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LyrArc brings in selected articles from many of the world's top publications.

Articles are selected by experts and you can see the gist of the important articles.

An unwanted second round

3 Groups   
Economist - 10.26.2009 Original article ›
Economist.Com
LyrArc Article Gist
Of all 5 comments to this editorial in the Economist, all did not think it made any sense to support the Karzai government and risk American troops on the ground with an increasing presence.
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Original article 3 minutes, gist 1 minute

Opinion | Barenboim: What Beethoven’s Ninth Teaches Us

  
NYTimes.com - 05.06.2024 Original article ›
Daniel Barenboim
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Daniel Barenboim on Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. It was performed 200 years ago. The Ode to Joy section of the Ninth is the anthem of the European Union. Originally Beethoven wanted to dedicate it to the ideals of the French Revolution. Beethoven struggled with hearing loss after 1812. Many of his works were written during the period in Bonn around 1780-1792 in Bonn near Cologne where he was born, followed by his period in Vienna composing works for the Viennese court. He was a contemporary duringthe Napoleonic period of Mozart, Haydn, and the writer Goethe who was from Frankfurt. Because of struggles with his hearing loss Beethoven's symphonies record both the highs and the lows, the triumphs and the periods of loss, the nature of the human condition in a period of great social and economic awakening in Europe that led to the Industrial Revolution and modern Europe.

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Walt Gillette: Just Plane Genius

4 Groups   
BusinessWeek - 04.17.2006 Original article ›
Stanley Holmes, Stanley, Holmes
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Walt Gillette started at Boeing in 1964. He has been behind major advances in most of Boeing's planes- from the Dreamliner 787, 747, 737, 767. Gillette was the inspiration behind the use of twin engines for long haul flights, with the 767 wide body twin engine aircraft. He also helped solve problems related to putting powerful engines on the wings of a 737, using analytical methods called (CFD) Computational Fluid Dynamics. The studies led to using five parameters in a new combination that remains a trade secret at Boeing. The Dreamliner is his greatest achievement. What amazes Gillette is the huge advances in air travel, with about 600,000 people travelling around the world in Boeing planes on a single day. "I wanted to work on something that benefits the world," says Gillette.
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Mining Companies Slash Jobs as Commodities Prices Slide

15 Groups   
Wall Street Journal - 07.25.2015 Original article ›
Scott Patterson And John W. Miller, Scott, Patterson, And, John, W., Miller
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Anglo American responds to declining commodity prices and the slowdown in China with deep cuts of 53,000 jobs from its 151,000 workforce. Some of the jobs will be layoffs and other job cuts will be through sale of mines. In Australia mining employment is down 13% in the 2d quarter of 2015 over prior year. Anglo American plans to sell over a quarter of assets in the downsizing. BHP has spun off over ten mines into a separate company called South32. American Pittsburgh based company Consol Energy says it will no longer provide guaranteed health insurance to retired workers. Anglo American is one of the hardest hit companies. It had losses of $3 billion for the first half of 2015, and needs $1.5 billion in cost cutting to become profitable again.
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Volkswagen Bonds Are Choking on More Than Emissions

1 Groups   
Wall Street Journal - 09.25.2015 Original article ›
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VW bonds take a big hit following the emissions scandal. The annual cost of insuring 10 million euros of VW debt against default for five years is 214,000 euros. VW's cash flow after dividends is estimated at 5 billion euros by Fitch in 2016-2017. What is happening to VW goes beyond the emissions scandal. The overly easy environment for corporate borrowing with the loose monetary policy in Europe and the U.S. has made it easy for corporate borrowers to raise money at really low rates. This environment is about to change with VW being the beginning of a shift. In January 2015 VW raised 1 billion euros, with a 15 year bond and interest rate of 1.625%. This bond has dropped in price to 85.6% of face value.
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For first time ever, an emoji is crowned Oxford Dictionaries’ Word of the Year - The Washington Post

