What We're Reading

We are witnessing the maturation of an industry and the adoption of proven management practices. Successful cleantech companies are making their offerings competitive by focusing on excellence in operations, marketing, sales, and distribution. The principles that apply to any manufacturing business, such as reducing procurement costs and improving productivity through lean manufacturing, are increasingly important for clean technologies as well.

The cleantech space is diverse; it cannot be painted with a broad brush. We looked at 16 important clean technologies and found that while every single one has made progress over the past decade, some are moving much faster than others. Just over half of them—advanced building technologies, advanced agriculture, food life-cycle optimization, grid analytics, grid-scale storage, intelligent transport, next-generation vehicles, solar PVs (photovoltaics), unconventional natural gas, and water treatment—could become truly disruptive to the incumbent

There is a real threat of a credit boom and collapse, as the market enters a period of decreased macroeconomic volatility, former Pimco CEO Mohamed A. El-Erian told CNBC on Friday.  Separately, El-Erian said now is a good time to take profits considering the sluggish U.S. economy and geopolitical concerns around the world, including and especially surrounding Ukraine.

Fully story at CNBC

The staggering increase in prescription drug costs can only make one wonder if one day..... only the wealthy "elite" will be able to afford to live longer.

Prices for brand-name drugs for diseases such as diabetes, multiple sclerosis, cancer, and arthritis are soaring, a survey for Bloomberg News by data provider DRX found.  Analysts, meanwhile, predict the first $1 million drug treatment may be just around the corner. The analysis of big-selling drugs found that price increases in the United States have far outpaced inflation since late 2007 for many drug categories. Here are 73 drug brands whose U.S. prices for at least one dosage increased 75 percent or more in the period.

(View Interactive Graph)

Earl Harford, a retired professor, recently bought a month’s worth of the pills he needs to keep his leukemia at bay. The cost: $7,676, or three times more than when he first began taking the pills in 2001. Over the years, he has paid more than $140,000 from his retirement savings to

In a word:  sustainable?

Numerous articles have noted a sharp rise in the price of renting an apartment or house across the U.S.  Many have also argued that the rise in rents disproportionately affects lower and middle class renters.

I know in my own situation, my rent increased 9% in 2013 and 10% in 2014.  Did our incomes increase by as much?  I wish.

Houseofdebt.org decided to take look by examining the great data available on rents from Zillow.

The chart shows general inflation (measured with PCE headline inflation) versus the increase in rents. Both series are indexed to be 100 as of November 2010 (the first month the Zillow data are available).

The pattern is undeniable: rents are rising much more rapidly than other consumer prices.

The Fed may be emphatic that we're not experiencing inflation but when it comes to housing, there's no denying the facts.  Gas at the pump has doubled since 2008 (isn't it convenient they exclude food and energy), food prices have crept higher but portions and package size hav

Digging deeper into today's better-than-expected non-farm payroll, one sees (again) that low-wage job creation comprises the majority of the gains.  Once again it seems the middle class is being left out leaving only the lower and upper class job creation.  When comparing "this" recovery to those of the past, I would believe one would have to locate one where the largest population is left out of the recovery.  Can the "rich" alone sustain expansion and growth?  Obviously these low wage workers will not be moving out of their parents home any time soon.  Certainly higher education would assist in their move up the ladder however what does that bode for the already explosive rate of education loans (and those in default).  The Fed has become one large hedge fund, propping up the market.  Is that sustainable? 

I've said it before and I'll say it again.  If you want growth, the minimum wage must increase. Cities which have done so have NOT seen the devastating drop in new business or job

Ever want to reach through the television screen and punch someone?  To see ANY commentator spew fairy dust and tall tales with a straight face without telling the entire picture just makes my blood boil.  Here's a portion of this discussion - full video located below

"The excess amount of young adults living at home will unwind alongside a stronger macroeconmic environment and income growth; and the inordinate amount of married couples that are residing in apartment will transition into single-family homes"

• Where's the "stronger macroeconomic environment"?  The GOP is doing everything they can to stop a minimum wage increase.  Steve, perhaps you should write your Congressman.
• Su

• On this day in 1965: In a boardroom on Cove St. in New Bedford, MA, a young, crew-cut Warren Buffett takes control of decrepit textile maker Berkshire Hathaway Inc., whose stock closes that day at $18 a share. Over the next thirty-three years, the stock price rises to $84,000 a share.  Source: Roger Lowenstein, Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist (Random House, New York, 1995), p. 130. Courtesy of JasonZweig
• GS, MS and others revised their GDP # to a negative after today's poor construction spending numbers.  A negative GDP print has many wondering if we are, in fact, in a recession.  A recession as defined by the Fed is two consecutive GDP reports. 
• The weak U.S. recovery has nothing to do with inequality says CalifiaBeachPundit
• McKinsey says businesses are still extremely concerned over cyber attacks and aren't anywhere prepared as they should be (yet).  70% of the respondents said that security concerns had delayed the adoption of public cloud computing by a year or more

For a nifty $5,000, this too can be yours. Ouch!  OK clearly it's not luxury construction but for temporary housing, sturdy weather-resistance storage, camping (?) and housing the poor, quite the innovation. One can only imagine the long term implications for both housing..............and the construction worker.

A private company in east China recently used a giant printer set to print out ten full-sized houses within just one day.

The stand-alone one-story houses in the Shanghai Hi-Tech Industrial Park look just like ordinary buildings. They were created using an intelligent printing array in east China's city of Suzhou.

