FT:
2016 in review: the big events, your top picks, reviews and people
{https://www.ft.com/content/5169b9ba-c91a-11e6-9043-7e34c07b46ef}

comedy

Bullseye
2016
http://www.maximumfun.org/bullseye/bullseye-jesse-thorn-end-year-2016-comedy-special

2015
http://www.maximumfun.org/bullseye/best-comedy-2015-special


round the world in 48days
http://www.yachtingworld.com/news/coville-sets-incredible-new-49-day-solo-round-the-world-record-with-a-blistering-average-speed-of-23-knots-102483

sure we'll see this again in years to come














The 50 funniest films… chosen by comedians

{https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/dec/18/the-50-funniest-comedy-films-chosen-comedians-stewart-lee-sarah-millican-david-baddiel}

Preparing for Brentry – after Brexit: A view from Sweden

{http://voxeu.org/article/preparing-brentry-after-brexit-view-sweden}

life hack
Spend the First Hour of the Day on Activities That Add Value to Your Life
{https://medium.com/the-mission/spend-the-first-hour-of-the-day-on-activities-that-add-value-to-your-life-1968902c32a5#.4b73duwo8}

Paul Krugman: Why Corruption Matters
{http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2016/11/paul-krugman-why-corruption-matters.html}

How the global Left destroyed itself (or, all sex is not rape)
{http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2016/11/global-left-destroyed-sex-not-rape/}

snoop poop
These Are The 48 Organizations That Now Have Access To Every Brit's Browsing History
{http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-11-26/these-are-48-organizations-now-have-access-every-brits-browsing-history}

Exploding myths about the gig economy
{http://voxeu.org/article/exploding-myths-about-gig-economy}

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-21/how-renaissance-s-medallion-fund-became-finance-s-blackest-box

seaweed
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-cow-farting-1.3856202

The disappearing middle class, and a nation, on the brink

http://m.startribune.com/the-disappearing-middle-class-and-a-nation-on-the-brink/381173031/

and

Written in advance
5 Reasons Why Trump Will Win
This wretched, ignorant, dangerous part-time clown and full time sociopath is going to be our next president.
 http://michaelmoore.com/trumpwillwin/

{http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/3-bits-bad-news-tories-9219925}

longer reads for later

How Sociopathic Capitalism Came to Rule the World
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/11/sociopathic-capitalism/506240/

The Script of a Real-Life Tragedy
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/us-presidential-campaign-concludes-in-farce-a-1119830.html

The fatal flaw of the populist approach
http://www.irisheconomy.ie/index.php/2016/11/01/the-fatal-flaw-of-the-populist-approach/

The problem with low interest rates
http://monevator.com/the-problem-with-low-interest-rates/

The fundamental factors behind the Brexit vote
{http://voxeu.org/article/fundamental-factors-behind-brexit-vote}

Theresa May lied and lied again to become PM
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/30/theresa-may-lie-and-lied-to-become-prime-minister

Faulty Wall Street Assumptionshttp://awealthofcommonsense.com/2016/10/faulty-wall-street-assumptions/

Five steps to being fully present in the moment
hommm

http://adamhgrimes.com/blog/being-fully-present-in-the-moment/

want: boxofcrap
https://shift.newco.co/what-50-buys-you-at-huaqiangbei-the-worlds-most-fascinating-electronics-market-f0384d9fca32#.ytxpgmpqc

The Dying Business of Picking Stocks
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-dying-business-of-picking-stocks-1476714749

After Brexit, our tabloid newspapers are taking political intolerance to a chilling new extreme

These newspapers and their commentators are now implying that those who disagree with them should be silenced, or even locked up. This is dark and dangerous territory

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/daily-mail-brexit-daily-express-the-sun-tabloids-language-political-intolerance-traitors-a7357591.html

Blockchain settlement
http://streetwiseprofessor.com/?p=10201


Five Books to Change Liberals' Mindshttps://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-10-11/five-books-to-change-liberals-minds

Battle for AleppoHow Syria Became the New Global War

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/syria-war-became-conflict-between-usa-and-russia-and-iran-a-1115681.html

and

THE BATTLE OF ALEPPO, THE BATTLE OF DRESDEN, THE BATTLE OF MASADA AND THE BATTLE OF BOSWORTH FIELD — WHO LIES, LIES LONGEST