1 Groups   
Washington Post - 11.17.2015 Original article ›
Yanan Wang, Yanan, Wang
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The rapid spread of emoji chracters originating from Japan in our daily text conversations. This is bringing emotional state into daily conversations with a simple click on a smartphone. Shigetaka Kurita a designer for Docomo in Japan noticed the use of a picture of the sun in Japan for sunny weather not the use of words as in the U.S., and the use of a bulb over a head for someone with a smart idea, hearts common in Japan for affection, and this led him to the idea of creating a whole set of characters for different moods and emotional states to use in mobile conversation. Apple was the first to adopt them on its smartphones after the emoji were already popular in Japan for about 10 years.
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Roosevelt: The Great Divider

1 Groups   
New York Times - 09.03.2009 Original article ›
Jean Edward Smith, Jean, Edward, Smith
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Jean Edward Smith who wrote on FDR, calls him the Great Divider. But he asks who today would not ask how anyone could oppose social security, and yet FDR passed Social Security against the vote of entrenched interests. And in establishing the Tennessee Valley Authority to priovide cheap electric power to the impoverished South, FDR did not consult wth utility giants Commonwealth and Southern. When he created the SEC he did not request the cooperation of those to be regulated. When passing Glass Steagall Act that separated investment banking and commercial banking he did not look for approval from JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers. So goes the situation in September 2009 as President Obama's initiative on health care is bogged down by lack of support from Blue Dogs in the Senate and Republicans.
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German Book Fair's Dissident Guests Roil China

1 Groups   
Wall Street Journal - 09.21.2009 Original article ›
Vanessa Fuhrmans, Vanessa, Fuhrmans
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The lack of any other opinion except an official one can be part of the problem the central committe of China's Communist party is facing in its expression of adesire for democracy. See the link to the September 2009 session of ther Central Committee. There may be afear that letting people speak may lead to unsettling the single focus on economic development. But it leaves the question how the communist party hopes to tackle corruption and lack of pluralistic democracy. In this connection see Medvedev's criticism of Russian current situation in his recent article and 2 hour question and answer session. By closing the openings for dialogue is China's leadership making amistake, considering that China has made progress in economic development, and this may be agood time for pluralism.
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China Previews Rising Leadership

1 Links 7 Groups   
Wall Street Journal - 08.22.2011 Original article ›
Jeremy Page, Jeremy, Page, Brian Spegele, Brian, Spegele
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U.S. Vice President Biden and Vice President Xi Jinping visited a high school in Dujianyan, in Sichuan province, China. Xi Jinping is expected to be the new President of China in 2013. This is the first time he has spent extensive time with a U.S. leader. Xi Jinping shared his experiences of meeting with ordinary citizens with Joe Biden. Xi's daughter is a student at Harvard University. He showed considerable interest in the political situation and debt ceiling negotiations in the U.S. Li Keqiang, who is close to Premier Wen Biao, is expected to become prime minister of China in 2013. Li gave a speech to students at the University of Hong Kong during the Biden visit with Jinping, and at one point talked to students in English.
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Libya’s Bloody Road to Freedom

5 Groups   
New York Times - 08.23.2011 Original article ›
Azza Kamel Maghur, Azza, Kamel, Maghur
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Libyan lawyer and human rights activist Azza Kamel Maghur, fled earlier this year to Canada with his 3 year old daughter. He writes about the people of Tripoli rising up against the Gaddafi regime. At the same time rebels were closing in on Tripoli in the third week of August 2011. He describes the Al Zuhur neighborhood of Tripoli on the day when the evening call to prayer from the Ben Nabi and Buhmeira mosques rang out longer than usual. This time a signal for people to take to the streets. Some of the youth were shot by snipers from rooftops of buildings. The struggle to free Tripoli was taking place. The carefully planned signal was coordinated with the rebels advance and NATO airstrikes. It enabled the rebels to advance quickly into the city.
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Apple Shake-Up Signals Tim Cook Era

