitalizing on Good Times, April 2018 appeared first on The Big Picture.

Mon, 23 Apr 2018 17:00:59 +0000

How to Avoid a Retirement Disaster Be aware and be realistic. But most of all, diversify. Bloomberg, April 23, 2018       The $140 billion drop in the value of General Electric Co.’s stock price during the past year gets the full human interest treatment in the Wall Street Journal. I don’t want to minimize…

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The post GE Retirees’ Classic Investment Error appeared first on The Big Picture.

Mon, 23 Apr 2018 12:05:38 +0000

My Spring has finally arrived morning train reads: • Buffett’s Edge (Investment Masters Class) • Land of the Lost: On the Ever-Changing Landscape of Markets (Of Dollars And Data) • The Arc of Happiness & the Gorilla (L2) • Michael Cohen case shines light on Sean Hannity’s real estate empire (Guardian) • The End of the Joint As We Know It (Ringer) Be…

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Mon, 23 Apr 2018 11:00:16 +0000

Chart from WSJ showing median income of various firms Source: WSJ     Last week, I explained how unusual the pay scale is at Amazon. They pay a low median wage. The high paying average tech and engineering jobs were dragged lower by low paying retailing and warehousing work. (See $28,446) That led to a Bloomberg…

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