1) Yes, the Wealthy Can Be Deserving (NY Times) - When's the last time you saw anything that was actually printed in favor of the 1%? That's why I thought I'd lead with this one this week.
2) Lending Where Banks Can’t, Blackstone Thrives in Ireland (Dealbook) - Shadow banking at its finest. Make all the jokes you want about these guys being crooks (they make it pretty easy) but in reality these are really novel solutions to some sticky problems and ultimately they're saving jobs.
3) Having Control Over Your Time Is the Only Sensible Financial Goal (Motley Fool) - It's the age-old conundrum: people with all the time in the world have no money, and the people with all the money in the world have no time. Striking a balance is often difficult, but take it from your old Uncle Eddie: ultimately it's worth it.
4) Homeless Hungarian man hits lottery jackpot with his last few coins (The Guardian) - Feel good story of the week. Wanna know what he's going to do with his winnings? Open a shelter for drug addicts and battered women. Respect.
5) Secession movement in New York pushes for Big Apple to split from Upstate (Washington Times) - If I were the Tea Party Fairy, this is the one wish I'd knock people over to grant. I just think it would be hilarious to see how long it would take for all the "personal responsibility" and "self-reliance" types upstate to go broke and come back to Manhattan begging.
6) Google Fiber chooses nine metro areas for possible expansion (Ars Technica) - Life is about to get a whole lot better for the good folks of San Jose, Portland, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, San Antonio, Nashville, Atlanta, Charlotte, and Raleigh-Durham. The rest of you can suck it with Kabletown.
7) McDonald’s employee fired after she paid to feed first responders (Yahoo! News) - I can almost see McDonald's side in all this; I mean, you can't have employees giving away free food and expect to stay in business for very long. But this kind of thing does not play out well in the press. You add the whole "single mom working multiple jobs" angle and it's a recipe for headaches in Mickey D's PR department.
8) Orem mother upset with PacSun T-shirt display buys every last provocative shirt (4Utah.com) - Mormons are adorable.
9) Nowhere Left to Hide: Crocodiles Can Climb Trees (Wired) - Here's a little nightmare fuel for ya.
10) The Robot That Makes Virtual Sex Feel Real (Motherboard) - First of all: Not Safe for Work. Now that we've got that out of the way, you can see that I saved the best (and arguably most bizarre) for last. This is some next level shit right here. If they build a robot that'll make you a sammich after, it's pretty much the end of the human race. Side note: you know this is exactly what the Oculus Rift guys had in mind when they came up with it.
Video of the Week:
Okay, what the hell is going on in Oakland? I mean, it's always been a shithole, but this is just over the top. I love how the cops punk out and speed away under a hail of beer bottles, too. Might be time to build a 20-foot electric fence around that town and just write it off. Enjoy:
That's it for this week, monkeys! Have a tremendous weekend and let me know what you think about this week's Bananas in the comments!
I'm gonna get the popcorn ready for when the national guard rolls into Oakland.
Good ol' Oakland. Wish I was surprised.
Number 2 reminds me of a good run I had with Irish bank stocks during the crash. Wish I'd had more money in the game, although it was dumb luck.
who would've thought herpetology was the study of amphibians...
The comments in that "split NY in two" article are incredible.
10) Once again, Futurama predicted this:
Futurama - Don't date robots from John Pope on Vimeo.
Mankiw has had fairly consistent conservative views. No surprise there.
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