TRAGEDY MADE STEVE KERR SEE THE WORLD BEYOND THE COURT

TOP OF THE NEWS:

- Tragedy Made Steve Kerr See the World Beyond the Court (NYT) "But perhaps it should be no surprise that, at 51, Kerr has found his voice in public discourse, talking about much more than basketball: heavy topics like gun control, national-anthem protests, presidential politics and Middle East policy. With an educated and evenhanded approach, he steps into discussions that most others in his position purposely avoid or know little about, chewing through the gray areas in a world that increasingly paints itself in bold contrasts. The Kerrs are a family touched by terrorism in the most personal way. Malcolm Kerr [Steve's father] was not a random victim. He was a target."

BUSINESS/INVESTING:

- What history tells us about your investments in 2017 (WaPo) "As for partisan politics, when we look at stock returns by party since 1854, we see the gains are very close: When Democrats have the presidency, returns were 1,342 percent; under Republicans, it was 1,269 percent. Regardless, all presidents get too much credit when things go well and too much blame when they don’t. The political risk factor to investors is not partisan politics or specific policies. The biggest risks can be watershed events: think Vietnam or Watergate or President Bill Clinton’s impeachment or the Iraq War. None of these boded well for investor sentiment or subsequent returns."

- What not to expect in 2017 (Economist) "Expectations for the effectiveness of Mr Trump’s fiscal policies are extraordinarily high. Indeed, it may well be that demography and sluggish productivity make it very hard to push economic growth up to the 3-4% hoped for by the new administration. By extension, the second surprise may be that government bonds do not do that badly. The third potential surprise of the year might be a dog that doesn’t bark. The biggest worry of the fund managers polled by BAML is that of EU disintegration. But the EU might get through the year unscathed if Marine Le Pen is defeated in France’s presidential vote and Angela Merkel is re-elected in Germany. Another potential surprise in 2017 could come from a big market disruption. The big story of 2017 could be an inexplicable (if temporary) crash in a vulnerable market, such as high-yielding corporate bonds. The final surprise may be served up by that most enigmatic of metals—gold."

POLITICS:

- Intellectuals for Trump (New Yorker) "But these intellectuals—a group that includes anonymous bloggers and prominent academics—maintain that he does have a distinctive world view. In their argument, his unpredictable remarks and seemingly disparate proposals conceal a relatively coherent theory of governance, rooted in conservative political thought, which could provide an antidote to a Republican Party grown rigid and ineffective."

SCIENCE:

- How DNA Editing Could Change Life on Earth (New Yorker) "Until CRISPR came along, biologists lacked the tools to force specific genetic changes across an entire population. But the system, which is essentially a molecular scalpel, makes it possible to alter or delete any sequence in a genome of billions of nucleotides. By placing it in an organism’s DNA, scientists can insure that the new gene will copy itself in every successive generation. There has never been a more powerful biological tool, or one with more potential to both improve the world and endanger it."

TECHNOLOGY:

- The Great A.I. Awakening (NYT) "The new incarnation, to the pleasant surprise of Google’s own engineers, had been completed in only nine months. The A.I. system had demonstrated overnight improvements roughly equal to the total gains the old one had accrued over its entire lifetime. Over the past four years, six companies in particular — Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and the Chinese firm Baidu — have touched off an arms race for A.I. talent, particularly within universities. What is at stake is not just one more piecemeal innovation but control over what very well could represent an entirely new computational platform: pervasive, ambient artificial intelligence."

BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:

- A Turntable Reborn Turns Its Back on Its Hip-Hop Legacy (NYT) The turntable, the Technics SL-1200, may not enjoy the name recognition of, say, Fender electric guitars or Steinway pianos. But if you have watched a D.J. scratching furiously behind a rapper in the last few decades, you have almost certainly seen one, or, more likely, a deftly manipulated pair. The SL-1200 was first made in the 1970s, and while plenty of other record players have come and gone, none are as central to the global culture of hip-hop and dance music."

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