What We Read Today 16 October 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 (and sometimes longer ones) 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.

Doom and gloom: 2015 global recession warning from financial seers of the century (Bernard Condon, The Independent) Hat tip to Philip Pilkington. A 65-year old forecasting firm with a superlative record is forecasting a 2015 recession for the U.S. brought on by a global recession worse than the Great Recession 2007-09. In the U.S. a new housing market downturn will take out the 2010 price lows, according to the Levy Forecast.

Easiest India Subsidy Fix Tests Modi as Rajan Makes Push (Debjit Chakraborty, Bloomberg) With crude in free-fall there could not be a better time for Modi to reform India’s energy markets to spur growth. This article suggests he could also raise natural gas prices to create incentives for domestic exploration and production.

Skunk Works Reveals Compact Fusion Reactor Details (Guy Norris, Aviation Week) Gary of GEI Live Market Commentary discovered this gem. Ever since the demonstration of the vastly greater energy from nuclear fusion compared to nuclear fission by contrasting the atomic bomb to the hydrogen bomb, there has been a dream of harnessing fusion in a controlled reaction. Such an eventuality could produce vast amounts of thermal (and electrical) energy from small devices and continuously operating compact power sources for earth and space travel which could provide continuous power for years without refueling. Lockheed Martin has revealed a project which is expected to reach prototype stages within five years and at least one design unit in production in ten.

Scientists Close In on Creating Black Hole in Lab (Ron Cowen, Nature, Scientific American) Well, not a real black hole, but a sound wave analog (imitation) of the hypothetical electromagnetic wave event. From how Econintersect reads this proposed experiment, it will be an attempt to create at temperatures approaching absolute zero a decoupling of destructively interfering sound waves with one surviving and the other losing its energy to the “thermal black hole”. The result would be the appearance of sound where none had existed before in much the same way that Hawking radiation has been proposed to be emitted from matter-antimatter pairs separating at the event horizon of an electromagnetic black hole. Hawking radiation has never been observed (detected) – a sonic simulation could serve as an existence proof of possibility. If you have followed this discussion up to this point, get another cup of coffee and move on – we have gone beyond our pay grade and better stop.