As if walls can stop the flow of ideas or emotions or information....

It's rather like Fantasy Football.

BUT THAT IS WHY WE ARE ADAPTIVE CREATURES

http://www.wired.com/2015/10/climate-change-is-going-to-cost-the-world-money-lots-of-money/

Hot weather sucks. Crops droop. Work slows down. People get testy. And it’s bad for business. So bad, in fact, that higher temperatures from climate change are going to be an economic gut punch for many countries, according to a paper published today in Nature. The poorest countries—most of which are also already pretty warm—will suffer the most. But even rich countries with their cubicles and air conditioning are going to feel the burn. Climate change will hit every level of an economy. Mentally and physically people work worse when they are hot. Rising seas and fiercer storms chew up infrastructure. And agricultural effects like crop failures reach far beyond borders. But all that stuff is years away, right?

Wrong. As deniers like to say (maybe even in the comments!), climate is always changing. And it turns out that these changes show up in the economic record. The new study compared annual temperature to annual GDP for every country. “What we found is that temperature has played an important role in shaping GDP output in the last 50 years,” says Marshall Burke, economist at Stanford University and co-author of the study. Of course, the relationship between temperature and GDP isn’t linear. The study found that economic growth has a sweet spot: Around 55˚F. If the average annual temperature falls above or below that, GDP starts to taper off—slow at first, then very fast. “The graph looks like a strong inverted U,” says Edward Miguel, economist at UC Berkeley and another co-author of the study. At either end, the GDP remains fairly stable between 32 and 77 degrees F, but drops rapidly beyond those boundaries. This means that how poorly your country fares under climate change depends on its starting average temperature. “At colder temperatures, say Northern Europe, these countries grew a little bit faster when temperatures were warmer,” says Burke. By comparison, much of the developing world is already pretty warm, so its prospects are pretty grim.

But wait, is Northern Europe going to get richer because it gets warmer, or because it’s already rich? “This is one thing we tried to be really careful with,” says Burke. In their statistical analyses, he and his co-authors controlled for things like preexisting wealth. Temperature is only one variable affecting GDP. “Culture matters, institutions matter, policy choices matter,” says Burke. “What we do find is looking historically, temperature matters a lot.” Which is important if the future world responds to temperature changes like the past world has. And not all rich countries are going to get richer. Part two of the study takes historical correlations between temperature and GDP and projects them forward under different climate models. In them, the economic wealth of countries like the US or China can’t compensate for their latitudinal girth. Both fare poorly in the “business as usual” emissions scenario explored in the study. “There will still be a number of days where Alabama or Texas are really hot, even if all of the US is still kind of cold,” says Miguel. And over the course of the year, as the years go on, the overall area of the US experiencing extremely hot days will increase. GDP suffers accordingly.

Previous attempts to put climate change in terms of GDP have tripped over the jump from micro to macro. For example, how do a heat-struck worker in Arizona and a failed soy crop in Kansas and a stronger-than-average hurricane in Louisiana influence economic performance at a national level? In trying to add up all those microeconomic effects, studies can under- or overstate an inputs importance, or leave it out completely. This paper skips past all that, and simply looks at average temperature and GDP. “This is a very significant study,” says Jonathan Harris, economist from Tufts University. “It’s based on real data from 1960 to 2010, not just hypothetical projections.” Their verdict on how climate change will affect the global economy? “Overall economic production would fall by about 23 percent by 2100 if climate keeps changing under the current models,” says Miguel. That is a huge pile of money that never gets made; the deficit shared between countries both rich and poor.

Some argue that the first world will buffer itself against climate change with technological innovations—air conditioning is credited with saving the American South’s economy, and agricultural companies are already breeding heat resistant crops. But historically—and based on this analysis—that hasn’t been and won’t be true. “If you look back to the 1960s to now, any subset of time between now and then shows a consistent pattern of temperature correlating to GDP,” says Matthias Ruth, economist at Northeastern University. Which means that so far, innovation hasn’t done squat. “And as climate continues to change, keeping pace becomes more difficult, and we will fall ever more behind,” says Ruth. This study put an even greater burden curbing international emissions. The world still has time to build a less dire future: The upcoming Paris emissions talks seem like the best time and place for a global wheel yank. But right now, the science is looking pretty dismal.

'Back to the Future' Day: Time is in flux, and the 'Future' is today

http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/20/entertainment/back-to-the-future-day-feat/

...In "Back to the Future Part II," Marty McFly travels to October 21, 2015, to save his children, yet to be born in "Back to the Future's" 1985...

I GUESS WE KNOW WHAT THE WEEKEND WILL BE!

http://www.sovereignman.com/trends/credit-suisse-with-just-10-youre-wealthier-than-25-of-americans-18072/

Last week Credit Suisse released its annual Global Wealth Report. The big headline grabber was their analysis showing that the top 1% of people now own 50% of the world’s wealth. That is true and rather astonishing. However, the report had another finding that was even more astonishing and largely overlooked. What they found was that, as a percentage of the world’s population, there are now more poor people in the United States and Europe than there are in China.



