What We Read Today 06 May 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.

• German Businesses Urge Halt on Sanctions Against Russia (Matthew Karnitching, The Wall Street Journal) Hat tip to David Merkel who asks is business so global that major wars can’t be fought? (Twitter) Germany’s major corporations and bank strongly oppose further sanctions and that is the message German Chancellor Angela Merkel has brought to Washington.

• Economics is too important to leave to the experts (Ha-Joon Chang, The Guardian) Hat tip to Steve Keen. The author teaches economics at Cambridge. He’s ready to join the citizenry which as a group “should all learn economics and challenge what the professionals tell us to believe“. Dr. Chang is a supporter of the student movement ISIPE which we discussed yesterday ‘behind the wall’. See also GEI News.

You wouldn’t have guessed it, given the fanfare surrounding the 0.8% growth figure for the first quarter of 2014, but people in the United Kingdom have been living through a period worse than Japan’s infamous “lost decade” of the 1990s.

• The End of Food (Lizzie Widdicombe, The New Yorker) A techie entrepreneur has found a way to replace a $470 a month groceries bill with $50 spent to formulate a month supply of a chemical mixture which tastes good and produces great results. After living on this brew as his only source of nourishment inventor Rob Rhinehart said:

“I feel like the six million dollar man. My physique has noticeably improved, my skin is clearer, my teeth whiter, my hair thicker and my dandruff gone. I haven’t eaten a bite of food in thirty days, and it’s changed my life.”

The Soylent product can be purchased through a fund raising website, one week, two weeks or a month supply at a time. Over $2 million in sales has been recorded to date.

• The last prosecution from the Occupy movement: guilty! Reformers beware; suppression works. (Fabius Maximus) Fabius Maximus has contributed to GEI. We are not able to do justice to this story with a summary discussion. READ IT!!!!

• Etihad Airways unveils world’s most luxurious passenger jets (CNN Travel) The latest? Flying apartments with servants. Etihad Airways has redesigned A380 and Boeing 787 cabins to include suites and luxury apartments.

Today there are 14 articles discussed ‘behind the wall’.

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