What We Read Today 10 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.

• Why America’s about to run out of money for roads (again) (Brad Plummer, Vox) With falling consumption of gasoline federal and state gas tax revenues have fallen about 20% each over the last ten years. That source of money no longer covers the planned highway related maintenance and construction. And Congress can’t figure out how to complete $47 billion in projects currently underway which will be halted by August if no action is taken.

• LEAKED: Docs obtained by Pando show how a Wall Street giant is guaranteed huge fees from taxpayers on risky pension investments (David Sirota, Pando Daily) Hat tip to Barry Ritholtz, Bloomberg) This is another giant blood-sucking vampire squid story about the parasitic world of banks draining pension funds.

• Harvard Study Proves How Dangerous GMOs Are to Humans (Susanne Posel, Investigative Headline News, Occupy Corporatism) The article doesn’t meet the promise of the headline. It is written in a confusing manner and spurious linkage appears to be made between GMO responsibility for nutrient loss in plants at higher atmospheric CO2 levels. Most of the plants in the study described were GMO but there doesn’t appear to be any control of that variable with a sample set that is not GMO. So the loss of nutrients in GMO crops grown in an atmosphere with higher CO2 may or may not be the same as for non-GMO plants. See next article.

• Rising CO2 poses significant threat to human nutrition (Todd Datz, Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard Gazette) See also press release with the same title.

• Draghi Outlook Sends Euro Spiraling (Barbara Zigah, Daily Forex) Mario Draghi, the head of the European Central Bank, said Friday that a monetary policy change might soon occur in order to halt declining inflation. That was not good news for the euro.

Today there are 13 articles discussed ‘behind the wall’.

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