- Larry Summers: The robots are coming, whether Trump’s Treasury secretary admits it or not (WaPo) "Yes, you can debate whether technological change is in net good. I certainly believe it is. And you can debate what the job creation effects will be relative to the job destruction effects. But I do not understand how anyone could reach the conclusion that all the action with technology is half a century away. Artificial intelligence is transforming everything from retailing to banking to the provision of medical care."
- At BlackRock, Machines Are Rising Over Managers to Pick Stocks (NYT) "As part of the restructuring, seven of the firm’s 53 stock pickers are expected to step down from their funds. Dozens more are expected to leave the firm. According to data from Morningstar, only 11 percent of Blackrock’s actively managed equity funds have beaten their benchmarks since 2009. Since 2012, $27.5 billion has left BlackRock actively managed mutual funds, per Morningstar data."
- A.I. Versus M.D (New Yorker) "But they found that if they began with a neural network that had already been trained to recognize some unrelated feature (dogs versus cats, say) it learned faster and better. The cognitive revolution will allow computers to amplify the capacity of the human mind in the same manner. Just as machines made human muscles a thousand times stronger, machines will make the human brain a thousand times more powerful. Thrun insists that these deep-learning devices will not replace dermatologists and radiologists. They will augment the professionals, offering them expertise and assistance."
- Evidence That Robots Are Winning the Race for American Jobs (NYT) "The industry most affected by automation is manufacturing. For every robot per thousand workers, up to six workers lost their jobs and wages fell by as much as three-fourths of a percent, according to a new paper by the economists, Daron Acemoglu of M.I.T. and Pascual Restrepo of Boston University. The paper is all the more significant because the researchers, whose work is highly regarded in their field, had been more sanguine about the effect of technology on jobs. In a paper last year, they said it was likely that increased automation would create new, better jobs, so employment and wages would eventually return to their previous levels."
CLIMATE CHANGE:
- Trump promised to bring back coal jobs. That promise ‘will not be kept,’ experts say (WaPo) "But industry experts say coal mining jobs will continue to be lost, not because of blocked access to coal, but because power plant owners are turning to natural gas."
- Donald Trump launches an attack on climate-change policy (Economist) "Because it has never been implemented, the Clean Power Plan’s demise hurts less than green groups suggest. Mr Trump’s action could prove largely symbolic. Around 30 states already require power companies and utilities to increase their use of renewable energy over the next decade. And states with economic heft, such as California, are already climate champions. Even in Republican strongholds, such as Iowa and Texas, Congressional subsidies have helped wind projects to thrive."
- Donald Trump and the Myth of the Coal Revival (New Yorker) "...avoiding talk of climate change has become an apparent point of pride in the Trump Administration. The irony of the executive order, as many analysts have already pointed out, is that it denies economic realities, too. The C.P.P., Reilly said, largely locked in 'what was going to happen anyway'—namely, a steady decline in the demand for coal caused by Trump’s beloved free market. Several studies have found that the C.P.P. itself would dramatically improve air quality. Indeed, economists have projected that the cost of implementing the C.P.P. would be recovered in public-health benefits alone, since it would reduce soot-and-smog-forming emissions. This is especially true for communities downwind of coal plants, which have been suffering for decades."
ENTERTAINMENT:
- Watch what happens when Spotify gives unknown music acts a big push (Re/code) "...artists generally see a boost of 50 percent to 100 percent once they get on Spotify-sponsored playlists; even after those spikes wear off, the artists often see a 20 percent increase in their streams."
INTERNET PRIVACY:
- Republicans voted to roll back landmark FCC privacy rules. Here’s what you need to know (WaPo) "Tuesday's vote is likely to lend momentum to a broader rollback of Obama-era policies, particularly in the technology sector. And it empowers Internet providers to enter the $83 billion market for online advertising, where the ability to collect, store, share and sell consumers' behavioral information is directly linked to companies' bottom line. Proponents of the repeal argue the regulations stifle innovation by forcing Internet providers to abide by unreasonably strict guidelines. But defenders of the privacy rules say they are the only thing preventing broadband companies from spying on their customers and selling that data to the highest bidder."
