LyrArc Article Gist
This expert who reviews the Internet for the NYT says that he is comfortable with many of the tools that existed back in 2009, Recent tech advances have costs in privacy, excessive advertising, lack of calm moments to reflect, constant buzz that disturbs more than it helps quiet thinking, and losses in productivity for small gains in bits and pieces here and there. Not much in the App world that he finds extraordinarily useful considering all the costs that are not tallied up because they affect our lives taking away a lot without one noticing.

It takes a lot of wisdom and individualism to take only what helps one and put away the rest of what is sent our way by so called Tech. Not foregetting that before the word Tech was coined the world had already invented the computer, jet planes, and the silicon chip, and put men on the moon. Hype. Surely.

LyrArc Article Gist
The U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Yellen tells a Boston Fed conference on economic opportunity and inequality: "The extent and continuing increase in inequality in the U.S. greatly concern me. I think it is appropriate to ask whether this trend is compatible with values rooted in our nation's history, among them the high value Americans have traditionally placed on equality of opportunity." Yellen pointed out that the high inequality impedes economoic mobility which impairs the recovery. Income disparities of this type reduce the country's economic potential, said Yellen. Recent housing gains have helped restore losses of housing wealth with more gains at the bottom. Yellen emphasized the need to invest in education and opportunities for business ownership as ways to improve economic mobility. Low inflation or deflationary trends with lower oil and food prices, give the Fed more flexibility to reduce the numbers of the long term unemployed or part time employed for lack of full time work, a critical goal for the Yellen Fed....

LyrArc Article Gist
Estimates by the Congresssional Budget Office in January 2011 show the federal budget deficit in the US at nearly $1.5 trillion in 2011. The deficit would equal 9.8% of the US gross domestic product. In 2009 the budget deficit was $1.4 trillion or 10% of GDP. The CBO estimates show the debt held by the public increasing from 40% of GDP at the end of fiscal year 2008 to about 70% at the end of fiscal year 2011. Republican senators Orrin Hatch of Utah and John Cornyn of Texas called for a constitutional balanced budget amendment in an op-ed published in Politico.

LyrArc Article Gist
Manufacturing and building plants related to Green energy is a better path for Nevada to meet the needs of the people of the state. Dependence on casinos and the hospitality industry has hurt Nevada. The Redwood Materials plant near Reno, Nevada, is an example of this effort. It is a sprawling 300 acre facility that recycles old smartphones and other discarded items into materials for electric cars and other products.

LyrArc Article Gist
China is gradually getting back to normal. With few new infections from coronavirus, factories are starting production again, and stores are reopening, people gradually coming outdoors.

For factories there is one problem- as Europe and the U.S. battle the coronavirus and impose their own lockdowns demand has evaporated. Factories are seeing canceled orders and having to operate with smaller number of workers.

All the graphs shown in this report for Beijing traffic congestion, Guangzhou subway rides and property transactions show the curves for 2020 way, way below the curves for 2019.

This also gives some idea of what the road ahead will look like in the U.S. and Europe. That the recovery will take time and patience after a difficult period ahead tackling the coronavirus state by state. Lost jobs, diminished confidence and fallen income will take time to recover.

 

LyrArc Article Gist
This title is what Post readers have in mind about the Post itself turning into social media. Only 28 Democrats in Congress out of 264 and most in districts that are not safe or borderline which is not unusual are the issue. Taking out the Independents 91% of congressional Democrats support the president for 2024, and of the swing states maybe just 5 Democrats with none from Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Georgia.

LyrArc Article Gist
About 27 drugs have prices that exceeded the rate of inflation. Under a new law these drugs will face a Medicare penalty in the form of a rebate back to the government.