5.9 C
New York
Friday, March 29, 2024

Evening News, 4-16-15

From Around the Web:

CEOs Don’t Care Enough About Capital Allocation (HBR)

In his 1987 letter to investors, Warren Buffet made the following observation: “the heads of many companies are not skilled in capital allocation, and … it is not surprising because most bosses rise to the top because they have excelled in an area such as marketing, production, engineering, administration or, sometimes, institutional politics.” (More here)

NASA's Messenger and MercuryMessenger spacecraft will soon crash on Mercury's surface, NASA says (LATimes)

After more than four years of orbiting Mercury, NASA’s Messenger spacecraft is about to end its mission with a bang. After more than 4,100 orbits around the closest planet to the sun, the satellite will crash into Mercury’s crater-pocked surface April 30.

NASA officials gave tribute in a briefing Thursday to the Messenger spacecraft, which was the first to orbit Mercury and which they say has fundamentally altered our understanding of this scorched little world.   (Read here)

How many iPhones did Apple sell last quarter? (Fortune)

The watch may be the talk of the town, but it’s the phone brings in the big bucks.

The earnings report forApple’s second fiscal quarter is less than two weeks away, and much as we like to obsesses about the new Watch, it hasn’t earned Apple a penny yet. (Continue reading)

web1_WSOP-FINAL-TABLE_111114DB_020_6Citigroup's Gold "Expert" Demands A Cash Ban (ZH, Tyler Durden)

Late last year, Grexit "expert" Willem Buiter decided that he was a greater expert on the topic of monetary metals than on geopolitics by stating that "Gold Is A 6,000 Year Old Bubble." Now, he has decided that after gold, it is best to just do away with any physical currency altogether and the time to ban cash has arrived. (Full article)

We’re All Terrible at Understanding Each Other (HBR)

Whatever you may have heard to the contrary, Chip Wilson is not an idiot.  The founder and former CEO and Chairman of Lululemon Atheltica is, in point of fact, a highly successful entrepreneur, philanthropist, innovator, and self-made billionaire.  Idiots are very rarely any of those things. (More here)

Johnny Tsai, Pascal's general manager, stands inside Pascal Lighting in Huizhou, Guangdong province, April 13, 2015. REUTERS/Alexandra HarneyChina's incredible shrinking factory (Reuters)

Eight years ago, Pascal Lighting employed about 2,000 workers on a leafy campus in southern China. Today, the Taiwanese light manufacturer has winnowed its workforce to just 200 and leased most of its space to other companies: lamp workshops, a mobile phone maker, a logistics group, a liquor brand. (Read here)

LA schools want refund from Apple over slipshod iPad project (CNet)

The Los Angeles School District is not too happy with Apple and training company Pearson as a result of a project to outfit students with iPads that didn't go as planned.

The school district wants to get back millions of dollars that it spent on the project from Apple, the Los Angeles Times reported on Wednesday. The district has also been given approval to look into potential legal action against both Apple and Pearson, which created the learning material and curriculum as a subcontractor to Apple. (More)

Modi MerkelThe strongest BRIC is starting to crumble (BusinessInsider)

Up until now, India was the bright spot in a relatively dismal 2015 BRIC story, but it looks like things are starting to turn down for the nation of 1.3 billion.

Weak domestic and external demand, depressed industrial production, and stubbornly low inflation have some analysts worried. (More)

Walmart fired 2,200 to fix the plumbing (CNN)

Walmart surprised everyone and put 2,200 people out of work Monday when it temporarily closed five stores.

The reason for the shut down: plumbing problems, according to the retailer.

Two of the stores are in Texas, and the others are in California, Florida and Oklahoma. They will be closed for "extended repairs" for approximately six months, the company said. (More here)

Apple Is Buying Up 36,000 Acres Of Forest To Conserve It (Buzzfeed)

Apple is partnering with an environmental nonprofit to purchase roughly 36,000 acres of private forestland, which will be sustainably harvested and used in Apple’s packaging.

The land — two tracts in Maine and North Carolina that, combined, are roughly two and a half times the size of Manhattan — will be managed by The Conservation Fund. This land is part of an estimated 45 million acres of private forest in the U.S. that are in danger of being lost to development. (Continue)

Is Mario Draghi Stupid, Crooked Or What? (WallStreetExaminer)

Europe is surely at the top of the heap among today’s raging  financial market lunacy. It seems that Ireland has now broken into the negative interest rate club, investment grade multinationals are flocking to issue 1% debt on the euro-bond markets and, if yield is your thing, you can get all of 3.72% on the Merrill Lynch euro junk bond index.

That’s right. You can stick your head in a financial meat grinder and what you get for the hazard is essentially pocket change after inflation and taxes. (Read more)

Elizabeth WarrenElizabeth Warren just laid out all the financial reforms she wants to push through (BusinessInsider)

Elizabeth Warren made a speech at the Levy Institute's Minsky Conference on Wednesday and laid out some major financial reforms she wants to push through.

"The culture of cheating on Wall Street didn’t stop with the 2008 crash," the populist Massachusetts Senator said.  (Continue reading)

San Francisco Tops Forbes' 2015 List Of Worst Cities For Renters (Forbes)

San Francisco and Silicon Valley aren’t just churning out jobs and billionaires these days—America’s tech center is also producing what is arguably the nation’s worst housing shortage. The average monthly apartment rent in greater San Francisco is $2,802, second highest among the nation’s 50 biggest metropolitan areas. But what really makes the Bay Area a tough market for renters is the competition. (Read here)

china rocketBubble trouble: China's stock market looks too hot (CNN)

Chinese equities are officially on fire. The Shanghai Composite has skyrocketed 78% since just before Halloween. It recently crested the 4,000 level for the first time since the financial crisis.

Yet stocks in China have achieved red-hot status just as the country's economy is going through a cooling off period. Growth slowed to the weakest pace since 2009. (More)

3 Ways to Make Less Biased Decisions (HBR)

Unconscious bias – judgments and behaviors toward others that we’re not aware of – is everywhere in our lives. And while this type of bias may seem less dangerous in the workplace than it may be on the streets of Ferguson, Mo., or in a courtroom, it still leads to racial injustice. (Read more)

Subscribe
Notify of
0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Stay Connected

157,450FansLike
396,312FollowersFollow
2,280SubscribersSubscribe

Latest Articles

0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x