- How the Republicans Sold Your Privacy to Internet Providers (NYT) "The bill is an effort by the F.C.C.’s new Republican majority and congressional Republicans to overturn a simple but vitally important concept — namely that the information that goes over a network belongs to you as the consumer, not to the network hired to carry it. It’s an old idea: For decades, in both Republican and Democratic administrations, federal rules have protected the privacy of the information in a telephone call. In 2016, the F.C.C., which I led as chairman under President Barack Obama, extended those same protections to the internet. There’s a lot of hypocrisy at play here: The man who has raged endlessly at the alleged surveillance of the communications of his aides (and potentially himself) will most likely soon gladly sign a bill that allows unrestrained sale of the personal information of any American using the internet."
- The 265 members of Congress who sold you out to ISPs, and how much it cost to buy them (The Verge) "The only people who seem to want this are the people who are going to make lots of money from it. (Hint: they work for companies like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T.) Incidentally, these people and their companies routinely give lots of money to members of Congress."
- Six Reasons FCC Rules Aren’t Needed to Protect Privacy (Competitive Enterprise Institute) "Much of the narrative surrounding this debate centers on the fear that consumers will have no privacy protection if the president signs the resolution. But these fears, simply put, are based on a myopic understanding of the numerous laws, regulations, and institutions that protect our privacy on the Internet other than the FCC’s burdensome, legally questionable privacy rule. Here’s a partial list of all the things that are stopping ISPs from misusing customer data or selling it to third parties in a way that could harm Internet users. Federal and state wiretapping laws. Under the Wiretap Act, it’s generally illegal to intentionally intercept or divulge the contents of electronic communications—including Internet traffic—without the consent of a party to the communications. State attorneys general. Every state has a law on the books making it illegal for companies to engage in deceptive practices. Litigation (or arbitration) against providers that violate their privacy policies. Nearly every ISP maintains a privacy policy or terms of service that sets forth the circumstances in which it may collect and disclose subscriber information... The FCC itself. Even without the privacy rule, the FCC is authorized under Section 201(b) of the Communications Act to police 'unjust' or 'unreasonable' practices by broadband providers, including conduct related to data privacy. Technologies that circumvent surveillance. Many tools can protect Internet users’ communications from ISP monitoring. Some of these are often 'on' by default. The marketplace. Speaking of voluntary measures, not every hypothetical scenario involving unseemly corporate conduct justifies a federal regulatory response."
NEWS:
- ‘Way Out of Line’: Iowa Voters Rethink Support for Steve King (NYT) "And there is no shortage of voters who echo Mr. King’s contention that 'culture and demographics are our destiny,' as he said earlier this month to cheers from white supremacists. Sitting at the Hardees in Orange City last week, Don Engeltjes, 76, said he agreed with Mr. King on the need to clamp down on immigration. He said he believed new arrivals were a drain on taxpayers’ money, lumping immigrants from Mexico in with those from the Muslim world. 'But Don, your dad is an immigrant too,' another man piped up, noting that Mr. Engeltjes’s father, like many forebears of the district’s voters, had come over from Holland at age 9. 'You bet he was,' Mr. Engeltjes replied. 'But the way it’s going nowadays, man, they’re outproducing us. We’re going to be the minority in a few years.' Asked by a reporter who he meant by 'we,' Mr. Engeltjes said: 'The white people. The American people.'"
- Trump now says he wants to work with Democrats — but it may already be too late (WaPo) "The abrupt talk of bipartisanship comes after two months in which Trump alienated Democrats with personal attacks and polarizing policies, both of which have made the road to cooperation more politically risky for the minority party. And Trump’s halting overtures to moderate Democrats and unions early in the administration have produced little, if anything, in the way of policies or legislation."
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- At BlackRock, Machines Are Rising Over Managers to Pick Stocks (NYT) "As part of the restructuring, seven of the firm’s 53 stock pickers are expected to step down from their funds. Dozens more are expected to leave the firm. According to data from Morningstar, only 11 percent of Blackrock’s actively managed equity funds have beaten their benchmarks since 2009. Since 2012, $27.5 billion has left BlackRock actively managed mutual funds, per Morningstar data."
- A.I. Versus M.D (New Yorker) "But they found that if they began with a neural network that had already been trained to recognize some unrelated feature (dogs versus cats, say) it learned faster and better. The cognitive revolution will allow computers to amplify the capacity of the human mind in the same manner. Just as machines made human muscles a thousand times stronger, machines will make the human brain a thousand times more powerful. Thrun insists that these deep-learning devices will not replace dermatologists and radiologists. They will augment the professionals, offering them expertise and assistance."
