The insourcing-boom: While
manufacturing jobs peaked in 1979 at 19.6 million and drifted down slowly for
the next 20 years (with the country losing jobs 7x faster between 2000 and 2010
than 1980 and 2000), several factors are bringing manufacturing jobs back to
the U.S.: (1) oil price 60% higher in 2000, making transport more expensive
now, (2) natural gas boom, (3) in dollars, wages in China are 5x more expensive
now than it was in 2000, rising at 18% per annum, (4) U.S. labor productivity
just kept rising. [Note: Good for all of us, time to look for the next cheap
source of labor]…Source: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/12/the-insourcing-boom/309166/3/?single_page=true
Commodity hedge funds
lose 20% of assets: the average commodity fund lost 3.7% in 2012, after the
1.4% loss in 2011. The poor performance was mainly attributable to multi-year
lows in volatility thanks to liquidity overflow as well as political uncertainties.
[Note: brace for the return of volatility, their time will come.]…Source: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/ee377c7e-7076-11e2-85d0-00144feab49a.html#axzz2K5uGj1Jx
Excerpt from Jeremy
Gratham’s Q4 letter: “When one
combines the apparent determination and influence of those who do the bullying
with the career risk and short-termism of the bullied and the desire of the
general public to believe unbelievable good news, these overpricings can go
much further and the Fed can win another round or two. That’s the problem. A clue to timing would be when we begin to
hear more passionate new era arguments: profit margins will always be higher;
growth will snap back to 3% for the developed world; and new ones I can’t think
of … maybe “when the discount rate is this low the Dow should sell at, perhaps,
36,000.” In the meantime, prudent
managers should be increasingly careful.” Source: http://www.gmo.com/websitecontent/GMO_QtlyLetter_4Q2012.pdf
MasterCard’s new
partnership with data analysis: MasterCard Advisors — the division of the
credit card company dedicated to analyzing transaction data and providing data
consulting services — partnered with data science firm Mu Sigma and MasterCard
acquired an undisclosed equity stake in the company. [Note: Could there be
better uses for data analysis knowledge?]…Source: http://gigaom.com/2013/02/07/mastercard-buys-a-piece-of-data-science-specialist-mu-sigma/
The new Monopoly
piece: an evolution is upon us; the game is casting out the iron from the
collection of official game tokens and adding a kitty cat. [Note: No! the iron
was my favorite Monopoly piece—it never topples]…Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/02/07/what-that-new-monopoly-piece-tells-us-about-the-economy/
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