1 Links 10 Groups   
Wall Street Journal - 10.31.2012 Original article ›
Jessica E. Lessin, Jessica, E., Lessin
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After the resignations of Browett and Forstall, other executives Eddy Cue, head of Internet software and services, Craig Federighi and Jonathan Ive, hardware design chief, assume more important roles inside Apple. Browett was hired recently from Dixon Retail in the UK to run Apple retail stores. Some of his scheduling changes at Apple were received badly at the stores. Mr Forstall ran the iOS software operations and was highly regarded by Jobs except that he failed to get along with other executives. He and design chief for hardware Jonathan Ive could not stay in the same room together because of personality conflicts. Jobs was seen as a decider in these situations, a role new CEO Cook did not choose to play preferring a smooth running team with fewer people conflicts.
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French Center-Right Party Declares Jean-François Copé as Leader

5 Groups   
New York Times - 11.26.2012 Original article ›
Nicola Clark, Nicola, Clark
LyrArc Article Gist
Jean Francois-Cope, a protege of former president Sarkozy is declared a winner in the party election for the Union for Popular Movement (UMP) in France. Centrist candidate Francois Fillon continues to contest the vote and this decision. Fears of a fracturing of the centre right parties in France. Sarkozy moved to the right in the presidential election in an effort to draw votes from the right wing party of Marie Le Pen. Fillon stands for a more centrist nationalistic Gaullist position. The vote was so tight that Fillon contends he won by 26 votes and will challenge the decision in civil court. The Socialist party of prime minister Hollande faces problems of its own with the sharp decline in popularity of Hollande over his handling of economic issues.
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Pentagon Cutbacks Force New Strategy at Rockwell Collins

9 Groups   
Wall Street Journal - 11.28.2011 Original article ›
David Kesmodel, David, Kesmodel
LyrArc Article Gist
Rockwell Collins CEO, Clay Jones, talks to the Journal's David Kesmodel, about Rockwell's strategy as the U.S. Defense Department faces large cutbacks. Rockwell supplies the cockpit electronics on military aircraft. With the growth in sales of Boeing's 787 Dreamliner and Airbus's jumbo jet, Jones is shifting resources, capital investments and engineers to the commercial aircraft business. He tells Kesmodel that his No.1 problem is to position Rockwell in the international area to benefit from sales to India, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Turkey, South Korea, Australia, countries which he says will have to build their own aircraft capabilities as the U.S. pulls back from overseas bases. He sees international sales going up from 33% to 40%. Only small acquisitions are planned, of between $50-100 million, as Rockwell prefers organic growth.
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Papademos Says Greece’s Creditors Could Be Forced to Take Losses

  
New York Times - 01.17.2012 Original article ›
Rachel Donadio, Rachel, Donadio
LyrArc Article Gist
Eirini Vourloumis of the New York Times has an extensive 90 minute interview with prime minister Lucas Papademos of Greece. Papademos says he will consider legislation requiring holdouts among bondholders to take losses if no agreement is reached with all bondholders to write down Greece's debt. The IMF, the ECB, and the EU require an agreement before lending more funds to Greece. Papademos is a former vice president of the ECB. His view is that the EU should have acted quickly to tackle the debt problem in Greece in mid 2010, and growth measures should have been taken earlier. He also stated that vested interests with political connections were blocking the changes needed to help the Greek economy recover. He expects elections will be held in Greece in April 2012.
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How JetBlue Cracked Boston

6 Groups   
Wall Street Journal - 02.08.2012 Original article ›
Susan Carey, Susan, Carey
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Jet Blue came to Boston in 2004. At the time it had one gate and 30 employees at Boston's Logan International Airport. The airline now has 2300 workers and 17 gates in Jan 2012. It now has 104 nonstop daily flights to 44 locations in the U.S. and Caribbean, with plans to reach 150 flights by 2015. As American and Delta pulled back to focus on their main hubs, Jet Blue expanded quickly. It started as an airline for vacation travellers, but soon attracted business passengers for the cheaper cost of flights, especially for cost conscious travellers after the recession hit in 2008. Jet Blue also offered better service and more leg room for business passengers. Jet Blue's CEO, Dave Barger, says 30% of traffic into and out of Logan now is for business travel.
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Cameron Criticizes €˜Multiculturalism€™ in Britain

