March 2011
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February 2011
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“Medicine has never been better; our overall health, however, is worsening.”
– — David Gratzer, MD
That, my friends, is the simple truth of modern life in America. Health is less and less about what doctors can do for you, but what you can do for your health. However, The System’s responsibility is to arm you with the easily accessible and affordable tools to help you...
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The 2012 White House Budget Proposal. Who Will...
Sigh. This is truly depressing.
You can get a full look at the White House’s 2012 Budget proposal here. Usually we put it on Scribd, but their site is broken. Besides, it’s a 216 pager. Not exactly light reading.
In lieu of the doc, we’ve given you a handy data viz for the spending allocations. It’s illuminating.
So what’s the big deal? We reprint Jon Cohn in...
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Kobe just one star defying aging curve →
Bill Simmons. Again.
What do these three have in common?
They’ve all managed to put off The Change.
I was there when it happened to Julius Erving: Nov. 9, 1984, Philly at Boston, the night his five-year rivalry with Larry Bird went up in smoke. Bird outscored Erving 42-6 in three quarters before words were exchanged and, incredibly, two of the league’s biggest stars started...
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Michael Lewis chronicles the Irish debt crisis →
Long-ish read, but riveting, as usual.
When Irish Eyes Are Crying
First Iceland. Then Greece. Now Ireland, which headed for bankruptcy with its own mysterious logic. In 2000, suddenly among the richest people in Europe, the Irish decided to buy their country—from one another. After which their banks and government really screwed them. So where’s the rage?
BY MICHAEL LEWIS•PHOTOGRAPH BY JONAS...
Why Is Wall Street So Addicted to Prestige... →
Click the link above for the full article. //sigh
A recent paper by Kellog management professor Lauren Rivera “uncovers” something most of us already know: elite investment banks, consultancies and law firms are education snobs.
From her abstract:
In the following article, I analyze how hiring agents in top-tier professional service firms use education to recruit, assess, and select new hires....
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Some 43 Million Americans Use Food Stamps →
You can call the current state of affairs many things. “A broad based recovery” is not one of them. #inequality #letthemeatcake
WSJ Real Time Economics Blog:
Nearly a year and a half into the economic recovery, some 43.6 million Americans continued to rely on food stamps in November.
More than 14% of the population drew food stamps in November to purchase groceries as high...
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Stanford Cleans Up- 2011 National Signing Day
Click clack. I think you hear us coming.
Actually, we’re already here. We just won the Orange Bowl. Next stop-national title. Rivals.com has us at #22. This class is sick.
Reader Adam has an awesome player by player breakdown. Bravo. As he describes…
This is incredible. what i’ve been saying all along: tough academic standards don’t hurt you if you get all the elite...
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Bill Gross' February Investment Outlook- "This... →
This is troubling.
As regular readers know, Bill Gross runs PIMCO, and manages the Total Return Fund (the largest bond vehicle in the world). When he talks, people listen. So imagine our surprise here at The Scrambler when in this month’s investment outlook, Billy Bob starts spouting nonsense about finance NOT being God’s work.
Why does he hate America?
Even if it’s a...
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Could Science Leave the University? →
infoneer-pulse:
Does science need the university? Not so much that it won’t go looking for a better place to stay if things get ugly. If I were starting a career in the sciences today, I would pay a lot more attention to what private industry and the entrepreneurs have to offer than to the possibility of an academic post. If I were planning a line of research that is likely to take hundreds of...
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Egypt, Oil and Democracy
NATE SILVER @ 538 POLITICS BRINGS THE HEAT.
By NATE SILVER
Revolutions are, by their very nature, difficult to predict. The unrest that gripped Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union from 1989 to 1992, and led to the fall of Communist governments there, was anticipated by few policymakers and political scientists in advance.
If a similar transition is now underway in Egypt, as well as in other...
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Black? White? Asian? More Young Americans Choose...
Great article from Sunday’s frontpage. Yes, Sunday. We’ve been busier than you can possibly fathom. Excerpt below (along with embedded chart). Click photo or text linke for full piece. Enjoy…
From left: Shannon Palmer, Japanese/Irish; Vasco Mateus, Portuguese/African-American/Haitian; Laura Wood, black/white.More Photos »
COLLEGE PARK, Md. — In another time or place, the...
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WatchJulian Assange on 60 Minutes this weekend. He actually came off as pretty polished. By contrast, the long NYTMag piece about him was….unflattering. But they did have an interesting perspective from working with him to release some of his docs
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“The most revealing moment in either Republican response, though, came from Ryan,...”
– Frank Rich, delivering his customary 50 hot ones. Before Egypt went off, you may recall that domestic politics were front and center, following the State of the Union…..
