UK GDP Finally Returns to Pre-Crisis Level

British GDP Update:
http://blogs.wsj.com/briefly/2014/07/25/the-u-k-s-return-to-pre-crisis-growth-the-numbers/

While the economic performance of the past five years have been awful, it is worth noting that the UK is expected to achieve the fastest growth amongst advanced economies this year:
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2014/update/02/pdf/0714.pdf


Meanwhile, France is headed in the opposite direction.

What is wrong with France? Everything, according to the natives.

A fascinating piece from Der Spiegel:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/taking-stock-of-a-france-that-has-fallen-sick-a-982106.html

Meanwhile, some French elites are fleeing to Portugal to avoid high taxation:

“Under Portugal’s so-called non-habitual-resident program, foreign pensioners who come to live in the country may have their pension income exempt from taxes as long as it’s paid from a foreign source. France, meanwhile, only taxes its residents. “This means that the pension income may end up not being taxed at all,” said Luis Filipe Sousa, a tax manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers in Lisbon.”

Science of Solar Storms

Interesting and somewhat scary piece from NASA

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/23jul_superstorm/

Related,

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2014/07/23/how-a-solar-storm-nearly-destroyed-life-as-we-know-it-two-years-ago/

Recession Era Graduates

Entering the labor market during a weak economic cycle has long-term negative consequences.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-23/pay-penalty-haunts-recession-grads-as-u-s-economy-mends.html

Economic Development - Interesting Articles

Is Bolivia Getting its Economy Back on Track?

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/17/world/americas/turnabout-in-bolivia-as-economy-rises-from-instability.html

Peru and natural resource driven economic growth

http://www.project-syndicate.org/print/c-sar-gamboa-criticizes-the-humala-government-s-shortsighted-economic-growth-strategy

Ethiopia aims to become the industrial heart of Africa

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-22/ethiopia-becomes-china-s-china-in-search-for-cheap-labor.html

Africa – Rising Consumer Demand

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/21/world/africa/economy-improves-as-middle-class-africans-open-wallets-to-the-future.html

Fascinating Piece on Math Education

This week’s NYT magazine article by ELIZABETH GREEN is enlightening. While the article addresses several serious issues, it also includes a comic gem:

“One of the most vivid arithmetic failings displayed by Americans occurred in the early 1980s, when the A&W restaurant chain released a new hamburger to rival the McDonald’s Quarter Pounder. With a third-pound of beef, the A&W burger had more meat than the Quarter Pounder; in taste tests, customers preferred A&W’s burger. And it was less expensive. A lavish A&W television and radio marketing campaign cited these benefits. Yet instead of leaping at the great value, customers snubbed it.

Only when the company held customer focus groups did it become clear why. The Third Pounder presented the American public with a test in fractions. And we failed. Misunderstanding the value of one-third, customers believed they were being overcharged. Why, they asked the researchers, should they pay the same amount for a third of a pound of meat as they did for a quarter-pound of meat at McDonald’s. The “4” in “¼,” larger than the “3” in “⅓,” led them astray.”

Labor, Capital and Ideas

In the July/August 2014 issue of Foreign Affairs, Erik Brynjolfsson, Andrew McAfee, and Michael Spence have an interesting piece entitled “New World Order: Labor, Capital, and Ideas in the Power Law Economy”. They note:

“Machines are substituting for more types of human labor than ever before. As they replicate themselves, they are also creating more capital. This means that the real winners of the future will not be the providers of cheap labor or the owners of ordinary capital, both of whom will be increasingly squeezed by automation. Fortune will instead favor a third group: those who can innovate and create new products, services, and business models.”

Related,

Recent NYTIMES piece observes:

“The American work force has been growing polarized for decades. On one end, there are highly skilled jobs like writing software or performing surgery, and on the other are service jobs like child care and cutting hair. The jobs in the middle, meanwhile, such as factory work, sales and bookkeeping, are shrinking — one of the reasons for the economy’s slow climb out of the recession.

Where did those jobs go? Part of the answer lies in Silicon Valley. It is no coincidence that many of those jobs entail the same repetitive tasks that computers, robots and other machines are uniquely suited to perform, from robots loading conveyor belts in factories to Kayak.com selling airline tickets.”

WIRED magazine piece on Google Brain

http://www.wired.com/2014/07/google_brain/