Shown here, along the left side of the graph you can see that 10% and 20% of the world’s poorest are in North America and Europe. Here, they aren’t talking about income. They define poor as lacking ‘wealth’, i.e. taking into account assets and liabilities like cash and debt. Credit Suisse estimates that half of the world has a net worth less than $3,210. And a large chunk of Americans and Europeans can’t make that cut because their net worth is negative. That’s especially the case for young people these days, who graduate from university with an incredibly expensive degree and an average of $35,000 in student debt.

Of course, plenty of people are in debt up to their eyeballs in the Land of the Free, and not just student debt. Debt has become the American Way. People go deeply into debt that they can’t afford to buy stuff they don’t need to impress people they don’t know, simply because everyone is doing it. And it’s just so damn easy. The US financial system encourages debt by keeping interest rates at effectively zero. You can borrow money in many cases for less interest than you can save. The priorities are pretty out of whack. This is even more the case in Europe where some banks are actually paying people to borrow money, creating some of the most ridiculous moral and financial hazards imaginable.

Credit Suisse estimates that 25% of Americans are in this situation of having a negative net-worth.

“If you’ve no debts and have $10 in your pocket you have more wealth than 25% of Americans. More than 25% of Americans have collectively that is.”

VIDEO INTERVIEW AT LINK

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article38858.htm

Originally aired on April 15, 2014

French bank Credit Agricole was accused by Washington of dealing with countries under US embargo and processing financial transactions for Sudan, Cuba and Iran through the United States. Several bank employees responsible for the transactions have already been fired, media reported.

The bank agreed to pay $800 million in fines for the illegal financial transactions carried out in the period from 2003 to 2008 on the territory of the United States, AFP reported, referring to a source familiar with the situation.

According to previous estimations, the bank had to pay US $900 million, but the amount was reduced through the course of negotiations...

Read more: http://sputniknews.com/business/20151020/1028803748.html#ixzz3pFOMu7ks

Right on the heels of the Occupy Wall Street movement’s four year anniversary, activist group Anonymous has launched a new campaign which they say outlines an “easy” way for the 99% to demonstrate their strength and overcome the richest 1%. The statement was released on Anonymous’ website, with a video inviting people to join the peaceful revolution, under the name "Black October." The group calls on "ordinary people" to demonstrate their strength and independence from wealthy banks by simply using cash instead of debit and credit cards...With "Black October," Anonymous asks people to demonstrate their independence from such big banks.

The month-long campaign is outlined in Anonymous’ video and statement, inviting people to take their money out of bank accounts and not to use their debit or credit cards.

"Show the Big Bankers that we don’t need their debit cards, we don’t need their credit cards, we don’t need their loans, and we don’t need them," Anonymous said. "Let’s show them that we are the 99% and we can beat them. It is that easy."

Read more: http://sputniknews.com/us/20150921/1027320027.html#ixzz3pFOsQLxR

I ASSUME THAT THE BOYCOTT IS ON THE BIG 6 (OR MAYBE 20) SO YOUR CREDIT UNIONS ACCOUNT SHOULD BE JUST FINE...BEST LIST I COULD FIND

J.P. Morgan Chase
Bank of America Corp.
Citigroup Inc.
Wells Fargo
U.S. Bancorp
Bank of New York Mellon Corp.

this hasn't been too effective so far, cause this is the first time I've heard of it.

Or maybe quite the opposite. Maybe it's been so effective that the press has been ordered not to report on it.

Things are so confusing sometimes. 2015 has been like that. Maybe 2016 will be more so. Maybe we can just skip 2016 and take that DeLorean back to 1982! Or is that 1985?

My credit card is with a credit Union. Anonymous is correct that one of the biggest weapons us little people have is our wallets and pocket books. You want to hurt the corporations and the banks? Shut the spending down, especially during the holiday season. Sure people will cry "oh think of the workers.". The workers will survive, we have survived the past few years since the collapse and we will keep on surviving, we know how, the rich don't. I went to Home Depot the other day and they had the Christmas shit out already. I'm tired of Christmas being shoved down my throat early in the year. It takes the joy and fun out of it. I won't shop there until after the first of the year.

The Buy Nothing Day (BND) is an international day of protest against consumerism observed by social activists. Typically celebrated the Friday after American Thanksgiving in North America and the following day internationally, in 2015 the date is November 27. It was founded by Vancouver artist Ted Dave and subsequently promoted by Adbusters magazine, based in Canada.

Various gatherings, shenanigans, and forms of protest have been used on Buy Nothing Day to draw attention to the perceived problem of over-consumption. The first Buy Nothing Day was organized in Vancouver in September 1992 "as a day for society to examine the issue of over-consumption." In 1997, it was moved to the Friday after American Thanksgiving, also called "Black Friday", which is one of the 10 busiest shopping days in the United States.
Where is Buy Nothing Day?
Nationwide
USA

When is Buy Nothing Day?
Friday, the 27th of November 2015 This text has been taken from www.cute-calendar.com

http://www.cute-calendar.com/event/buy-nothing-day/10624-usa.html

Haven't used it yet, I wonder if that embedded chip enhances additional spying, not really for security?

