Developer options in Android 4.2

If you are looking for the "{} Developer options" in Android 4.2, you may need to read this.

Slowed Growth Reflects China's Uphill Battle

Interesting perspective, particularly on the consequence of property rights

Slowed Growth Reflects China's Uphill Battle

Oh, yeah ... nice work if you can get it

As reported on NPR .... Lawyers, Not Victims, Making Most In Madoff Cleanup

The $7 trillion fiscal cliff

As a follow on to a previous item, the fiscal problem facing the US at the end of 2012 was also reported Apr 30 in CNNMoney, as The $7 trillion fiscal cliff.

The War Against Youth

An interesting article from Esquire.  I did not understand why the politicians, of any leaning, have failed to do anything about the awful financial mess many of the developed economies are in.  This article suggests at least what may be happening in the US, using Social Security as an example:  "The 2011 report by the Social Security trustees estimates that, under its current administration, the fund will run out in 2036, so there's just enough to get the oldest Boomers to age ninety."

The voters and politicians look after the boomers and damn those who follow.

The end of 2012

If you listen into the round table discussion of the US economy, as part of Fareed Zakaria's 2012 Feb 26 broadcast, at the 24 - 25 minute mark you hear about the potential contraction in the US economy at the end of 2012. In the congressional lame duck session, as bunch of tax cuts are due to expire and the mandatory (sic) spending cuts bite, you wonder what happens next with a fiscal tightening of 3.5% of GDP.

Chinese real estate ... for and against

More opinions, for and against, a near-term calamity in the chinese real-estate market.

Looking over their shoulders ...

So should chinese workers and american taxi/truck drivers be looking over their shoulders as the robots approach ?

The Great Disruption

In a podcast from the Commonwealth Club ....  "It's time to stop just worrying about climate change, says Gilding; instead, we need to brace for impact, because global crisis is no longer avoidable. "

(Couldn't be?) Made in America

This article in the NY Times is a pretty sobering account of why the iPhone is built in China (spoiler alert, it is not the cost of labor).  It leaves a different sense of timeline (decades rather than years) for any recovery in the US economy, a little different from the folksy ad run by Americas Power.  But maybe we are looking for a return to a past that can no longer be afforded.

When the price of carbon and thus transportation is unrealistically low, the incentive is to centralize production.  If we were to meaningfully deal with global warming, production would move closer to the markets and revitalize the local supply chains, likely at a lower level of per capita consumption. Intellectual property can be distributed cheaply ... maybe what is needed is for FoxConn to become truly multinational and for the domestic labor markets to adapt to a changed world.

Employment in the US

In his article, Zakaria: Romney's Real Problem, Zakaria states:  "If you look at job creation over the last 20-25 years in America, you’ll notice that we haven't been able to create any jobs in what is called the “tradable sector” of the economy - those jobs that are subject to global competition. The only jobs we’ve really created have been in industries like health care, government, and construction, which are basically local industries shielded from global competition. You can't outsource the building of a New York skyscraper to a Chinese worker."  Looking a little further, the Economist has an article Moving to Stagnation, which discusses job growth and movement in the US (and certainly is not happy news for NM).  Foriegn Affairs has a nice, longer article (for fee), Globalization and Unemployment, on the structural issues facing jobs in the US.