3 Groups   
New York Times - 02.05.2011 Original article ›
John F. Burns, John, F., Burns
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Britain's prime minister, David Cameron, criticized multiculturalism in Britain because it has created segregated communities and encouraged Islamic terrorism. He also disapproved of the "hands-off tolerance" in Britain and other European countries that encouraged Muslims and other immigrant groups "to live separate lives, apart from each other and the mainstream." Speaking at asecurity conference in Munich with Angela Merkel at his side, Cameron stressed the importance of moving away from policies Britain and other European countries have pursued since the 1960's. He called for " a lot less of the passive tolerace of recent years and much more active muscular liberalism." He also called for a end to the double standard where European governments tolerated the spread of radical views amog nonwhite groups that they would never have accepted in radical groups among whites.
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Protests Push Out Egypt PM, Raising Pressure on Regimes

5 Groups   
Wall Street Journal - 03.04.2011 Original article ›
David Luhnow, David, Luhnow, Matt Bradley, Matt, Bradley, Joe Parkinson, Joe, Parkinson
LyrArc Article Gist
The resignation of Ahmed Shafiq, a former Air Force official who was close to Mubarak, from the prime minister's position. He will be replaced by Essam Sharaf, a former transport minister. Protest leaders had suggested Sharaf's name to the military running the country. ElBaradei former head of the IAEA and Amr Moussa of the Arab League had pushed for Shafiq's resignation. Sharaf is an engineer who studied for his Ph.D. at Purdue University in the U.S. In Egypt the changes demanded by the protests for democracy are still unmet. The emergency laws are still in place, the large internal security services have not been disbanded. One example of this was the arrest just last week of one protestor and sentencing by a military court within 3 days to 5 years in prison.
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Malone Is Fired Up by Cable and Ready to Buy

1 Groups   
Wall Street Journal - 07.12.2010 Original article ›
Jessica E. Vascellaro, Jessica, E., Vascellaro
LyrArc Article Gist
John Malone offers some frank comments on the economy, on the dollar and the Obama administration. He has little confidence in America's future. The dollar is strengthening he says only because of the situation in Europe in the Mediterranean countries. He says the Obama administration consists mainly of lawyers and advisers, people who are better at dividing the pie, not enlarging the pie, the kind of thing we need so much now. He sees the risks to his company Liberty coming mainly from the economy. He has big concern about the retail side, consumers and the larger economic conditions, the macroeconomic picture. He draws attention to the fact that nobody will make it if America doesn't, and that for the next year or two things will be tough.
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Sony's New CEO Vows to 'Revive' Company

1 Links 35 Groups   
Wall Street Journal - 04.13.2012 Original article ›
Daisuke Wakabayashi, Daisuke, Wakabayashi, Yoshio Takahashi, Yoshio, Takahashi
LyrArc Article Gist
As part of his plans to revive Sony, CEO Hirai plans to increase sales in emerging markets by 44% in 3 years. Sony is the leading brand for television, audio equipment, and notebook computers in India. Hirai plans to increase operating margins to 5%, and increase revenues by 33%, by March 2015. The outgoing CEO, Mr. Stringer reached 5.4% operating margin in the fiscal year ending March 2008, but things changed after the global financial crisis and the problems in 2011 with the tsunami and earthquake in Japan and floods in Thailand. Sony also plans to start a new medical business with medical diagnostic products, and endoscope type products that use its advanced image sensors. Sony plans to focus on mobile devices, digital cameras, and videogames for further investment.
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To Cut the Deficit, Look to Social Security

4 Groups   
New York Times - 04.04.2011 Original article ›
Alicia H. Munnell, Alicia, H., Munnell
LyrArc Article Gist
Alicia Munnell, is the director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. Munnell says the Domenici-Rivlin deficit reduction proposals should serve as the basis for putting Social Security on a sound financial basis. Tackling the budget deficit should not be focussed simply on the 12% of the budget that makes up nondefense discretionary spending in his view. Tackling Social Security would build confidence and reduce the long term deficit. The Domenici-Rivlin plan has the following proposals for Social Security- indexing the full retirement age after it reaches 67 to improvements in life span, a smaller cost of living adjustment, increasing the earnings subject to the payroll tax to about 180,000 from 106,800 in a gradual way, and gradually taxing employer and employee premiums for health insurance.
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The Arab Spring and U.S. Policy: The View From Jerusalem