Simon English: Bankers heading off to Frankfurt? It's just a fantasy

http://www.standard.co.uk/business/bankers-heading-off-to-frankfurt-its-just-a-fantasy-a3366206.html

Super Size farming
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/10/09/magazine/big-food-photo-essay.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fmagazine&_r=0

Paul Krugman: What About the Planet?
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2016/10/paul-krugman-what-about-the-planet.html

ON £ MOVE

But some foolish folk will have done a Bloomberg News search for GBP and decided that it is due to the news that fracking had been allowed in North West England. Which is of course rubbish, because we all know that it happened because Diane Abbott was made the shadow Home Secretary.

http://polemics-pains.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/gbp-goes-eurchf-whats-going-on.html

Your name will also go on the list

http://www.economist.com/blogs/buttonwood/2016/10/british-economic-policy

But this was not the only bad idea to come out of the current Conservative conference. First, there was the idea of training more British doctors so that foreign doctors could “go home” after 2025, a policy hardly designed to engender confidence in the many immigrants (like my GP and dentist) who keep the health service going. Then there was the idea oflimiting the number of foreign students who can come to British universities (another brainwave from Ms Rudd).

Yikes, foreign workers..
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2016/10/05/2176612/fessing-up-to-foreign-workers/#respond

still about porn
http://dealbreaker.com/2016/10/what-awaits-you-behind-that-headset-is-the-future/

The Penny Stock Chronicles
{https://theintercept.com/2016/09/23/big-players-little-stocks-and-naked-shorts/}

Brexit is like when Henry VIII told the Pope to go f*** himself. - Nomura
{http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/09/25/did-henry-viiis-tudor-brexit-lead-to-englands-trading-glory-or-a/?curator=thereformedbroker&utm_source=thereformedbroker}

The City will decline—and we will be the poorer for it

{http://bruegel.org/2016/09/the-city-will-decline-and-we-will-be-the-poorer-for-it/}

The diminishing returns of blockchain fetishism
{http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2016/09/27/2175973/the-diminishing-returns-of-blockchain-fetishism/}

How to hide it: inside the secret world of wealth managers
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/sep/21/how-to-hide-it-inside-secret-world-of-wealth-managers

The Building Blocks of Japanese Cuisine

http://luckypeach.com/guides/building-blocks-japanese-cuisine/

If You Build It . . .
http://www.city-journal.org/html/if-you-build-it-14606.html


Mythbusting Uber’s valuation
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2016/09/13/2173631/mythbusting-ubers-valuation/


Don’t believe the good news about Brexit
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/09/dont-believe-good-news-brexit.html

BASE
When it starts to stall, it loses lift, starts to drag, and then, splat.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/activities/aerial-sports/why-are-so-many-base-jumpers-dying/



A Dozen Things I’ve Learned About the Music Business (and Businesses Like It)
https://25iq.com/2016/09/03/a-dozen-things-ive-learned-about-the-music-business-and-businesses-like-it/

Are market efficient?

http://ritholtz.com/2016/08/are-markets-efficient/

Do market prices generally reflect all available information? Or are they prone to bubbles? On this episode of The Big Question, two members of the Chicago Booth faculty—Nobel laureate Eugene F. Fama and Richard H. Thaler, the father of behavioral economics—discuss how markets behave (and misbehave). Along the way they discuss value stocks versus growth stocks, the existence of economic bubbles, and the curious case of the CUBA Fund

29:30 : They are all lineal combinations of various multistate combinations

The End of the Angry Guitar
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/08/07/the-end-of-the-angry-guitar.html


I’m a neoliberal. Maybe you are toohttps://medium.com/@s8mb/im-a-neoliberal-maybe-you-are-too-b809a2a588d6#.fzcqvvclr

Gaiety is a quality of ordinary people. Genius presupposes some disorder in the machine

Denis Diderot

Just Say No to High-Speed Rail
http://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-07-07/just-say-no-to-high-speed-rail



Why Traders Have Lost Their Touch
http://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-07-08/why-today-s-traders-have-lost-their-touch

Why a weaker pound won’t help the UK so much?http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/07/why-a-weaker-pound-wont-help-the-uk-so-much.html

from herehttp://www.georgemagnus.com/ftse-isnt-telling-us-anything-about-the-post-brexit-world-but-is/

https://mainlymacro.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/more-on-how-it-happened.html

Didn’t the Sex Pistols sing about “…now I got a reason to be waiting”?