The array consists of four printers that are 10 meters wide and 6.6 meters high and use multi-directional automated sprays. The sprays emit a combination of cement and construction waste that is used to print building walls layer-by-layer.

Ma Yihe, the inventor of the printers, said he and his team are especially proud of their core technology of quick-drying cem

With recent market weakness, I'm amazed that supposedly factual, informative and unbiased (cough cough) news television isn't pondering the markets recent weakness being at all tied to FACTA. 

The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act ("FATCA"), enacted in 2010, imposes a variety of requirements on foreign banks however foreign banks that do not report such information may be subject to a 30% withholding tax on payments they receive from U.S. sources. In order to avoid this withholding, beginning July 1, 2014, certain foreign banks will be required to report information to the IRS about U.S. account holders with accounts of $50,000 or more.

Let that sink in a moment.  That's HUUUGE money we're talking about.

Beginning July 1st, there will be penalties for non-reporting so if you were big business with large corporate cash storage, or even a gas pipeline worker located in Saudi Arabia, would you shift your investments?  Why not?  The market's at all time new highs.  Better to do it now.

At their inception, autos were considered speculative investments. In fact, so were railroads, the light bulb, telephone and internet.  They'll never catch on.  It'll be too expensive.  No one will be able to afford it.  There's no infrastructure for it.  It'll pass.  It's a FAD.

McKinsey feels "The world is on the cusp of a resource revolution". 

So, is cleantech failing? In a word, no. Rather, the sector has experienced a cycle of excitement followed by high (and often inflated) expectations, disillusionment, consolidation, and then stability as survivors pick up the pieces. We’ve seen this before with other once-emerging technologies.

The shakeout is brutal—and typical. It has weeded out weaker players, making the industry as a whole more robust. Despite the rough patch, annual growth is at double-digit rates. It’s also important to look beyond financial statements. Global wind installations, for example, have soared about 25 percent a year since 2006 (exhibit). And global co

Eerie or creeped out is a good way to explain how you'll feel watching this video on how much robots have replaced the worker but it's estimated that nearly 50% of jobs out there could be replaced by automation over the next few decades.  50% MORE!  Bottom line:  Force your kid to stay in school, no matter what it takes.

I drink my tea on this cold and rainy day and my first thought, as I looked at this chart, that screamed in my brain was "the debt the debt!  omg what are they thinking?"

History suggests that China’s Minsky Moment is approaching quickly, since corporate debt has topped 150% and total debt is over 210%. Investors around the world should prepare for the inevitable demand shocks and falloff in global growth … regardless of the specific outcome. The Chinese government may have the assets to backstop a truly horrific crisis and maintain slow growth in the 2-3% range, but history suggests that China could land very hard.

Over the last fifty years, every investment boom coupled with excessive credit growth has ended in a hard landing, from the Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s, to Japan in 1989, East Asia in 1997, and the United States during both the late 1990s internet bubble and the mid-2000s housing bubble.

The lesson is always the same, and it is hard to avoid.

Economic mira

This comparison chart from Quartz speaks volumes.  We knew brick and mortar was dying a slow death but man...........

(click image to enlarge)

It makes me insane when the Fed says inflation remains subdued.  Subdued?  idk where they live but my rent in 2013 went up 7% and this year, 9%.  A 2-liter bottle of CocaCola used to be .99 cents.  Now it's $1.99.  Don't even get me started on the ridiculous increase in crude oil versus a few years ago (doubled) and how small a bag of my favorite chips has become 1/3 the size for the same price.  Oh, that's right.  They don't include food and energy (the stuff that always goes up).

Last time I looked, housing cost was still included in inflation numbers but yet today a minimum wage person would have to work two weeks just to pay the rent.  Forget about the electric, cable, phone or food.  Oh wait, let's see if we qualify for a free Obama phone and food stamps (sarcasm).  I'm sorry but I hope they raise the minimum wage.  The government should not have to subsidize workers to survive because minimum wage has not risen along with cost of living.  They two should go hand-in-hand if you a

While the U.S. saw their home prices plunge and begin to recover, China and Canada have still been in what's been considered a housing price bubble.  China even more worrisome when you consider their large shadow banking system (alleged to be 25-30% of their entire financial system) which runs behind the scenes and basically ignored by larger banks.  They are, after all, providing a service to small business and investor but at risk and what cost? 

(China home price index to the left - Canada's home pricing index to the right. )

In 2013 Fitch estimated China's shadow banking system represented an astounding 60% of GDP.  Yep, 60% and no one's paying attention to the children in the playground?  Mind blowing.   For all the complaints here in the US over government regulation, they are there when we need them; pulling on the reigns and don't wait until the child runs into traffic in front of a truck.  Well, they usually don't.

In any case, China's credit-market gauges are triggering al

• The days of GDP growth of over 9% in China appear over. Growth of 7%-7.5% seems to be the "new normal"; the authorities now seem comfortable with growth rates that they recently viewed as unacceptably low.
• We see three elements at work in the restrained policy reaction: first, growth was bound to slow inevitably as China converges with the advanced economies; second, more leverage in the economy means that the growth versus a trade-off in financial stability is more fully in play; and third, a tighter labor market with higher wage growth means that slower GDP growth is now more politically palatable.
• While slower growth will make the Chinese economy more sustainable on some metrics, there is still a need to rotate the drivers of growth toward consumption, which has yet to happen.

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