Econintersect: Below we are reposting what we had ‘behind the wall’ 01 February in our premium content section of the daily feature “What We Read Today”. Every week Econintersect posts more than 150 articles which are available at no charge. In order to continue this high level of service we must find additional sources of revenue to support the level of staffing necessary. Every week there will be an additional 70-80 articles published elsewhere that we will list, abstract and summarize in varying extent ‘behind the wall’.

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And now, as promised, this is what you missed four weeks ago today:

What We Read Today 21 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.

• Class divide on campus: Adjunct professors fight for better pay, benefits (Norma Willis Aronowitz, NBC News) An example used in the story: Two professors with similar education, experience and teaching loads find one making 10x the pay of the other. Disclosure: Econintersect Managing Editor worked as an adjunct professor for 11 years, mostly in the SUNY (State University of New York) system. The teaching load ranged from 10 semester hours credit to 19 for a 12 month period. The pay escalated with experience, starting at $600 per semester hour and rising to a maximum of $900 after the eighth year. There were no benefits.

• James M. Cirona: In Memoriam (William K. Black, New Economic Perspectives) This tribute is in fact an explanation of how accounting control fraud can gut a corporation while the official reports show record profits.

• Careful: Corporate credit card charges can kill a career (Mason Braswell, Investment News) If only FINRA would be as diligent in dealing with the transgressions of financial institutions.

• Why banks aren’t lending to homebuyers (Felix Salmon, Reuters) Another aspect of financial repression – mortgage availability.

• China to Allow up to 5 Privately Financed Banks, Tighten Reins on Shadow Banking (Marlene Y. Satter, ThinkAdvisor) This is an attempt to transfer more risk from the government to the private sector. However, it should be questioned whether banking risk can ever be transferred totally away from the government as long as the banking model for money creation is used.

• Scientists Who Doubt Human-Caused Climate Change (Emily Gertz, Popular Science) See also GEI Analysis: Scientists Increase Efforts to Understand Global Warming Pause (Fabius Maximus).

• The Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Fed Comes Out Swinging (Shah Gilani, Wall Street Insights and Indictments) Shah Gilani has contributrd to Global Economic Intersection. Is the Fed finally going to get serious about the systemic risk of having TBTF (too big to fail) banks with owbership positions in such things as commodity warehouses, production facilities. etc. Gilani writes:

“What would be the systemic risk to the system if a big bank owned something like the Deepwater Horizon (the BP well that blew out and cost almost $50 billion to date), or Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant (which was destroyed by an earthquake-related tsunami and is costing god only knows how much) and the bank got sued, and their share price collapsed, and depositors fled, and that caused a run on other banks, and put the entire financial system at risk?”

• Gauging Investor Sentiment with Twitter: New Update (Blair Jensen, Advisor Perspectives dshort.com)

Sector sentiment shows continued support for Financials [$XLF] and Technology [$XLK] and a move away from Industrials [$XLI], Energy [$XLE], and Basic Materials [$XLB]. The weakness in Consumer Discretionary [$XLY, also called Cyclical] sentiment along with modest strength in Consumer Staples [$XLP] suggests that some market participants are slowly adding some protection to their portfolios. This is a trend to watch over the next several weeks. [$XLV is Health Care and $XLU is Utilities.]

• Defense Spending: Putting Toys Before Boys (Franklin Spinney, CounterPunch)

• Mega Default In China Scheduled for January 31 (Gordon C. Chang, Forbes) Hat tip to Dan Flemming. We keep hearing reports of impending disaster with “Wealth Management Products” in China that cannot deliver on promised returns.

• 2014 Australian dollar forecast (House and Holes, Macro Business) Expect AUD to hit 80 in 2014 and ultimately 60 is possible.

• 16 Basic Principles for Avoiding Stupidity (Brent Beshore, LinkedIn)

• The End Game for Democracy (Bill Moyers, YouTube) Hat tip to Russell Huntley.