When will the United Kingdom invoke Article 50?

http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/07/when-will-the-united-kingdom-invoke-article-50.html

social terrorism through wine

'Everything with wine is subjective. There are no rights or wrongs in wine appreciation, and, as one would expect with anything that involves the palate and sensitivity to various different compounds and like and dislikes, we do vary. I’ve never tried to give the impression that my opinion is the one and only one. I just say what I think, and my whole career has been dedicated to trying to give consumers enough confidence to make up their own minds'
http://fivebooks.com/interview/jancis-robinson-wine/

Brexit, Reformation
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2016/06/30/2168125/brexit-reformation-edition/

maybe the only upside is trump won't get in
http://www.businessinsider.com/leave-voters-are-not-stupid-2016-6

IT WAS a troubling exchange. On live television Faisal Islam, the political editor of SkyNews, was recounting a conversation with a pro-Brexit Conservative MP. “I said to him: ‘Where’s the plan? Can we see the Brexit plan now?’ [The MP replied:] ‘There is no plan. The Leave campaign don’t have a post-Brexit plan…Number 10 should have had a plan.’” The camera cut to Anna Botting, the anchor, horror chasing across her face. For a couple of seconds they were both silent, as the point sunk in. “Don’t know what to say to that, actually,” she replied, looking down at the desk. Then she cut to a commercial break.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/bagehot/2016/06/anarchy-uk



The Frightening Global Rise of Agnotology
http://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-06-27/culturally-constructed-ignorance-wins-the-day

death denial mechanisms
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/death-researcher-sheldon-solomon-on-the-fear-of-mortality-a-1098316.html

Low value work
https://hbr.org/2016/06/stop-doing-low-value-work

Brexit and democracy
https://mainlymacro.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/brexit-and-democracy.html

All You Need To Know About the UK Referendum
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/all-you-need-to-know-about-the-brexit-referendum-in-the-uk-a-1097629.html

http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/comment-on-brexit-it-s-smarter-to-stay-a-1096929.html


The centre-left’s obsession with “electability” – a word that has become a whine of over-entitled narcissists.
http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/

Krugman: Notes on Brexit

{http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/notes-on-brexit/?_r=1}

How Intel makes a chip

{http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-09/how-intel-makes-a-chip}

all about the 1%
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/06/zaha-hadid-architecture-gentrification-design-housing-gehry-urbanism/

Yuan short
{http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-06-02/china-biggest-shortever}

rps beaten
http://boingboing.net/2016/05/31/how-to-outguess-multiple-choic.html


My worries about Singapore
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/06/my-worries-about-singapore.html

Crashes, Terrorists, Sharks – Oh, My!
http://ritholtz.com/2016/06/crashes-terrorists-sharks-oh-my-2/

How Reproducible is Alpha?

http://ritholtz.com/2016/05/how-reproducible-is-alpha/

Mt. Gox and the mother of all short squeezes

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2016/05/20/2162507/mt-gox-and-the-mother-of-all-short-squeezes/

http://boingboing.net/2016/05/10/clever-non-lethal-mousetrap-ma.html



Everything is fine

That’s why this is called hyperbolic discounting
MIT Courses
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/#economics

Some thoughts on the end of economic growth
http://timothyblee.com/2016/05/07/some-thoughts-on-the-end-of-economic-growth/

Solar
3 U.S. cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh)http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2016/05/solar-cheaper-than-fossil-fuels-in-middle-east/

Professor Fama: How Markets Really Work
{http://ritholtz.com/2016/05/professor-fama-how-markets-really-work/}

Bill Sharpe, The Arithmetic of Active Management

'In aggregate active investors hold the market portfolio, so if some skilled active investors overweight an undervalued stock, other active investors must underweight it. This means that, before fees and expenses, trading is a zero sum game. Ignoring costs, the gains of the skilled investors are, dollar for dollar, at the expense of other investors.'
{https://www.dimensional.com/famafrench/essays/why-active-investing-is-a-negative-sum-game.aspx}