A USBank and a Wells Fargo and today we found out is going to be....a bank! Cause two banks in one block are never enough.????

and it's so intense I need to take reality-breaks....but it has to go back to the library someday. NOT light-hearted fare, at all.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/22/us-china-economy-forex-flow-idUSKCN0SG0FO20151022?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews

Recent outflows of money from China are "normal" and not a sign of panic capital flight, a senior official at the foreign exchange regulator said on Thursday, downplaying fears over growing outflows as the economy slows.

China is confident in keeping international payments and receipts balanced in the future thanks to a positive economic outlook, Wang Xiaoyi, deputy head of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) told a news conference.

"Current changes (in capital flows) are normal, which should not be regarded as capital flight," Wang said.

The main reasons for recent outflows were a greater willingness by companies and individuals to hold foreign exchange, and moves by firms which were adjusting their foreign debt structures and increasing investment abroad, Wang said....

NOT A GOOD SIGN, WHEN THEY START PILING IT THAT HIGH

DON'T DO IT, CHINA! NO NATION SHOULD ALLOW ITS CAPITAL TO BE SPIRITED AWAY.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-22/china-said-to-weigh-pledge-for-opening-capital-account-by-2020-ig1sbvez

China’s leaders are poised to announce a 2020 deadline to dismantle currency controls that have kept the world’s second-largest economy from fully integrating with global financial markets.

At a gathering next week, top officials in the Communist Party will discuss pledging to “make the yuan convertible under the capital account,” according to a person familiar with talks now under way. The promise would be codified in a document charting the country’s economic course through to 2020, known as the 13th Five Year Plan. The current document only offers an open-ended commitment to “speed up” such reforms.

Such a promise, which may be cut from the final version, would float China’s currency and bring about a fundamental shift in the global economy as capital sloshed uninhibited between China and the rest of the world. Removing the barriers would force China’s leaders to relinquish a key means of economic control, with foreign investors and companies gaining greater access to the country and its 1.3 billion people.

“After the capital account is opened, the status of China’s financial markets will be significantly elevated,” said Zhou Hao, a senior economist at Commerzbank AG in Singapore. “It will serve the authorities’ goal to make China one of Asia’s financial hubs, along with traditional centers such as Hong Kong and Singapore.”

YOU'LL BE SORRY....

"Look Around the Poker Table; If You Can’t See the Sucker, You’re It"

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/22/us-global-oil-idUSKCN0SG0B720151022?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews

BUT

...Oil prices came under renewed pressure from worries about a global glut this week after U.S. crude inventories rose more than twice what analysts had expected.

U.S. crude stocks surged sharply for a second week, climbing 8 million barrels in the week to Oct. 16, data from the U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration (EIA) showed on Wednesday. [EIA/S]

That jump followed a rise of more than 7.5 million barrels in the previous week and put U.S. crude stocks up more than 22 million barrels over the last four weeks.

Oil experts from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and non-member countries made no agreement this week to take steps to boost prices, officials said after talks in Vienna on Wednesday.

IN ALL THE EXCITEMENT, THE FURY HAS GONE OUT OF GREECE VS. EUROZONE
AND GERMANY HAS PROBLEMS OF ITS OWN, NOW, TO OCCUPY IT

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/22/us-eurozone-greece-moscovici-idUSKCN0SG0SF20151022?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews

Reforms carried out by the Greek government are on track and its creditors will disburse the next 3 billion euro ($3.4 billion) installment of its aid program, European Economics Commissioner Pierre Moscovici told French radio on Thursday.

"Greece has done a certain number of reforms, and we are going to give them money, 3 billion euros in all," Moscovici told Europe 1 radio.

"And in the course of November, December, we will deal with the issue of the recapitalization of Greek banks and Greek debt," he said.

"The Greek situation is on track as long as every one plays their part, which means carrying on with reforms for the Greek government, and having a constructive attitude for its partners,” Moscovici added.

WHAT, NO DOGGIE TREATS?

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-more-us-students-are-going-abroad-for-college-2015-10-22?siteid=YAHOOB

As the cost of college in the U.S. soars to record levels, more American students are enrolling in schools abroad, where tuition fees are substantially lower — and in some cases nonexistent.

Annual tuition and fees for a private, nonprofit four-year university in the U.S. last year averaged $31,231, according to the nonprofit College Board. In Germany, universities receive so much in government subsidies that most students — including international students — pay no tuition at all.

While it may not qualify as an exodus, some of the most popular countries for college enrollments abroad have seen sharp upticks since 2011-12, when more than 46,500 U.S. students were enrolled in foreign academic-degree programs, according to the Institute of International Education. Britain, the No. 1 country for U.S. students, saw an 8% annual increase in 2012-13. German universities, meanwhile, experienced a 33% increase between 2010 and 2013, according to the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).

“Suddenly the Old World is becoming a pretty interesting place,” says Allan Goodman, president and chief executive of the Institute of International Education. “Many degree programs have courses taught in English, many of them have very robust scholarships or are tuition-free, and the subjects are very relevant to the world in which we live.”