January 2011
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Middle East is Going Off. Twitter & Facebook's...
Watching all this stuff (Tunisia, Egypt, rioting, internet being turned off, etc) reminded me of a piece by the ever-popular Malcom Gladwell this summer. Basically, his argument is that Facebook, Twitter, an dother social media are/will be bit players at best in large scale social protest and change.
Enjoy w/your lunch. Excerpt below, full story at the link. http://nyr.kr/9Y92DZ
SMALL CHANGE
...
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The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission Final...
……came out yesterday. Klein gives the crux of the findings:
The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission has released its final report, which looks to “determine what happened and how it happened so that we could understand why it happened.” The full document — including the dissents from four of the Republicans on the panel — can be downloaded here. The transcripts...
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More on the State of the Union- Visualizations
It seems that today is SOTU day. Here’s some more. With infographics!
From NYT, a great chart. Click chart/link for the full version…
Patterns of Speech: 75 Years of the State of the Union Addresses
In 2010, President Obama was the first modern president to use the words “bubble,” “supermajority” and “obesity” in a State of the Union speech. But other words have a longer history....
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Watch2011 State of the Union.
There’s so much to say, so little time. A few thoughts.
Barack Obama absolutely killed it with this talk. If you didn’t feel inspired and hopeful at various points, check your pulse- you might be dead.
The speech was brilliant as a rhetorical device. But (more importantly) it was very powerful as a governing agenda. It seized the high ground- investing...
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Tech Talk: Groupon and Options.
As you know, we love infographics.
Here’s another one. H/t Business Insider.
Curious about why Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein is flying to Chicago to woo Groupon and win its IPO? This chart should help.
Needham & Company analysts Mark May and Kevin Allen projected the revenues for the local daily deal market for the next five years. As you can see, they’re very...
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The Leverage Debate Revisited, aka GREAT MOMENTS...
This being Christmas (at least for those who didn’t get coal in their stockings), it seemed like a fine time to revisit the leverage debate. We here at The Scrambler thought this was just the moment to return to our occasional series/tongue in cheek hashtag, GREAT MOMENTS IN BANKING HISTORY.
The Baseline Scenario had a great piece a little while back by Anat Admati (she teaches Finance I,...
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The NBA/The All Star Game/More Bill Simmons
2 Separate items.
Last Thursday(?) Simmons had a nice long piece about the 2011 NBA All Star game and its potential to eclipse the 1987 game as the GOAT. Click link (text) or photo for the full story. Excerpt below.
I never thought the 1987 NBA All-Star Game could be topped. On its 20th anniversary, my retroactive running diary included this paragraph:
“For the love of God, LOOK at...
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How to Travel as a Minority (And Not Look Like a...
H/t to reader Scott.
With facial hair, I slightly resemble 11 of the 19 September 11 hijackers. No one aside from my friends has accused me of being a member of al Qaeda, but I do things when traveling to assure skeptics that while I am a minority, I’m not planning a jihad.
http://thoughtcatalog.com/2011/how-to-travel-as-a-minority-and-not-look-like-a-terrorist/
#readersubmission
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How The Recession Changed Us
Great Piece/Chart Series from The Atlantic.
Click image for full screen view
What a Difference 2 Years Makes.
Officially, the Great Recession lasted from December 2007 to June 2009. A mere 18 months- about average, as recessions go. Yet if the trauma this time feels deep and lasting, that may be because, as the figures on these pages show, so many disruptions have upened national life at...
JNOMICS: Infographic Answers Question About Smart... →
jnomics:
(via Fast Company, and designed by the brilliant and lovely folks at Good)
We all know, at least vaguely, that a better education leads to better prospects in life. But is that really true? A superb map created by GOOD shows that it is — but thanks to the ingenuity of the map…
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Goldman Vs. Apple: Who Generates the Highest...
I’ve been wanting to get this up all day.
First, here’s to all of God’s workers. You know who you are. Your just reward awaits.
More importantly, John Cassidy (New Yorker) had a great Rational Irrationality piece today. In full below…..
Contrary to appearances, I’m not obsessed with Goldman Sachs, and this will be my last post on the subject for a while. But the Wall...
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Booray - An Insider's Guide
A (tongue in cheek) guide to NBA players’ favorite card game.
Thanks to reader Scott.
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The New Yorker: To-Do List: New Leaders in... →
The unthinkable has happened. The Scrambler’s first paper edition arrived this weekend. I’ve joined the ranks of the snobby elite. To quote an excellent film…
I have foresworn myself. I have broken every law I have sworn to uphold, I have become what I beheld and I am content that I have done right!
A t-shirt to the first person who comes back with the movie. No googling.
...