Stuck on repeat: why we love repetition in music
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/apr/29/why-we-love-repetition-in-music-tom-service

Leicester City: Dirty Dozen or Harvard Case Study?
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2016-04-26/leicester-city-dirty-dozen-or-harvard-case-study

The Greatest Poet Alive
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/05/the-greatest-poet-alive/476376/

Singapore
http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/apr/21/story-cities-singapore-carefully-planned-lee-kuan-yew

Why Haven’t Bankers Been Punished? Just Read These Insider SEC Emails
https://www.propublica.org/article/why-havent-bankers-been-punished-just-read-these-insider-sec-emails

Offshore in central London: the curious case of 29 Harley Street
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/apr/19/offshore-central-london-curious-case-29-harley-street

Top ten trends in Fintech
http://www.futuresmag.com/2016/04/15/top-10-trends-fintech

What the great degree rip-off means for graduates: low pay and high debt
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/19/degree-graduates-low-pay-high-debt-students

good points against a 'Brexit'
https://medium.com/@DuncanWeldon/brexit-the-trade-deficit-is-not-a-source-of-strength-345f88026723#.6gjmupa5s

The whole point of the debate at the moment is that we know — at least in the short term — what Remain looks like, we don’t know what Leave looks like. That creates the kind of uncertainty which delays investment decisions and which would get worse after a Leave vote as we entered into months or years of talks.

And it’s this uncertainty which takes me to my biggest problem with the “the trade deficit is a strength” argument. It ignores the elephant in the room which the large UK’s current account deficit 

That to me, is the best economic argument against a Leave vote — why trigger an event that could lead to a reassessment of UK risks by global investors when you are “dependent to the kindness of strangers” for funding? 

FT on Bullshit
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/2e43b3e8-01c7-11e6-ac98-3c15a1aa2e62.html?siteedition=uk 

Such careful statistical spin-doctoring might seem a world away from Trump’s reckless retweeting of racially charged lies. But in one sense they were very similar: a political use of statistics conducted with little interest in understanding or describing reality

Good essay on Bitcoin and money
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n08/john-lanchester/when-bitcoin-grows-up

Impartial coverage of the Brexit and Bremain navies.
{http://mainlymacro.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/the-eu-referendum-and-media.html}

and

{http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/01/bbc-brexit-too-timid-impartial-on-eu-not-enough?CMP=twt_gu}

25 Incredibly Useful Free Sites And Services

http://www.fastcompany.com/3058645/25-incredibly-useful-free-sites-and-services/9

The epistolary novel that is this blob....
Salman Rushdie: how Cervantes and Shakespeare wrote the modern literary rule book
http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2016/04/salman-rushdie-how-cervantes-and-shakespeare-wrote-modern-literary-rule-book

Panama Papers
The 1% hide their money offshore – then use it to corrupt our democracyhttp://www.theguardian.com/news/commentisfree/2016/apr/10/money-offshore-corrupt-democracy-political-influence

Panama

Panama Papers The Power Players {https://projects.icij.org/panama-papers/power-players/}

{http://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/05/panama-papers-pull-fifa-uefa-chief-gianni-infantino-corruption-scandal}

{http://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/05/panama-papers-world-leaders-tycoons-secret-property-empires}

The Panama Papers’ Sprawling Web of Corruption
{http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/06/opinion/the-panama-papers-sprawling-web-of-corruption.html?_r=0}

The World's cheapest stocks

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/investing/shares/where-are-the-worlds-cheapest-stock-markets/

Blockchain and the holy real-time settlement grail
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2016/02/26/2154510/blockchain-and-the-holy-real-time-settlement-grail/

too much of everything
{http://thereformedbroker.com/2016/02/25/abundance/}

Bitcoin the sewer rat
http://boingboing.net/2016/02/22/bitcoin-is-the-sewer-rat-of-cu.html

What will P2P lending look like 5 years from now?
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2015/02/19/2119569/what-will-p2p-lending-look-like-5-years-from-now/
'The really interesting thing about the potential for P2P to displace traditional banks and their clones is that it shows how easy it is to separate the business of taking deposits and running the payments system from the fundamentally unrelated business of allocating credit. Banks like combining these business lines to extract rents from the rest of society but there isn’t really any good reason why we let them do it. (Also, it’s not even clear they do a particularly good job at allocating credit to productive investments.)'