MORE

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/21/uk-eurozone-imf-idUKKCN0SF1DL20151021

The European Commission proposed on Wednesday to merge euro zone representation at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) into a single seat over the next 10 years to give the single currency area more clout. The 19 countries in the euro zone have 23 percent of shares in the IMF, but because they often do not speak with one voice, their weight counts less than that of the United States, which has 17.7 percent of shares but a single representative.

"The 19 Member States of the euro area are spread over six constituencies, the EU over seven. These constituencies matter because countries have to agree on one common position for the constituency," the Commission said in its proposal.

"Due to the current institutional set-up, the euro area does not speak with one voice and punches below its weight," it said.

"The euro area speaking with one voice in the IMF would better reflect the economic and financial weight of the euro area in the world economy," the Commission said.

Euro zone countries, now spread over various constituencies in the IMF, could by 2025 form a single constituency. This would be represented by a single executive director at the board of the IMF, which comprises a total of 24 such directors who take care of the daily business of the Fund.

"The Commission proposes that at ministerial level in the IMF, the euro area should be represented by the President of the Eurogroup," the Commission said.

"At the IMF Executive Board, the euro area would be represented by the Executive Director of a euro area constituency, following the establishment of one or several constituencies composed only by euro area Member States," it said.

WHENEVER THERE'S A CONSOLIDATION OF POWER, THE PEOPLE LOSE. AND IT LOOKS LIKE HITLER LIVES ON IN EUROPE.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/22/uk-ecb-policy-idUKKCN0SF32820151022

The European Central Bank is likely to keep the door open for more monetary stimulus but stop short of taking new policy steps at a meeting on Thursday as it awaits fresh indications about the outlook for euro zone inflation.

Consumer prices in the 19-country euro zone fell by 0.1 percent in September, prompting calls for the ECB to expand or extend its 60 billion euros (44 billion pounds) a month of asset purchases. The programme was launched in March to help push inflation back to the ECB's target of just under 2 percent. While stressing their readiness to act, the bank's policymakers have said the fall in prices is largely due to energy costs, which the ECB cannot influence, and that it is unclear whether a slowdown in emerging economies will have a lasting impact on the euro zone. Many also hope a fading of the base effect from 2014's oil price plunge will help push inflation higher by year-end.

Their cautious tone suggests the ECB will wait until it gets new inflation forecasts from its staff in December before deciding on any change to its quantitative easing scheme. A broader debate meanwhile appears to be taking shape within the bank about whether monetary policy is already coming up against the limits of its effectiveness...

AND IT MEANDERS ON FOR A BIT AFTER THAT

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/21/usa-fiscal-treasury-idUSL1N12L10420151021


U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said on Wednesday he is worried that brinkmanship in Congress on raising the nation's debt limit could cause an "accident" as the United States edges closer toward default. Speaking at a policy conference in Washington, Lew also said the risk of an unforeseen circumstance would rise if Congress did not act in time, adding that the debt limit issue should not be used as a weapon in negotiations on a separate budget deal. The United States is currently scraping just under its $18 trillion legal debt cap and the Treasury Department expects to exhaust its borrowing authority by Nov. 3.

"What I am most worried about ... is an accident, and accidents can happen when you play this last-minute brinkmanship game," Lew said.

"The deadline is very real," he added.

On Tuesday, Republican leaders in the House of Representatives mulled proposing a bill to increase the debt limit that would also impose strict new controls on federal spending that Democrats have long opposed. Republican House Speaker John Boehner is due to retire from Congress on Oct. 30, further complicating negotiations.

Lew has repeatedly warned of the economic calamity that could result from the United States missing payments. The Treasury faced that problem in 2011 and 2013 when Congress delayed increasing the borrowing limit.

MORE CONSOLIDATION OF POWER ATTEMPTS

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/21/global-economy-citi-idUKL8N12L50R20151021



Oct 21 U.S. bank Citi said on Wednesday that it cut its global economic growth forecast for 2016 for the fifth consecutive month, lowering its call on next year's world expansion to 2.8 percent from 2.9 percent.

"We keep our 2015 global growth forecast at 2.6 percent, but cut our 2016 forecast to 2.8 percent from 2.9 percent - the fifth consecutive downgrade," the bank told clients.

"Adjusted for mis-measurement of China's GDP data, "true" global growth will probably be below 2.5 percent in both 2015 and 2016 (versus the 3 percent long-run norm). Risks probably remain to the downside."

Citi's economics team, led by chief economist Willem Buiter, said it expected further easing from the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan, the People's Bank of China and the Reserve Bank of Australia. And it said it expected "very gradual and delayed tightening" by the Federal Reserve and Bank of England.

Buiter has said previously that global growth below 3 percent with a significant output gap represented an effective world recession.

The Citi note added the upcoming International Monetary Fund review will probably see China's yuan join the IMF's Special Drawing Rights currency basket from late-2016. (by Mike Dolan)

WELCOME TO THE WORLD RECESSION, Y'ALL!

