Economy

What not to buy with your RRSP (westcoastjan)

“To me it tells me there is something wrong with the financial planning that is being done by this segment of Canadians,” said Bev Moir, a senior wealth advisor at ScotiaMcLeod Wealth Advisors.

Poor management, not union intransigence, killed Hostess (Thomas C.)

Hostess management's efforts to blame union intransigence for the company's collapse persisted right through to the Thanksgiving eve press release announcing Hostess' liquidation, when it cited a nationwide strike by bakery workers that "crippled its operations."

That overlooks the years of union givebacks and management bad faith. Example: Just before declaring bankruptcy for the second time in eight years Jan. 11, Hostess trebled the compensation of then-Chief Executive Brian Driscoll and raised other executives' pay up to twofold. At the same time, the company was demanding lower wages from workers and stiffing employee pension funds of $8 million a month in payment obligations.

Kyle Bass Interview (LogansRun)

Kyle Bass has a conversation with Darden professor Ken Eades at the Darden School of Business University Investing Confernece 2012.

EU and Asian sources allege the tungsten-switch has gone sovereign (James Knight Chaucer)

For those who don’t already know this, tungsten has very nearly the same density as refined gold. Gold sells today at around $1740 an ounce, and Tungsten at $10 a pound. With a bit of judicious disguise, putting tungsten inside a gold bar can even fool an X-ray machine under certain circumstances. A Slog source in Austria is now alleging that Deutsche Bank ‘fulfilled’ one gold repatriation in recent years with the help of Tungsten. He further claims that some of this has now turned up in Asia.

Disaster Economics (jdargis)

Politically speaking, it’s always easier to shell out money for a disaster that has already happened, with clearly identifiable victims, than to invest money in protecting against something that may or may not happen in the future. Healy and Malhotra found that voters reward politicians for spending money on post-disaster cleanup, but not for investing in disaster prevention, and it’s only natural that politicians respond to this incentive. The federal system complicates matters, too: local governments want decision-making authority, but major disaster-prevention projects are bound to require federal money. And much crucial infrastructure in the U.S. is owned by the private sector, not the government, which makes it harder to do something like bury power lines.

Divisive Election in Spain’s Catalonia Gives Win to Separatist Parties (jdargis)

Indeed, despite the enthusiasm that the separatist drive has generated in Catalonia, a region in northeastern Spain with an outsize weight both economically and culturally, Sunday’s vote also underlined divisions among the region’s 7.5 million citizens. In particular, there are questions over whether sovereignty demands should be limited to seeking fiscal concessions from Madrid or stretch far beyond that.

Despite Ruin, Library Offers Books and Community (jdargis)

Monika Luchowska, 14, has stopped by the mobile library nearly every day too, hoping to find a favorite author among the pile of donated books on the shelves. She mourned the loss of the Harry Potter series, as well as of two other beloved books — one on gardening, one on quilting, both full of colorful pictures she used as inspiration for her computer-generated art.

UK to Shift Focus from Renewable Energy to Natural Gas (James S.)

The alternative, which will now only play a small part in our energy future as most of the money is going into the dash for gas, is for a diverse range of energy investments, into natural gas, renewable energy, and nuclear power. By choosing a dash for gas path we have started to closethe door on the wind energy sector, which could have provided relatively cheap, clean energy.

The lack of backing for renewable energy means that the UK’s green sector, despite being one of the few to actually be constantly growing during the economic troubles, will also start to fall into decline as private investors and jobs move abroad.

Rooftop farms seek to feed Canadian cities’ growing demand for local food (westcoastjan)

In downtown Vancouver, Alterrus has built a greenhouse on top of a parking garage, where it grows herbs and salad greens in water using its VertiCrop system — a series of stacked trays that move on a conveyor belt. Similar farms are spreading in cities throughout the United States, especially in Brooklyn, N.Y., where at least three commercial rooftop farms are operating, with more planned.

Article suggestions for the Daily Digest can be sent to dd@peakprosperity.com. All suggestions are filtered by the Daily Digest team and preference is given to those that are in alignment with the message of the Crash Course and the "3 Es."