I suppose most of us never think about what would happen if hurricane-force winds caught the blades of a massive wind turbine — say, in Scotland — and spun them around with such force that the engine catches fire.
This is what it looks like.
(Photo: Stuart McMahon via the Telegraph)
Congress Won’t Recess To Block Obama Appointments : NPRSenate Republicans blocked confirmation votes on two of President Obama’s most high-profile nominees this week — one for a seat on a federal appeals court, the other to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Traditionally, the end-of-the-year holidays have allowed presidents to bypass Congress and give such thwarted nominees recess appointments. But an angry President Obama is quickly leaning that this might not be the case this year.
Obama insisted, “I will not take any options off the table when it comes to getting Richard Cordray in as director of the consumer finance protection board.”
The only way the president can make a recess appointment for Cordray is if Congress is actually in recess. And ever since late May, Congress has remained in permanent session, mainly because Republican lawmakers want to prevent any more recess appointments.
The Friday Podcast: The 'Nasty, Rotten' Airline Business : Planet Money : NPR
Last week, American Airlines became a member of a club it hoped never to be a part of — major airlines that have declared bankruptcy. Before American came Pan Am, Delta, United, Northwest, US Airways, and Continental.
Sure, fuel costs are high and planes expensive — but why is it that the industry continues to lose money year after year? By economist Severin Borenstein’s count, domestic airlines have lost$60 billion dollars in the last three decades.
Even airline executives don’t deny it. Bob Crandall, the former CEO of American, famous for calling it a “nasty, rotten business,” says he used to tell his employees not to buy the company’s stock. Why? “Because airlines don’t make money,” says Crandall.
On the show today, Crandall tells us why running an airline is so darn hard, and Severin Borenstein explains why all these bankruptcies are actually good news for us, the passengers.
Europe’s New Pact : Planet Money : NPRThe new Europe everyone’s been waiting for was born early this morning. European leaders will present the new fiscal pact to national parliaments over the coming months. Here are the three parts, summed up with help from the Peterson Institute’s Jacob Funk Kirkegaard; they are ordered in terms of loss of sovereignty, from least to greatest:
1) New rules. Each country has to rewrite its constitution to say that it will have balanced budgets. Balanced budgets aren’t already required in national constitutions because some countries want a little flexibility— the term of art is counter-cyclical stimulus—- when there’s a recession. That means they want the ability to overspend when times are hard, and then, theoretically, cut back and shore up when times are good. The new deal says that’s no longer an option for anybody. Everyone’s budget needs to be balanced every year.
2) Check your work. Countries need to submit their national budgets for vetting by the other member countries. So before the budget goes before a national parliament, it’s sent to Brussels, where a bunch of technocrats check it out. If they like it, it gets sent back to the country from whence it came and is voted on (and is, presumably, passed).
3) Punishment by percentages. If a country has more than a 3 percent deficit (and a lot of them do) as a percentage of GDP, automatic sanctions will be triggered. Unless 85 percent of the euro-area countries vote to undo the sanctions. But the votes are weighted — the country with the biggest economy gets the most votes. That would be Germany, lover of rules and sanctions and accountability. So it’s gonna be hard to get out of getting sanctioned.
The geography of American brand value – New York tops the list with $333 billion, more than 10% of total worldwide brand value
(via theatlantic)
Two-thirds of consumers say they don’t understand how their credit cards work, and no wonder. The typical agreement is eight or nine pages crammed with impenetrable legalese in tiny print (find your credit card agreement in this database). Neil Parker, Chief Strategy Officer for Co, says “We applied product design principles. We thought of this as an interface: You strip it to its essentials and add things in the order you’ll be using them.Could Better Design Reform the Banking Industry? | Co.Exist: World changing ideas and innovation
We journalists are probably too bleary-eyed after a sleepless night to understand the full significance of what has just happened in Brussels. What is clear is that after a long, hard and rancorous negotiation, at about 5am this morning the European Union split in a fundamental way.In an effort to stabilise the euro zone, France, Germany and 21 other countries have decided to draft their own treaty to impose more central control over national budgets. Britain and three others have decided to stay out. But whether the agreement does anything to stabilise the euro is moot. (via theeconomist)
(via theeconomist)
Government tested AIDS drugs on foster kids
Government-funded researchers tested AIDS drugs on hundreds of foster children over the past two decades, often without providing them a basic protection afforded in federal law and required by some states, an Associated Press review has found.
But China’s sins should be put into perspective. In terms of global trade consumers everywhere have gained from cheap Chinese goods. Chinese growth has created a huge market for other countries’ exports. And China’s remaining barriers are often exaggerated. It is more open to imports than Japan was at the same stage of development, more open to foreign direct investment than South Korea was until the 1990s. Its tariffs are capped at 10% on average; Brazil’s at over 30%. And in China, unlike India, you can shop at Walmart, most of the time.Ten years of China in the WTO: Shades of grey | The Economist