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-21/high-speed-traders-will-face-cftc-proposals-to-curb-disruptions

The main U.S. derivatives regulator as early as next month will take its biggest step yet to impose new curbs on high-speed trading to limit market disruptions.

Timothy Massad, chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, said on Wednesday that the agency will lay out requirements for testing and supervising automated algorithms to ensure they can be stopped in emergencies. The CFTC’s proposals, more than two years in the making, will also probably mandate registration for standalone trading firms.

The proposals would be the most significant step by the CFTC to increase oversight of automated trading, which has become a common way derivatives are traded in many markets. The CFTC and the Securities and Exchange Commission have been investigating whether automated and high-speed trading need additional scrutiny since the 2010 flash crash in equities and a series of technological failures spurred questions about the resilience of markets.

The requirements may also include restrictions on incentive programs used by exchanges CME Group Inc. and Intercontinental Exchange Inc. to encourage trading as well as measures to curb how often a high-speed firm winds up being on both sides of the same trade, which was highlighted by regulators in a report on price swings in the Treasury market last October....

WOULDN'T IT BE MUCH MORE EFFECTIVE TO JUST BAN THE PRACTICE? MANKIND LIVED FOR TENS OF THOUSANDS OF YEARS WITHOUT IT.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-21/how-could-volkswagen-s-top-engineers-not-have-known-

COMPREHENSIVE REVIEW OF ALL HISTORY AND KNOWN FACTS...REALLY SLAMS VW!
VIDEO DISCUSSION ALSO ENLIGHTENING

SO I'M A GEEK AND A MOTOWN GIRL....SUE ME!

AND THERE'S NO REPORT THAT THEY CAN BRING IT UP TO SPEC, EITHER...SO TO GET REDUCED POLLUTION, THEY WILL DELIVER A LESSER VEHICLE.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-22/vw-s-emissions-retrofit-may-be-among-costliest-recalls-ever

Volkswagen AG’s worldwide repair of 11 million diesel vehicles to bring their emissions systems into compliance with pollution regulations is shaping up to be one of the most complex and costly fixes in automotive history as the probe widens.

The German carmaker will need to install parts for vehicles already on the road that weren’t designed to accommodate the equipment. The work may need to be done in special shops set up for the purpose. And it will have to pass muster with dozens of countries with their own regulations. VW said Thursday that it was examining whether other diesel engines also have the cheating software.

“I can’t think of any other recall that would be as comprehensive,” said Jake Fisher, director of automotive testing at Consumer Reports magazine. “It’s really an expensive rework.”

The repair costs are only part of what Volkswagen is going to have to spend to get through a corporate crisis sparked by revelations it rigged its diesel cars for years to fool emissions tests. The company is also compensating dealers for storing cars they can’t sell. It faces more than 325 consumer lawsuits in the U.S., according to data compiled by Bloomberg, and has hired U.S. law firm Jones Day to conduct an internal investigation into the company’s actions. Adding in likely fines, settlements with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, state authorities, the Justice Department and dozens of countries in Europe, and the cost could exceed 30 billion euros ($34 billion), according to the Center of Automotive Management in Bergisch Gladbach, Germany.

MORE

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-22/the-parking-company-getting-young-japanese-to-love-cars

What do you do when you’re the biggest parking company in a country where new-car sales have been on a gradual decline for the past decade? Koichi Nishikawa, the president of Japan’s Park24, decided to turn about 7,000 of his company’s 16,435 garages and lots around the country into spaces to hold vehicles available for short-term rental as part of a new car-sharing service. For a monthly fee of 1,030 yen, or about $8, members who sign up online or with a smartphone receive a member card that functions as a car key. Vehicles are booked online or using Park24’s smartphone app. Subscribers are charged in 15-minute increments. With 500,000 members, the car-sharing service has become one of the world’s biggest.

What’s remarkable is that more than 50 percent of members are in their 20s and 30s. In today’s Japan, many young people aren’t interested in cars because they can’t afford them; they spend disposable income instead on gadgets and smartphones. Twentysomethings accounted for about 13 percent of all driver’s license holders in Japan last year, compared with 21 percent in 2001, according to National Police Agency data. The cheapest car for sale, such as a Daihatsu or Suzuki basic minicar, costs about 800,000 yen ($6,670). The monthly fee for a parking spot in Tokyo runs from 30,000 yen to 50,000 yen. Researcher IHS Automotive forecasts that annual Japanese auto production will shrink to 8.4 million vehicles by 2022, from about 9.2 million last year.

Park24 is betting that young people still occasionally need to use cars for shopping, weekend trips, or, perhaps, to impress a date. “In my college days, you couldn’t ask a girl out without a car,” Nishikawa says of the status once bestowed by a set of wheels. He also doesn’t charge college students a monthly fee. The company owns 13,000 vehicles and plans to almost double the size of its fleet, to 25,000, by 2019. It’s one of the biggest buyers of new Japanese vehicles—more than 10,000 cars annually for the sharing business and a car-rental venture it acquired in 2009. It commands 70 percent of Japan’s car-share market.

