Daily Digest

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Daily Digest 2/5 - Australian Banks Overcharged Clients Even After Death, How to Soak the Rich
by Daily Digest
Tuesday, February 5, 2019, 10:37 AM
Economy
Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two (jdargis)
Automation is splitting the American labor force into two worlds. There is a small island of highly educated professionals making good wages at corporations like Intel or Boeing, which reap hundreds of thousands of dollars in profit per employee. That island sits in the middle of a sea of less educated workers who are stuck at businesses like hotels, restaurants and nursing homes that generate much smaller profits per employee and stay viable primarily by keeping wages low.
Why are millennials burned out? Capitalism. (tmn)
We’ve internalized this drive to produce as much as we can for as little as possible. That means we take on the costs of training ourselves (including student debt), we take on the costs of managing ourselves as freelancers or contract workers, because that’s what capital is looking for.
And because wages are stagnant and exploitation is up, competition among workers is up too. As individuals, the best thing we can do for ourselves is work harder, learn to code, etc. But we’re not individuals, not as far as bosses are concerned. The vast majority of us are (replaceable) workers, and by working harder for less, we’re undermining ourselves as a class. It’s a vicious cycle.
Soak the rich? Americans say go for it (Adam)
“There is a deep wellspring in terms of perception of unfairness in the economy that’s been tapped into here that either didn’t exist five years ago or existed and had not had a chance to be expressed,” said Michael Cembalest, chairman of market and investment strategy at JPMorgan Asset Management who has studied the latest tax proposals. “This is quite a moment in American economic history where all of a sudden in a matter of months this thing has kind of exploded like this.”
How to Soak the Rich (tmn)
A better way to extract money from top earners would be to get rid of the loopholes, deductions, and exemptions they use to shelter income from taxation in the first place, economists said. “Broadening the tax base is generally more efficient than changing rates,” said Kyle Pomerleau of the Tax Foundation, a think tank in Washington, D.C. “That would include getting at what I would call the Big Three, which is the charitable deduction, the home-mortgage-interest deduction, and the state- and local-tax deduction.”
Australian Banks Overcharged Clients, Even After Some Died, Report Finds (Thomas R.)
Loan officers, mortgage brokers and many others acted to line their own pockets rather than helping customers, said the report, which urged the government to rein in an industry that it said too often operated with a cavalier disregard for the welfare of the Australian people.
A crypto exchange may have lost $145 million after its CEO suddenly died (Thomas R.)
The company has hired tech experts in an attempt to hack into Cotten's laptop and other devices to retrieve the missing cryptocurrencies, but Robertson warned that at least some of them "may be lost."
"Superhuman Is The Last Step" - AI Expert Warns Robots Will Replace Man Within 50 Years (Don R.)
“So far it is not the case but clearly this might be overcome in the future. Human intelligence can be enhanced with an AI-Chip implant, but then are we entering new realms and defining what is and what isn’t a hybrid humanoid?"
“Superhuman is the last step, and I fear to use the word last. It is what drives the future of the research."
5 reasons why autonomous cars aren’t coming anytime soon (Thomas R.)
Researchers are working on laser sensors that use a different light beam wavelength to see through snowflakes, said Greg McGuire, director of the MCity autonomous vehicle testing lab at the University of Michigan. Software also is being developed so vehicles can differentiate between real obstacles and snowflakes, rain, fog, and other conditions.
FamilyTreeDNA Admits to Sharing Genetic Data With F.B.I. (jdargis)
“I am genuinely sorry for not having handled our communications with you as we should have,” Mr. Greenspan wrote, according to a copy of the email obtained by The New York Times. “We’ve received an incredible amount of support from those of you who believe this is an opportunity for honest, law-abiding citizens to help catch bad guys and bring closure to devastated families.”
Elon Musk’s New Plan is to Get to the Moon as Fast as Possible (Thomas R.)
The Raptor is a staged-combustion reusable rocket engine powered by cryogenic liquid methane and liquid oxygen (LOX), rather than the kerosene and LOX combination (RP1) which powers the Merlin rockets used by the Falcon rocket family. Once complete, the Starship will have seven Raptor engines, each of which will provide twice as much thrust as the Merlin 1D used by the Falcon 9.
Black Monday at General Motors as thousand of workers are laid off, will President Trump take a shot? (Thomas R.)
The ad says, “GM continues to expand in Mexico leaving workers out in the cold. So when GM needed help we gave them nearly 300 dollars from every Canadian. If you want to sell here, build here.”
The company says the ad is misleading when it talks about the bailout a decade ago. GM says it paid the loan back to Canadians.
Oil Prices Drop After Touching 2019 High (Michael S.)
The latest surveys show that OPEC’s crude oil production dropped in January by the most in two years—since the initial production cut deal began in January 2017. According to the monthly Reuters survey tracking supply to the market and based on shipping data and information provided by sources at oil companies, OPEC’s crude oil production in January was 30.98 million bpd, down by 890,000 bpd from December 2018.
Decision Delayed in Cabot’s Suit against Man Fighting Natural Gas Drilling (Thomas R.)
This court battle between Cabot and Kemble has been going on for quite some time now. This decision by a judge in Susquehanna County means Ray Kemble has until late March to get another attorney and then have to answer questions for attorneys in this lawsuit.
Oil futures finish lower after touching highest intraday level of 2019 (Thomas R.)
Those included the “surprisingly soft Chinese General Services PMI for January released overnight, which showed the Composite level dip to 50.9 from 52.2 in December, barely holding expansion territory,” said Richey. “That report was then followed up by a whiff in the delayed release of the U.S. factory orders data from November, which pushed prices down to their morning lows.”
Gold & Silver
Click to read the PM Daily Market Commentary: 2/4/19
Provided daily by the Peak Prosperity Gold & Silver Group
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