Markets
3 reasons Warren Buffett bought ExxonMobil
Short-seller Chanos says oil majors increasingly look like ‘value traps’
Grantham Guesses Stocks Work 20-30% Higher – Business Insider
GMO’s Inker Sees Stocks Losing Value in Next Seven Years – Businessweek
Junk Glistens Under ‘Bernankecare’ as Worst Stocks Win – Bloomberg
The Bubble in Bubbles – Bloomberg
The EM flow turnaround | FT Alphaville
Monetary Policy
Fed’s Yellen maintains dovish message in lawmaker letters | Reuters
Bernanke: Rates to Stay Low ‘Well After’ Jobless Rate Hits 6.5%
How Yellen Will Shape the Fed’s QE Exit Strategy | The Fiscal Times
About That Unemployment Threshold…. – Tim Duy’s Fed Watch
“The Fed’s cautious approach of thresholds reflects a very real concern about the message a change would send.”
Fed Effort to Boost Growth ‘Dangerous’ But Necessary – Real Time Economics – WSJ
Monetary Policy Will Never Be the Same | iMFdirect – The IMF Blog
Fictional Reserve Barking: On the (ir)relevance of the money multiplier model: The Fed view
Economics
Shiller vs. Fama vs. the Skeptics – NYTimes.com
“Martin Karplus, a Harvard University chemist, interjected, “ “What understanding of the stock market do you really have?”
Economics – “if one wants to call it a science” – seemed unable to explain the oscillations of the market, he said.
“I see these fluctuations and they make zero sense to me,” Professor Karplus declared. “Maybe they make sense to you.”
Professor Fama dismissed the question as unsophisticated, declaring its premise “factually incorrect.”
The hard scientists, more amused than chastened, turned to mocking the economists.”
Grantham: Emperor Fama Has No Clothes, Shiller Does
Economy
“The question of when and how a sovereign country should restructure its debt is back in the spotlight. Argentina’s protracted legal battle with holdout creditors and Greece’s sovereign debt restructuring (the world’s largest) have prompted proposals for a renewed effort to improve the way debt markets function both before and after a default or restructuring. Radical overhauls are being proposed, but RGE’s view remains that a new system is as unlikely as it is unnecessary.”
Households borrow while business stints: James Saft | Reuters
“Households are borrowing like it’s 2008 but businesses simply won’t play along.
That gap, between households which once again are taking on debt and businesses which can find nothing better to do with record profits than hand the money back to shareholders, is at the center of our economic malaise.”
Secular stagnation, bubbles & inequality | ToUChstone blog: A public policy blog from the TUC
North America
U.S. Satisfaction Back Up to 20%
Experiences of Uninsured With Exchanges Mostly Negative
Health Insurance Marketplace is Still About 40 Percent Incomplete | TIME.com
Baucus Proposes Minimum U.S. Tax on Foreign Earnings – Bloomberg
Consumer Price Index News Release
” The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) decreased 0.1 percent in October on a seasonally adjusted basis, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 1.0 percent before seasonal adjustment.”
OECD Warns of U.S. Threat to Global Recovery – WSJ.com
OECD calls for Bank of Canada rate to more than double to 2.25% by end of 2015 | Financial Post
Mayor Rob Ford’s key staff jump ship amid swift transition at city hall | Toronto Star
ZCommunications | The Great Corporate Tax Shift: Part 1 by Jack Rasmus | ZSpace
“If corporate America can create and sell the idea that they pay more taxes than their offshore capitalist cousins, then they are half way home to getting their paid politicians to provide them still more corporate tax cuts—a proposal by the way that both Republicans and Obama are on record for, in their joint proposal to reduce the top corporate tax rate from 35% to 28% (Obama) or 25% (Republicans).”
Was Jack Welch right? Jobs numbers under fire
Europe
EU banks race to end reliance on ECB aid – FT.com
German exports ‘benefit Spanish economy’ – FT.com
German Economic Expectations Hit Four-Year High – WSJ.com
Immobilien: Wohnungsbau in Deutschland boomt – SPIEGEL ONLINE
Low rates are leading to the highest new home construction in Germany in ten years
L’OCDE ne prévoit pas de baisse du chômage en France avant 2015 – LExpansion.com
OECD doesn’t see unemployment going down in France until 2015
Spain launches sale of nationalized lender NCG Banco | Reuters
ekathimerini.com | OECD expects recession to continue
New 4% interest account offers glimmer of hope to Britain’s savers | Money | The Guardian
Leeds are betting on rate normalization in the next ten years. Seems like a bad idea.
Bad loans in Italy hit 14-year high – Independent.ie
Technology
Tesla calls for federal safety investigation of Model S fires | The Verge
Twitter quietly removes feature for some that lets you receive DMs from any follower | The Verge
T-Mobile is adding $2B to its acquisition war chest with bond sale — Tech News and Analysis
No, Samsung didn’t “sell” 800,000 Galaxy Gears, they shipped that many to retailers
If Dropbox’s 2013 Revenue Is $200M, An $8B Valuation Is Pretty Steep | TechCrunch
Wi-Fi(delity) in a Smaller Sonos – Walt Mossberg – Personal Technology – AllThingsD
iPad Mini With Retina Display Review: An iPad That’s Mini in Screen Size Only – WSJ.com
Norway Monitored Phone Traffic and Shared Data With NSA – WSJ.com
Three US Senators denounce unnecessary NSA phone surveillance | The Verge
Here’s what we know about European collaboration with the NSA — Tech News and Analysis