7 Groups   
Wall Street Journal - 04.29.2011 Original article ›
Ted Koppel, Ted, Koppel
LyrArc Article Gist
Israeli concerns as the democracy protests lead to new elections in Egypt, and democracy protests take place in all parts of the Arab world. Veteran correspondent Ted Koppel talks to Israeli leaders in Jerusalem. They tell him their first concern is Iran, which they see benefitting from the changes in the Middle East. They would like to see a Marshall Plan for Egypt- continuing U.S. aid to Egypt to maintain economic progress there. They are watching the situation in Libya and Syria as it evolves. The Israeli leaders also tell Koppel that they would like to see the U.S. make a commitment to Saudi Arabia, if the survival of the Saudi governmet is at risk. In Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, Israel sees Iranian influence as the larger risk.
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Calculated Risks: Hillary Rodham Clinton’s ‘Hard Choices’

6 Groups   
New York Times - 06.20.2014 Original article ›
Peter Baker, Peter, Baker
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Peter Baker describes Hillary Clinton's memoir "Hard Choices," about her days at the State Department as covering an enormous amount of ground about different countries but failing to bring the reader close to the events and how they happened. Clinton has written a politically safe memoir, says Baker, with an eye on the presidential election of 2016. There is little detail on her relationship with her rival for the Democratic nomination in 2008, U.S. president Obama. And on Clinton's struggles and hard times when faced with difficult issues the reader gets no more than a passing glimpse without inner details of the events. When compared to predecessor Dean Acheson's memoirs of his days at the State Department under Truman, this memoir looks rather tame, even in comparison with Defense Secretary Gates's recent memoir.
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Obama calculates the human cost of deportations - The Washington Post

7 Groups   
Washington Post - 11.20.2014 Original article ›
Harold Meyerson, Harold, Meyerson
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Harold Meyerson compares the continuing inhumanity of separating parents from children that president Obama has to face with the choice presented to Lt. Colonel Jager at the Berlin Wall in 1989. Jager decided to let both parents visiting West Germany to return to East Germany to their children, even though the father had a stamp on his passport banning a return. He says the Republican control of Congress could last till 2023 by which time current law would have separated millions of parents and children. In 2012 about 13% of schoolchildren in California and Texas had an undocumented immigrant as a parent, according to the Pew Research Center. And for the last 6 years of the Obama administration deportations have reached 400,000 a year, leading to a lot of broken families.
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Excited About the Nasdaq Record? Don’t Overpay for Stocks Again

1 Groups   
Wall Street Journal - 04.23.2015 Original article ›
Jason Zweig, Jason, Zweig
LyrArc Article Gist
According to AJO, institutional money manager in Philadelphia, the average return since March 10, 2000, for the S&P 500 is about 5%, and the NASDAQ Composite less than 1% annually, including dividends. Zweig cites this to show that investors not make the mistake of overpaying for tech stocks or startup stocks, or buy into the hype for a second time since 2000. The NASDAQ Composite hit 5048 in April 2015. The last time it was at this level was on March 10, 2000. Cisco traded at 167 times earnings at the time. For the average long term S&P 500 index shows it traded at an average of 16 times earnings. This is a sober reminder for the average investor that gains depend on on what you pay for a stock.
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Jim DeMint: We Won't Back Down on ObamaCare

9 Groups   
Wall Street Journal - 10.17.2013 Original article ›
Jim Demint, Jim, Demint
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Former Senator Jim DeMint lays out his reasoning for the Republican fight to defund ObamaCare, as the healthcare legislation is now called by Republicans. He points to problems with the legislation with issues about how much the added entitlements will cost in the future( more than the $250 billion by 2023 estimate of CBO insists DeMint based on the general lowballing of projections), and higher premiums for the young and elderly on exchanges. He says the 2012 elections were fought on economic issues not ObamaCare, and that the public he has met in visits to different states as president of the Heritage Foundation continues to be skeptical about ObamaCare. He sees the correct role of the Opposition party to point out the deficiencies in the law and call for corrections in the path for healthcare.
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