Economy Blog

addslashes(The Real Story Wrap, January 18

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Doesn’t work exactly like that but pretty close.
Ten pirates have gotten their hands on a hoard of 100 gold pieces and wish to divide the loot. They are democratic pirates, in their own way, and it is their custom to make such divisions in the following manner: the fiercest pirate makes a proposal about the division, and everybody votes on it, including the proposer.
If 50 percent or more are in favor, the proposal passes and is implemented forthwith. Otherwise the proposer is thrown overboard, and the procedure is repeated with the next fiercest pirate.
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At a packed room at Bello Restaurant in New York Monday night, Chris Elam, founder of a Brooklyn dance theater, got a check for $10,000 just for his business idea.
His pitch: a Web site for performing artists that offers live rehearsal streaming, instant messaging and virtual theaters where viewers can watch performances from different vantage points.
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Major indices drop to lowest level since September.…
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Economic freedom diminishes amid the windfall of high commodity prices.…
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From Standard & Poor’s
The structured finance market has been significantly impacted and it may take years for the market to return. To date, the large financial groups have announced $90 billion in write-downs of collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), subprime securities, and leveraged loans, with more to come as banks and brokers close their books for the year….
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Second Life bans “shadow banking”
There is no workable alternative. The so-called banks are not operated, overseen or insured by Linden Lab, nor can we predict which will fail or when. And Linden Lab isn’t, and can’t start acting as, a banking regulator.
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addslashes(News You Need: Bank Of America, Google

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Though lacking theoretical foundation, evidence indicates that the January Barometer works for the broad U.S. stock market. However, it does not work elsewhere….
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Trading lore says that they do not ring a gong at the bottom.  At "A Dash" we are interested in any successful approach — fundamental or technical.  We are open to human interpretation of data and that derived from systems.  We have discussed a number of fundamental considerations in recent weeks, but fundamental analysis is tricky.  Earnings projections are open to dispute, and valuation may be ignored when sentiment is negative.
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Ooh, did he really say that? (Dennis Cook/AP)
Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, weighed in on fiscal policy during his testimony before Congress on Thursday. Now, set aside for a moment what he actually said. Was he right to say anything at all?
Bernanke is a very skilled economist; his academic record [...]…
Original Source: blogs.iht.com

Another major player entered the hedge fund replication game today with a product based on technologies previously used in the machine learning and missle defense industries….
Original Source: allaboutalpha.com