Yu Makisumi is a typical Japanese twentysomething, intent on looking for a job and playing video games but with little interest in cars. “I have never heard of anyone coming to school by car,” he says. He owns a secondhand scooter and likes traveling with it. Four years ago, however, he joined Park24’s service after he and a friend saw a roadside advertisement and his friend encouraged him to sign up. He has a license and knows how to drive (the minimum driving age in Japan is 18). He says Park24 is inexpensive and convenient for taking longer trips with friends two to three hours away...


A Park24 employee drives a Toyota i-Road electric personal mobility vehicle along a street in Tokyo.


...It’s important to get people driving early, Nishikawa says: “If you haven’t experienced the fun of driving or cars while you’re young, you won’t desire to buy a car when you’re older and have more money.”

http://www.zipcar.com/

• Drive cars by the hour or day. Gas & insurance included.
  
• In neighborhoods, cities and airports across the globe.
  
• Save hundreds over car ownership.
  
• Choose from sedans, hybrids, vans and more.
  
• Membership starts as low as $7/month.

Rates for use start at $8.50/hr and $69/day

$25 application fee. $70 annual fee, for the uncommitted, free for those who sign up for months.

Included with every plan: gas, insurance and up to 180 free miles per day.

Of course, you have to be able to use the kind of car they stock...

Roger, my mechanical advisor, says I have 10 years left on the car I inherited...by then, if Zipcar or the equivalent is still in business, it might be worth it. Thing is, my car is more a work vehicle than a pleasure outing means. And they don't stock that kind of car in Ann Arbor Zip locations...

10/22/15 The first thing to realize about financial advice is that it's not free — and it often costs more than you think. That's what Morra Aarons-Mele found when she decided to find a financial adviser after she inherited an IRA from her father.

"I felt like I wanted an adviser because I was uncertain about — I never had any money before, frankly, and I really wanted to be a good steward of it," Aarons-Mele says.

She found an adviser who charged her a yearly fee of 1 percent of the value of the IRA. That's pretty standard. But after receiving some quarterly reports, she started feeling uneasy about all the added fees.

"The fees were all over the place, so that even though my fee that I had agreed with my adviser seemed completely reasonable — obviously I wanted her to be able to earn a living," she says. "It was that there seemed to be all these hidden fees in various funds." So in addition to paying her adviser 1 percent a year, Aarons-Mele was paying a lot to the managers of the mutual funds in her portfolio.

The average U.S. mutual fund charges just under 1 percent in fees. That may sound like small change, but the impact can be truly dramatic. Over 30 years, paying 1 percent annually for advice and another 1 percent for your mutual funds could cut your retirement gains almost in half.

more...
http://www.npr.org/2015/10/22/445337228/want-a-financial-adviser-here-are-some-things-to-look-for



more from NPR series: Your Money And Your Life
http://www.npr.org/series/448706447/your-money-and-your-life


and see Monday's SMW for additional retirement savings topics
http://www.democraticunderground.com/111672771

and Tuesday
http://www.democraticunderground.com/111672790

and Wednesday
http://www.democraticunderground.com/111672815

Last edited Fri Oct 23, 2015, 01:35 PM - Edit history (1)

Google "Phyllis Borzi" at DU.

Some helpful links in general.

Google "Borzi," as in Phyllis Borzi, the Assistant Secretary of Labor for the Employee Benefits Security Administration.

If you never do anything else today, watch this video. It was broadcast on April 23, 2013.

Tonight on FRONTLINE: The Retirement Gamble

Phyllis C. Borzi appears in the show.

Please see the article about excessive 401(k) fees in the September 2013 issue of Consumer Reports

There's a ton of information here:

Employee Benefits Security Administration

Understanding Your Retirement Plan Fees

Maximize Your Retirement Savings - Tips on Using the Fee and Investment Information From Your Retirement Plan

Full disclosure: I have money in Vanguard funds.

Vanguard offers funds with active management, Jack Bogle's beliefs notwithstanding. It's like your grocery store. You can buy broccoli there, and you can buy chocolate-covered marshmallows there. They leave the choice up to you.

ETA, 1:34 p.m., Friday, October 23, 2015:

I have seen it a couple times.

Here is an interesting article about John Bogle written by Pam Martens and Russ Martens: August 12, 2014


