What We Read Today 14 September 2013

Econintersect: Click Read more >> below graphic to see today’s list.

The top of today’s reading list reports on ‘terrorists’ of Wall Street…….. and the last article is abut the new high level of U.S. oil production.

• Americans are hostages of the ‘terrorists’ of Wall Street (David Horsey, Los Angeles Times) Hat tip to Russell Huntley.

• China embraces ‘British Model’, ditching Mao for Edmund Burke (Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, The Telegraph)

• Take out one outlier month, and the ‘stunning growth’ in part-time employment falls from 59% to 19% of jobs added (Mark J. Perry, Carpe Diem, The American Enterprise Institute) Many are still quoting the grossly inaccurate figure of 96% of new jobs in 2013 being part-time. But even the actual 59% derives substantially from a one-month statistical outlier in the data. But even the outlier falls within the gross measurement error uncertainty for a single month (Perry refers to this obliquely as “extremely volatile”). Note: This is not from a liberally biased hack; It is from the American Enterprise Institute.

• Update on “eminent domain” for mortgages: North Las Vegas rejects “hair-brained scheme” (Bill McBride, Calculated Risk)

An appropriate public policy to help underwater homeowners would be cramdowns in bankruptcy (see Tanta’s Just Say Yes To Cram Downs), but having cities use “eminent domain” is obviously not. I still don’t understand why the Obama Administration didn’t push for cramdowns in early 2009. Oh well …

• 10,000 Year Old Archaeological Site Found In Western Amazon “Forest Islands” (The Daily Journalist) Hat tip to Roger Erickson. These discoveries are from the earliest times that humans are belived to have been in South America. See BBC.

• The Next Ten Billion Years (John Michael Greer, The Archdruid Report) Hat tip to Naked Capitalism. Conceptually brilliant!!!!!

• Why Keynes wouldn’t have too rosy a view of our economic future (Mike Konczal, The Washington Post) Mike Konczal has contributed to Global Economic Intersection.

• Peak coal in China (Houses and Holes, Macro Business) A study by Citibank is quoted about China’s reduced future use of coal:

Significant shifts in China’s economic structure and power sector demand a reassessment of coal’s perpetual climb. Key drivers include: (1) reduction of air pollution; (2) structural downward shifts in China’s GDP growth and energy intensity; (3) robust growth of China’s renewables and nuclear capacity, along with increased availability of natural gas from pipeline/LNG imports and domestic production; (4) efficiency improvements in coal power plants and energy demand.

• Proud To Be An American (Roger Erickson, Mike Norman Economics) Roger Erickson is a contributor to Global Economic Intersection.

• US oil production reaches highest level in 24 years (Fuel Fix)