The Big Picture

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• Fed’s Grand Experiment Draws to a Close
• Parenthood and Productivity of Highly Skilled Labor
• Guide to Longer Living Through Science
• 10 Wednesday PM Reads
• Exporting Corruption
• 10 Wednesday AM Reads
• American Red Cross Wasted Millions of Dollars of Sandy Donations

Fed’s Grand Experiment Draws to a Close Posted: 30 Oct 2014 03:00 AM PDT

Parenthood and Productivity of Highly Skilled Labor Posted: 30 Oct 2014 02:00 AM PDT

Guide to Longer Living Through Science Posted: 29 Oct 2014 05:00 PM PDT Better Living Through Science Source: NY Times

10 Wednesday PM Reads Posted: 29 Oct 2014 01:30 PM PDT My afternoon train reads: • How Effective Were Fed Bond Buys? A QE Research Bibliography (Real Time Economics) see also Quantitative Easing Is Ending. Here's What It Did, in Charts. (Upshot) • Earnings Results Defy Conventional Wisdom (Barron’s) • Ten Insane Things We Believe On Wall Street (Reformed Broker) • Germany Inc. Scrutinized for Using Labor Like Paper Clips (Bloomberg) • Life’s Unanswered Questions (Motley Fool) see also No monkey business? (The Economist) • Ten Things for Applied Econometricians to Keep in Mind (Econometrics Beat) see also Persuasion with statistics (Stumbling and Mumbling) • Hacking Trail Leads to Russia, Experts Say (WSJ) • Can William Gibson Predict the Future? (GQ) • Busted: More global warming denial 'science' found to be unrealistic and inaccurate (Raw Story) see also 2014 Arctic sea ice extent – 6th lowest in millennia (The Guardian) • When "Purple Rain" Came Falling Down: At the apex of his success, Prince made a high-profile decision that damaged his reputation for years (Medium) What are you reading?     Fed Set to End QE3, but Not the QE Concept Source: WSJ

Exporting Corruption Posted: 29 Oct 2014 10:30 AM PDT From Transparency International: The OECD Anti-Bribery Convention, adopted in 1997, requires each signatory country to make foreign bribery a crime for which individuals and enterprises are responsible. The Convention is a key instrument for curbing the export of corruption globally because the 41 signatory countries are responsible for approximately two-thirds of world exports and almost 90 per cent of total foreign direct investment outflows. Transparency International's annual progress report presents an independent assessment on the status of enforcement in all of the Parties to the Convention (except Latvia, where the Convention entered into force only in 2014). This is our tenth annual OECD progress report. Click for an interactive map and additional details. Source: Transparency International

10 Wednesday AM Reads Posted: 29 Oct 2014 06:30 AM PDT Midway thru the week, will this torrid rally take a breather? Or have is the snapback just an oversold bounce? Find out in our morning train reads: • The Timeless Allure of Stock-Market Timers (Barron’s) • The Stock Market Bottomed Ten Days Ago (Irrelevant Investor) see also Why Americans Will Believe Anything You Tell Them, in One Chart (Businessweek) • The worst possible case for the worst possible idea, the gold standard (WonkBlog) • The Downside to Stock Buybacks: There Could Be Better Uses for the Money (WSJ) • Facts and rubbish about bank leverage ratios (Medium) Continues here

American Red Cross Wasted Millions of Dollars of Sandy Donations Posted: 29 Oct 2014 05:30 AM PDT The American Red Cross has become a man-made disaster. It wasted millions of dollars in Hurricane Sandy aid through mismanagement and poor judgment. It compounded the snafu by covering up its errors, hiring lawyers to prevent the public from finding out what happened to its donations. Earlier this year, I expressed my disappointment in the Red Cross. It had raised $312 million for storm relief, but then stonewalled on how the money was spent. This morning, we found out why. Thanks to the dogged investigation by Justin Elliott and Jesse Eisinger of ProPublica and Laura Sullivan of NPR, we learned how poorly the Red Cross responded to the Sandy disaster. Their article “The Red Cross' Secret Disaster” is must reading for anyone who contributes to philanthropies. The details are shocking. The Red Cross wasted millions of donated dollars through mismanagement, bad judgment and poor priorities, including a show of the appearance of providing assistance, at the expense of delivering the aid itself. Anyone involved in emergency assistance or other charitable work should read the report. It is a primer on what not to do when providing emergency relief after a natural disaster. The details of how it botched the relief efforts are laid out in Red Cross documents and are simply stunning: Continues here

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