8/12/14 Meet the Tax Lawyer Whistleblower Who’s Taking a Wrecking Ball to John Bogle’s Legendary Career at Vanguard
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In his whistleblowing lawsuit, unsealed last month in New York State Supreme Court, David Danon names only Vanguard Group, Inc. and two subsidiaries as defendants. But by calling the company a major tax cheat, Danon is challenging the reputation of Bogle and the company’s Big Four accounting firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).
Danon went to work for Vanguard in Pennsylvania in August 2008, according to his LinkedIn profile. He continued to work there for the next 4 years and 11 months until June 2013. The month prior to his departure, on May 8, 2013, Danon filed his 40-page, sealed whistleblower lawsuit, making breathtaking claims against his employer, such as the following:
“Vanguard has operated as an illegal tax shelter for nearly forty years, providing services to the Funds at prices designed to avoid federal and state income tax, sheltering hundreds of millions of dollars of income annually, avoiding approximately $1 billion of U.S. federal income tax and at least $20 million of New York tax over the last ten years.”
By claiming that Vanguard has been running an illegal tax shelter for 40 years, Danon is aiming his slings and arrows right at the armor of its founder. Bogle started Vanguard in 1974; served as its CEO until 1996; and as Senior Chairman and Director until 2000. Bogle is still affiliated with the company as President of Vanguard’s Bogle Financial Markets Research Center.
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The takeaway for investors is this: high mutual fund fees are already gobbling up your hopes to ever retire in comfort. As Frontline’s Martin Smith exposed in April of last year, if you’re receiving the typical long-term return of 7 percent on your 401(k) plan and your fees are 2 percent, almost two-thirds of your account will go to Wall Street over the course of your career. If Vanguard, the low-cost mutual fund provider is forced to restructure itself and incur higher operating expenses and taxes, the small investor loses. Against that backdrop, it should also be noted that David Danon, should he prevail in his lawsuit, would be entitled to collect a portion of the back taxes owed by Vanguard.

more...
http://wallstreetonparade.com/2014/08/meet-the-tax-lawyer-whistleblower-whos-taking-a-wrecking-ball-to-john-bogles-legendary-career-at-vanguard/



P.S. I no longer have any mutual funds, no where, anywhere. Just a small Certificate of Deposit at my credit union.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-22/apple-to-raise-china-solar-investment-fivefold-with-climate-bid

Apple Inc. will build an additional 200 megawatts of solar power in China and push suppliers to make similar commitments, as the maker of the iPad and Apple Watch seeks to offset its global-warming emissions in the world’s most polluting country. The solar investment comes atop two previously announced solar farms in southern China that have now been completed, producing a combined 40 megawatts of power, Apple said in a statement Wednesday. The company will also partner with suppliers, including iPhone maker Foxconn Technology Group, on an additional 2 gigawatts of solar, wind and hydropower projects.

“Climate change is one of the great challenges of our time, and the time for action is now,” Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook said. “We believe passionately in leaving the world better than we found it and hope that many other suppliers, partners and other companies join us in this important effort.”

The promises are part of Apple’s efforts to cut greenhouse-gas emissions and come ahead of a United Nations summit in Paris later this year where world leaders will try to reach a global deal on reining in climate-change pollution. China, the world’s biggest source of greenhouse gases, has promised to almost double the amount of energy it gets from renewable and nuclear power by 2030. Apple said in April that it would partner with U.S.-based SunPower Corp. to build the two generating stations in Sichuan province. The new solar farms produce more power than Apple’s operations consume in China, making the company “carbon neutral," according to the statement. The 200 megawatts of new investments will involve construction in northern, eastern and southern China and “will begin to offset the energy used in Apple’s supply chain."

Foxconn will construct 400 megawatts of solar by 2018 as part of the initiative with suppliers, starting in Henan province. Foxconn has committed to generate as much renewable energy as its Zhengzhou factory uses in final production of the iPhone, Apple said.

http://moneymorning.com/ext/articles/rickards/the-golden-age-is-over-bs1.php?iris=421877&ad=

Nobel Prize winning economist Robert Shiller has released data showing that U.S. markets are now seriously overvalued. According to his proprietary research, stocks have inflated to almost 2x their historical value. And his recent appearances major television networks included the warning: "This is not the Golden Age for Investing."

Now there's evidence that suggests he's not the only well-known investor taking money out of the U.S. markets. Warren Buffett recently dumped his entire $3.7 billion stake in America's largest company. And legendary international investor George Soros cut his number of market positions by over 30% in less than three months. He's already moved nearly $2 billion out of U.S. stocks and into safer havens overseas.

Are these multi-billion dollar moves out of US stocks by some of the world's richest men a warning sign that more serious economic problems are approaching? According to Jim Rickards, the CIA's Financial Threat Advisor, the answer is yes. In a startling interview, he reveals the activities undertaken by the Fed inside the Financial War room at the Treasury.

However, it's the findings of an alarming report issued by his colleagues inside all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies that make this interview a must-see for every American...

http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2015/10/tpp-teeters-in-us-congress/


After Democratic front-runner, Hilary Clinton’s, recently voiced her opposition, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal is facing an increasingly difficult task in being ratified by Congress. US Republicans appear to be split over the deal, with front-runner Donald Trump tweeting several direct critiques of what the Obama administration negotiated:



Trump has also previously labelled the TPP “a disaster”. Others in the Republican movement are more supportive, such as Jeb Bush, who has thrown his support behind the pact. Meanwhile, President Obama is in damage control, looking to shore up Democratic support for the TPP after Clinton’s public opposition:



It seems most sides are dissatisfied with the TPP.

The powerful US pharmaceutical lobby is livid that the TPP did not secure better monopoly protections, whereas Big Tobacco and its representatives in Congress are furious that the industry has been carved-out of the investor-state dispute settlement provision, thus limiting its ability to take legal action against member states that regulate against the tobacco industry. Whereas on the left, opponents to the TPP include organised labor and most environmental groups who are concerned about the TPP’s impacts on American jobs and the environment. Given the mounting opposition to the TPP, rumors have emerged that the Obama Administration will wait until the lame duck session after next year’s Presidential Election to give Congress the chance to take its first vote on the deal, effectively delaying ratification to late-2016 at the earliest.

