What We Read Today 15 January 2014

Econintersect: Every day our editors collect the most interesting things they find from around the internet and present a summary “reading list” which will include very brief summaries of why each item has gotten our attention. Suggestions from readers for “reading list” items are gratefully reviewed, although sometimes space limits the number accepted.

• How will conservatives save the poor? (Noah Smith, Noahpinion) Liberals have not eliminated poverty or solved the social problems of the poor and have probably caused some negative side effects, according to Smith. He suggests that conservatives should help improve this situation by doing more than saying “just get the government out of the way“.

• What 5 Days of Trading Tell Us About 2014: Jim O’Neill (Jim O’Neill, Bloomberg, ThinkAdvisor) If the first five days of the year are up for the stock market there is a 75% to 83% probability for an up year. If the first five days are down the probability of an up year falls to near 50%. After the first five days of 2014 U.S. stocks were down 0.5%.

• Don’t Believe The (Marijuana) Hype (Maia Szalavitz, The Fix) What most people think they know about marijuana-especially media columnists-is just years of unscientific, paranoid, and even racist government propaganda.

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