Illinois Debt Mounting
Student loan $36 billion shortfall
Image by frankieleon, Flickr Creative Commons
A measles outbreak in ailing Venezuela is threatening Colombia and Brazil
According to new figures from the Pan American Health Organization, Venezuela has seen 886 cases of measles since June, including 159 cases this year alone.
The second-biggest outbreak in the hemisphere this year is Brazil, with 14 cases, and all of them were imported from neighboring Venezuela. Colombia has also reported three confirmed cases, all from Venezuela.
Kentucky pension bill still on ‘life support,’ says sponsor
Bowen focused on the most controversial aspect of his bill: a proposal that would cut retired teachers’ 1.5 percent cost of living adjustment to 1 percent until the pension plan is 90 percent funded. It is now 56.4 percent funded, with an unfunded liability of $14.3 billion.
Connecticut faces vote on $550M bailout for distressed capital Hartford
Under the deal, adopted in October as a part of the state budget, Connecticut would cover Hartford’s annual debt payments over the course of the next two decades. The city’s debt obligations are expected to exceed $56 million by 2021.
Cash-strapped Alaska eyes earnings from oil wealth fund
After oil started flowing from Alaska’s North Slope in the late 1970s, so did the checks, which eventually were paid with earnings from an oil-wealth fund that’s grown to about $65 billion through investments. Times were so good, the state in 1980 repealed its personal income tax, a decision that has been politically impossible to undo as the state grapples with a multibillion-dollar budget deficit.
Bond traders face supply test, as close to $300 billion of Treasurys sold this week
Fixed-income traders will face another record-busting week of issuance, with money managers, pension funds and foreign central banks expected to take down $294 billion of fresh debt.
Chicago Public Schools' huge pension debt just got $1 billion deeper, new estimates show
Consultants for the Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund now conclude the system is about $11 billion in the red and faces an even steeper climb to comply with a state law that requires it to be 90 percent funded by 2059, financial documents show.
Student Debt Is a Harsh Math Lesson for U.S. Graduates
Since 2003, borrowing for education in percentage terms has outpaced all other types of consumer debt that includes mortgages, auto loans and credit cards, data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York show. As of the fourth quarter, student loans represented 10.5 percent of a record $13.1 trillion in household debt, up from 3.3 percent at the start of 2003.
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From ZH quoting a report:
Walter Huang's family tells Dan Noyes he took his Tesla to the dealer, complaining that -- on multiple occasions -- the auto-pilot veered toward that same barrier -- the one his Model X hit on Friday when he died.
Well, um....I have to say that if I had a car with autopilot that veered towards any barrier, even once, I would not be using that feature. Especially not on that stretch of road. And if I did, just to test it out, I'd have my hands firmly on the wheel.
If this guy was using that autopilot feature on that stretch and was not being ultra-diligent, then at least part of the responsibility falls to him?
Autopilot as everyone know is, today, just a very imperfect piece of software. Imagine now that your car has drive-by-wire technos. This means that there is no shaft between the steering wheel and the wheels. So, what the driver can do if the car decides to veer left or right, or continue straight if the driver wants to veer? The short answer is : Nothing.
Here is the most worrisome issue to me: people have no more control of the car even if they are sitting in the driver seat. The car decides, not the driver.
People often tell me that the flight industry uses fly-by-wire since a long time now and everything is fine. Problem is that onboard a plane, systems, sensors and actuators are doubled or tripled. Not in a car. Also, the maturity of the processes that support every flight, along with the low number of planes in service compared to cars, makes flight much more safe than a car trip. So, their argument don't hold.
I might be an old dinosaur that is missing the old good tumbrel pulled by an attaching donkey.
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