Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed

I’ve spoken about this in various talks, so this is just great data on roadside trash.

An Adopt-A-Highway group picked up 36 bags of trash, plus three bags of plastic, glass and aluminum in 4 1/2 hours recently as nine volunteers cleaned Interstate 280 between Meridian Avenue and Saratoga Avenue in San Jose. Here’s what else they found on their last two cleanups:

• A small peacock feather
• A hikers day lumbar pack
• A pair of blue plaid boxer shorts
• A small white teddy bear with a red bow
• A childs plastic swing, with ropes still attached
• The support and two wheels of a desk chair
• A small, shiny new wrench
• A recipe for “Microwave Sausage Almond Stuffing”
• A very new-looking pair of womens high-heeled shoes
• A key tag with the label “DO NOT LOSE SUPPLY CLOSET KEY”
• Five golf balls
• A roll of painters tape
• A black leather wallet empty
• An unopened packet of Kleenex
• A garter
• An invitation to a 50th wedding anniversary in Spanish
• $26.86 in cash — and $35 in Monopoly money

via Bay Area roads awash in trash – San Jose Mercury News.

New Yorker:

I regard romantic comedies as a subgenre of sci-fi, in which the world operates according to different rules than my regular human world. For me, there is no difference between Ripley from “Alien” and any Katherine Heigl character. They are equally implausible.

via Mindy Kaling: “Flick Chicks” : The New Yorker.

• I somehow missed this. He was among the greatest: Walter Bonatti, Daring Italian Mountaineer, Dies at 81 – http://t.co/InNPZqia ->
• Whew! RT @TheEconomist: The effect of aging on asset prices may make the rich world’s problems worse http://t.co/zDmvMZNu ->
• Not-So-Smart Cities – http://t.co/ZLSD3rx1 /via @nraford ->
• 1,000 anagrams for Léo Apotheker – http://t.co/95IYBLaY ->

Bullish stuff from the WSJ tonight:

…across the financial markets, a sea change is taking place. Investors are abandoning the time-tested “stocks for the long run” optimism that dominated since the late 1980s. Instead, there is a widening belief that the mess left behind by the housing bubble and financial crisis will be a morass to contend with for years.

via Pivot Point: Investors Lose Faith In Stocks – WSJ.com.

Among other things in Michael Pettis’s latest, this on the Swiss situation:

The Swiss have clearly made their decision.  They do not want any more foreign capital inflow and are trying to eliminate or at least reduce it by capping the rise in the Swiss franc.  It probably won’t work.  I guess now by having converted the currency into a one-way bet I assume that we are going to see massive speculative inflows into the Swiss franc on expectations that inflows will eventually force the SNB to revalue.

via China Financial Markets » The euro once again.

I agree entirely.

Noisy hedge fund manager Hugh Hendry ends his exile and drops by BBC. Note: It is a motley collection of guests, including Hugh a software exec and an interior decorator.

New Federal Reserve RFP for social media monitoring, or … it monitoring you monitoring it. /via ZH.

Frbny Social Media Rfp

Another FQXi video from the recent conference, this time a panel with some of the main speakers. Good stuff.

• Words escape me: In Bear Attack, Hunter Killed Hunter, Autopsy Shows http://t.co/0AjgCSdv ->
• WIngsuit flyer Jeb Corliss does outrageous flight through mountain gap/crack in China today. http://t.co/jL3fewSC ->
• In Brazil, a Second Life for the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro – http://t.co/nwi9nxg3 ->
• Climate Wizard: Historic temperature and rainfall maps for the world, plus predictions – http://t.co/s9Uwu4YT ->

Earlier today in China, wingsuit flyer Jeb Corliss soars from helicopter through mountain cave/crack. Outrageous.