A BIGGER ECONOMIC PIE, BUT A SMALLER SLICE FOR HALF OF THE U.S.

TOP OF THE NEWS:

- A Bigger Economic Pie, but a Smaller Slice for Half of the U.S. (NYT) "Yet for half of all Americans, their share of the total economic pie has shrunk significantly, new research has found. This group — the approximately 117 million adults stuck on the lower half of the income ladder — 'has been completely shut off from economic growth since the 1970s,' the team of economists found. 'Even after taxes and transfers, there has been close to zero growth for working-age adults in the bottom 50 percent.' and This Is The Hidden Challenge In The Future Of Work (FastCompany) "In the United States and the 15 core European Union countries (E.U.-15), there are 285 million adults who are not in the labor force—and at least 100 million of them would like to work more. Some 30% to 45% of the working-age population around the world is underutilized—that is, unemployed, inactive, or underemployed. This translates into some 850 million people in the U.S., the U.K., Germany, Japan, Brazil, China, and India alone. Why is this happening? Chief among the complaints by hiring managers were that communication, leadership, ownership, and teamwork were missing in this new crop of workers."

BUSINESS:

- What is the future of free trade? 5 facts about U.S. trade policy (Brookings Institution) "But what do the independent data and research tell us about free trade, and what it actually means for American workers? 1. The U.S. has been running a trade deficit since the 1970s—but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. 2. Greater reliance on imports is not correlated with unemployment, and trade agreements like the TPP can have a net positive effect on jobs. 3. Technology, not international trade, is the primary force behind lost manufacturing jobs. 4. Services are the most significant drivers of the U.S. economy and are an increasing component of international trade. 5. NAFTA is mutually beneficial to the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, and weakening it could lead to unintended consequences." and We Do Not Have a Trade Deficit (National Review)

- Automated Assistants Will Soon Make a Bid for Your Finances (NYT) "The new personal financial advisers are taking a different tack compared with big-name financial technology start-ups like Lending Club and Square, which provide actual financial services: arranging loans and processing payments. Credit Karma and its competitors are betting that there is more value in being the neutral intermediary that helps customers find financial services and keep track of their various accounts. Advocates of this business model compare the opportunity to the one that Google and Facebook spotted in media, where they serve as so-called platforms for other media companies rather than being media companies themselves. This approach allowed them to become the primary point of contact with the customer, a very profitable and powerful place to sit."

- Economists cannot stop Trump, but perhaps they can understand him (Economist)

- If all goes to plan, Amazon might be the messiest tech story of 2017 (Mashable)

HEALTH:

- Health Insurers List Demands if Affordable Care Act Is Killed (NYT) "The insurers, some who have already started leaving the marketplaces because they are losing money there, say they need a clear commitment from the Trump administration and congressional leaders that the government will continue offsetting some costs for low-income people. They also want to keep in place rules that encourage young and healthy people to sign up, which the insurers say are crucial to a stable market for individual buyers. The demands are a sort of warning shot to Republicans. While the party is eager to repeal the law as quickly as possible, and many have promised a replacement, its members are sharply divided over what shape any new plan should take." and GOP still splintered over Obamacare after Pence meeting (Politico)

NEWS:

- Retired Marine Gen. John F. Kelly picked to head Department of Homeland Security (WaPo) "Kelly, who retired in February as chief of U.S. Southern Command, would inherit a massive and often troubled department responsible for overseeing perhaps the most controversial part of Trump’s agenda: his proposed crackdown on illegal immigration. DHS is the third-largest Cabinet department, with more than 240,000 employees who do everything from fight terrorism to protect the president and enforce immigration laws." and Washington Post: Trump’s Appointments of Military Officers May Turn U.S. Into Dictatorship (Breitbart)

- Breitbart News is taking the business of outrage to Europe (Economist) "Its formula—outraging and fascinating readers with 'clickbait', occasional fake news, polemics and attacks on mainstream media—has taken off. The push deeper into Europe may seem an oddly international approach for a brand that scorns the ideals of a global order. Yet Breitbart has a clear operational model: moving into markets where it can win an audience by appealing to anti-globalisation and anti-immigrant sentiment and by aligning itself with an existing opposition party."