For now, political opposition in the US and elsewhere remains the best chance of the TPP being scuttled, or at least delayed. Given the dubious provisions surrounding intellectual property and investor-state dispute settlement, here’s hoping.

10/22/15 Everything’s Deflating And Nobody Seems To Notice by Raúl Ilargi Meijer

Whenever we at the Automatic Earth explain, as we must have done at least a hundred times in our existence, that, and why, we refuse to define inflation and deflation as rising or falling prices (only), we always get a lot of comments and reactions implying that people either don’t understand why, or they think it’s silly to use a definition that nobody else seems to use.

-More or less- recent events, though, show us once more why we’re right to insist on inflation being defined in terms of the interaction of money-plus-credit supply with money velocity (aka spending). We’re right because the price rises/falls we see today are but a delayed, lagging, consequence of what deflation truly is, they are not deflation itself. Deflation itself has long begun, but because of confusing -if not conflicting- definitions, hardly a soul recognizes it for what it is.

Moreover, the role the money supply plays in that interaction gets smaller, fast, as debt, in the guise of overindebtedness, forces various players in the global economy, from consumers to companies to governments, to cut down on spending, and heavily. We are as we speak witnessing a momentous debt deleveraging, or debt deflation, in real time, even if prices don’t yet reflect that. Consumer prices truly are but lagging indicators.

The overarching problem with all this is that if you look just at -consumer- price movements to define inflation or deflation, you will find it impossible to understand what goes on. First, if you wait until prices fall to recognize deflation, you will tend to ignore the deflationary moves that are already underway but have not yet caused prices to drop. Second, when prices finally start falling, you will have missed out on the reason why they do, because that reason has started to build way before a price fall.
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As long as politicians and media keep talking about disinflation and central bank inflation targets, and all they talk actually about is consumer prices, we will all fail to acknowledge what’s happening right before our very eyes. That is, the system is imploding. Deflating. Deleveraging. And before that is done, there can and will be no recovery. Indeed, this current trend has a very long way to go down.
So far down that you will have a very hard time recognizing the world, and its economic system, on the other side of the process. But then again, you have a hard time recognizing the world for what it is on this side as well.

http://www.theautomaticearth.com/2015/10/everythings-deflating-and-nobody-seems-to-notice/

http://www.collective-evolution.com/2014/07/30/wikileaks-cables-reveal-u-s-government-planned-to-retaliate-cause-pain-on-countries-refusing-gmos/

Studies that link Genetically Modified (GM) food to multiple human health ailments are not the only thing that has millions of people questioning the production of GM food. There is fact that previously classified secret government documents exist which show how the Bush administration developed ways to retaliate against countries that were refusing to use GM seeds, for example. If information about our food needs to be concealed from the public domain, then something has gone seriously wrong with the food industry. It’s great to have an organization like WikiLeaks shed some light into the world that’s been hidden from us for so many years.

Targeting Certain Countries

The cables reveal that the State Department was lobbying all over the world for Monsanto and other major biotech corporations. They reveal that American diplomats requested funding to send lobbyists for the biotech industry to meet with politicians and agricultural officials in “target countries.” These included countries in Africa, Latin America, and Europe.

A non-profit consumer protection group called Food & Water Watch published a report showing the details of the partnership between the federal government and a number of biotech companies who have pushed their GMO products on multiple countries for a number of years.


MORE

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-21/has-it-become-impossible-to-prosecute-white-collar-crime-

Financial crimes might be too complicated to take to trial. For close watchers of the interactions between the Justice Department and the financial industry, the mistrial in the Dewey & LeBoeuf case was about more than just the fact that a handful of jurors were too overwhelmed by the evidence presented to reach a verdict. The mistrial, after a four months in court and 22 days of deliberations, hints at a much deeper problem: Perhaps most financial crime has reached a level of such complexity that it's beyond the reach of the law.

Since the financial crisis sent the economy into a spiral, leading to millions of lost jobs and foreclosed homes, there have been public cries to see bankers responsible for the frauds underpinning the crisis put in jail. This would have fit with the pattern of how things have gone since the beginning of time: Booms and bubbles led to market collapses and crises, followed by the tightening of regulations and criminal prosecutions. In the case of 2008, however, the crackdown never really came. Only one high-level banker went to prison, and the Justice Department pursued enormous multi-billion-dollar civil penalties against big banks, rather than charges against individuals.

The U.S. attorney general, the Security and Exchange Commission, Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and others have taken enormous amounts of criticism for this. Still, several years later, many high profile attempts to charge financial criminals have failed, raising the question of whether the crimes themselves have evolved to a point where the resources designed to combat them are hopelessly out of sync...

MORE

Now a real jury of peers would consist of a bunch of crooks, so that would be no improvement...

Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/10/hillary-clinton-on-social-security-expansion-words-are-wind-a-cold-wind.html