What We Read Today 27 April 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 included.

• Friday’s Forex Facts (Barry Norman, FX Empire) Nice consolidated end-0f-week review. See also the weekly wrap from Investing.com at GEI Investing.

• Jeb Bush Cheat Sheet: 6 Questions About His Presidential Candidacy (Anthea Mitchell, Wall Street Cheat Sheet) The six questions discussed:

1. Is he even running?
2. What’s his stance on immigration?
3. What about his common core opinion?
4. What’s his opinion on Obamacare?
5. What has hia role in politics been in the past?
6. Another Bush?

• Reading “Capital”: Part 4, Conclusion, and recap (R.A., The Economist) Interesting review of Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty. You can see the previous three parts of the series here.

• Politics is about to destroy the internet (Niley Patel, Vox) New rules are about to be introduced that are actually against the law.

The internet as we know it in America is about to fundamentally change, and it’s because our politics are too broken to stop it.

On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Federal Communications Commission is about to issue new rules for internet service providers that will allow them to create “fast lanes” of service that will allow companies like Netflix and Amazon to deliver their content faster than competitors. That’s a first for American internet policy, and it’s strictly against the rules in other countries, particularly in Europe.

Allowing big companies to pay for prioritized access to consumers flies in the face of the internet’s egalitarian ideals, which allow anyone or any company free access to a vibrant market free of tolls or restrictions – allow service providers like Comcast and AT&T to start creating artificial barriers to entry, and you make it harder for the next generation of college kids to start the next Facebook or Google. As a whole, the various rules that protect these ideals are generally called net neutrality – they’re the rules that say your service provider has to treat all internet traffic equally, and shouldn’t be allowed to block, degrade, or enhance access to certain websites or services.

Today there are 12 articles discussed ‘behind the wall’.

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