The worrying signal from US online lending
{http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2016/02/22/2153904/the-worrying-signal-from-us-online-lending/}

Help to Buy? More like Help to Cry for London’s first-time buyers
{http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0989bc0c-d0b0-11e5-831d-09f7778e7377.html#axzz40FCwNGnM}

Monopoly spoiled {http://imgur.com/topic/The_More_You_Know/vX3zm}

and
Monopoly Ultimate Banking Eliminates Cash With a Tiny ATM That Scans Property Cards
{http://toyland.gizmodo.com/monopoly-ultimate-banking-eliminates-cash-with-a-tiny-a-1759240688}

Unobtainium
The Elements of Power: Gadgets, Guns, and the Struggle for a Sustainable Future in the Rare Metal Age
{https://literaryreview.co.uk/unobtainium}

Broader questions to be asked about the efficacy of capitalism...

Photographer: Jasper Juinen/Bloomberg

Goldman Sachs Says It May Be Forced to Fundamentally Question How Capitalism Is Working
{http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-03/goldman-sachs-says-it-may-be-forced-to-fundamentally-question-how-capitalism-is-working}



The NIM force awakens ft

So what the hell is going on? Is capitalism broken? Or is the simpler answer that global capital availability isn’t what we thought it was?

Is the capital stock we think we have actually illusion? And does negative NIM represent not a capital glut …. but perhaps weirdly enough the exact opposite: a large liquid layer atop a very slim capital share?

Perhaps what’s really been happening is that the digitisation of the market since the 1980s has led to the creation of a Gosplan 2.0 mechanism for the world? Which is to say, market signals have been entirely contaminated by the digital sector’s obsession with “eco-systems” and conglomerisation — a Silicon Valley euphemism for cross-subsidisation.

If that’s true, it’s entirely possible the cost of essential goods (internet, telecoms, base foods, base clothes, base transport) has been massively underpriced for years versus their true cost of production at the same that the price of quality goods has been entirely overpriced versus their cost of production as well?

{http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2016/02/04/2152160/the-nim-force-awakens/}

top 100 jokes
http://www.vulture.com/2016/01/100-jokes-shaped-modern-comedy-c-v-r.html

Zombie boats
{http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/12108453/Zombie-ships-send-maritime-freight-into-worst-crisis-in-living-memory.html}

Howard Marks update
Vilfredo Pareto’s assertion that “the foundation of political economy and, in general, of every social science, is evidently psychology.

https://www.oaktreecapital.com/insights/howard-marks-memos?curator=thereformedbroker&utm_source=thereformedbroker

big short
{http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/01/what-the-big-short-gets-wrong-213535}

Improve your sat score
{http://www.vox.com/2016/1/8/10728958/sat-tutor-expensive}

Chinese debt
{http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-14/a-towering-chinese-debt-mountain-looms-behind-market-gyrations}

how to behave in a crash
{https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/get-there/the-dos-and-donts-of-a-market-crash/2016/01/08/8dd9bf72-b2f9-11e5-a842-0feb51d1d124_story.html}

truth behind coming a trader
{http://www.theage.com.au/money/investing/the-truth-behind-courses-on-how-to-be-a-trader-20160104-glysz1.html}

learning source, cost of capital
{http://www.valuewalk.com/2016/01/january-2016-data-update-4-costs-capital/}

A short history of the Bowie Bond
{http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2016/01/11/2149761/a-short-history-of-the-bowie-bond/}

What is going on in China right now?
{http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2016/01/11/2149761/a-short-history-of-the-bowie-bond/}

Why it’s so difficult to build a hydrogen bomb
{http://qz.com/588519/why-its-so-difficult-to-build-a-hydrogen-bomb/}

The 20 Percent World
{http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2016-01-03/the-20-percent-world-iiz31la5}

China's equity market help

Lies, Damned Lies and Physics {http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-12-30/lies-damned-lies-and-physics}

Zuckerberg’s hypocritical war
{http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2016/01/04/2149000/zuckerbergs-hypocritical-war-on-net-neutrality-in-india/}