- Why conservatives might be more likely to fall for fake news (WaPo) "A robust body of academic research has sprung up in the past decade or so, documenting the different ways conservatives and liberals process the world. One [personality trait] in particular -- a so-called 'need for cognition' -- speaks to why fake news creators have found a receptive audience among conservatives. 'Need for cognition' is measured by assessing people's agreement with statements like, 'I find satisfaction in deliberating hard and for long hours' or 'thinking is not my idea of fun.' A measurement of people's affinity for critical thinking, in short. Jost reviewed 40 studies on differences in this need for cognition between liberals and conservatives. Of those, 25 showed a 'significant, negative' association between need for cognition and right-wing orientation. In all but three of the others, there was a similar negative association but it wasn't statistically significant. In other words, liberals were slightly more predisposed to think critically than conservatives. As Stefan Pfattheicher of Ulm University put it in an email to me, conservatives 'are less reflective in information processing, especially when information is consistent with [their] own worldviews.' Both Pfattheicher and Jost say that any cognitive differences aren't necessarily about intelligence. 'This seems to be more a matter of motivation to process information (or news) in a critical, reflective thinking style than the ability to do so,' Pfattheicher said in an email."

- He ‘lied his a– off': Carrier union leader on Trump’s big deal (WaPo) "Jones, president of the United Steelworkers 1999, which represents Carrier employees, felt optimistic when Trump announced last week that he’d reached a deal with the factory’s parent company, United Technologies, to preserve 1,100 of the Indianapolis jobs. Then the union leader heard from Carrier that only 730 of the production jobs would stay and 550 of his members would lose their livelihoods, after all. At the Dec. 1 meeting, where Trump was supposed to lay out the details, Jones hoped he would explain himself. 'But he got up there,' Jones said Tuesday, 'and, for whatever reason, lied his a-- off.' In front of a crowd of about 150 supervisors, production workers and reporters, Trump praised Carrier and its parent company, United Technologies. 'Now they’re keeping — actually the number’s over 1,100 people,' he said, 'which is so great.'"

- I'm a Democrat but I've gotta admit it's now Trump 2, Dems 0 (Fox News) "What academics and my party don’t understand is that he’s [Trump] not interested in starting a war. He simply recognizes that we’re already in one. And he’s giving voice to its long-suffering victims: millions of voters in places like North Carolina, Ohio, and Michigan."

- Obama, in Major National Security Speech, Defends Counterterrorism Legacy (NYT)

POLITICS:

- Democrats Turn to an Unlikely Ally: Big Business (Ozy) "Working through the private sector may be the only option for Democrats to advance such progressive efforts as equal pay, paid family leave and worker protection, among others. And lawmakers may find the largest corporate behemoths surprisingly willing to listen, in part because companies are looking for ways to restore consumer trust after a series of scandals deepened the chasm between Wall Street and Main Street." and Tony Perkins Backs #DumpKelloggs: After Election Defeat, Left Will ‘Use Corporate America to Marginalize Conservative Thought’ (Breitbart)

SPORTS:

- What's a strength coach worth? It can hardly be quantified (USA Today) "But the rise in compensation, and the newfound attention paid to strength coaches, is tied to the increasing awareness of the important role they hold within major-college programs. While on-field head coaches and assistants run the show from August through the end of each season, it’s on strength coaches to take ownership of those offseason months so crucial to a team’s overall development."

TECHNOLOGY:

- Artificial Intelligence Is More Artificial Than Intelligent (Wired) "The fact is, no existing AI technologies can master even the simplest challenges without human-provided context. As long as this is the case, today’s version of AI is not actually 'intelligent' and won’t be the silver bullet for any of our business or societal problems. And claiming so as a business or reporting so as a journalist is counterproductive and misleading." and Artificial Intelligence Just Broke Steve Jobs’ Wall of Secrecy (Wired)

- Worried About the Privacy of Your Messages? Download Signal. (NYT) "The only information Signal stores about users in its database is the last time someone connected to its server and when a person signed up for Signal. Other messaging apps maintain pieces of personal data on their servers."

- The Gadget Apocalypse Is Upon Us (NYT) "What happened to gadgets? It’s a fascinating story about tech progress, international manufacturing and shifting consumer preferences, and it all ends in a sad punch line: Great gadget companies are now having a harder time than ever getting off the ground. The gadget age is over — and even if that’s a kind of progress, because software now fills many of our needs, the great gadgetapocalypse is bound to make the tech world, and your life, a little less fun."

- Donald Trump Summons Tech Leaders to a Round-Table Meeting (NYT)

BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:

- Mr. Trump: Here’s Why You Really Want to Spend $4 Billion on Air Force One (Wired)

Sign up for email distribution of the Day's Most Compelling News below or by visiting Top of the News