- Evidence That Robots Are Winning the Race for American Jobs (NYT) "The industry most affected by automation is manufacturing. For every robot per thousand workers, up to six workers lost their jobs and wages fell by as much as three-fourths of a percent, according to a new paper by the economists, Daron Acemoglu of M.I.T. and Pascual Restrepo of Boston University. The paper is all the more significant because the researchers, whose work is highly regarded in their field, had been more sanguine about the effect of technology on jobs. In a paper last year, they said it was likely that increased automation would create new, better jobs, so employment and wages would eventually return to their previous levels."
CLIMATE CHANGE:
- Trump promised to bring back coal jobs. That promise ‘will not be kept,’ experts say (WaPo) "But industry experts say coal mining jobs will continue to be lost, not because of blocked access to coal, but because power plant owners are turning to natural gas."
- Donald Trump launches an attack on climate-change policy (Economist) "Because it has never been implemented, the Clean Power Plan’s demise hurts less than green groups suggest. Mr Trump’s action could prove largely symbolic. Around 30 states already require power companies and utilities to increase their use of renewable energy over the next decade. And states with economic heft, such as California, are already climate champions. Even in Republican strongholds, such as Iowa and Texas, Congressional subsidies have helped wind projects to thrive."
- Donald Trump and the Myth of the Coal Revival (New Yorker) "...avoiding talk of climate change has become an apparent point of pride in the Trump Administration. The irony of the executive order, as many analysts have already pointed out, is that it denies economic realities, too. The C.P.P., Reilly said, largely locked in 'what was going to happen anyway'—namely, a steady decline in the demand for coal caused by Trump’s beloved free market. Several studies have found that the C.P.P. itself would dramatically improve air quality. Indeed, economists have projected that the cost of implementing the C.P.P. would be recovered in public-health benefits alone, since it would reduce soot-and-smog-forming emissions. This is especially true for communities downwind of coal plants, which have been suffering for decades."
ENTERTAINMENT:
- Watch what happens when Spotify gives unknown music acts a big push (Re/code) "...artists generally see a boost of 50 percent to 100 percent once they get on Spotify-sponsored playlists; even after those spikes wear off, the artists often see a 20 percent increase in their streams."
INTERNET PRIVACY:
- Republicans voted to roll back landmark FCC privacy rules. Here’s what you need to know (WaPo) "Tuesday's vote is likely to lend momentum to a broader rollback of Obama-era policies, particularly in the technology sector. And it empowers Internet providers to enter the $83 billion market for online advertising, where the ability to collect, store, share and sell consumers' behavioral information is directly linked to companies' bottom line. Proponents of the repeal argue the regulations stifle innovation by forcing Internet providers to abide by unreasonably strict guidelines. But defenders of the privacy rules say they are the only thing preventing broadband companies from spying on their customers and selling that data to the highest bidder."
- How the Republicans Sold Your Privacy to Internet Providers (NYT) "The bill is an effort by the F.C.C.’s new Republican majority and congressional Republicans to overturn a simple but vitally important concept — namely that the information that goes over a network belongs to you as the consumer, not to the network hired to carry it. It’s an old idea: For decades, in both Republican and Democratic administrations, federal rules have protected the privacy of the information in a telephone call. In 2016, the F.C.C., which I led as chairman under President Barack Obama, extended those same protections to the internet. There’s a lot of hypocrisy at play here: The man who has raged endlessly at the alleged surveillance of the communications of his aides (and potentially himself) will most likely soon gladly sign a bill that allows unrestrained sale of the personal information of any American using the internet."
- The 265 members of Congress who sold you out to ISPs, and how much it cost to buy them (The Verge) "The only people who seem to want this are the people who are going to make lots of money from it. (Hint: they work for companies like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T.) Incidentally, these people and their companies routinely give lots of money to members of Congress."
- Six Reasons FCC Rules Aren’t Needed to Protect Privacy (Competitive Enterprise Institute) "Much of the narrative surrounding this debate centers on the fear that consumers will have no privacy protection if the president signs the resolution. But these fears, simply put, are based on a myopic understanding of the numerous laws, regulations, and institutions that protect our privacy on the Internet other than the FCC’s burdensome, legally questionable privacy rule. Here’s a partial list of all the things that are stopping ISPs from misusing customer data or selling it to third parties in a way that could harm Internet users. Federal and state wiretapping laws. Under the Wiretap Act, it’s generally illegal to intentionally intercept or divulge the contents of electronic communications—including Internet traffic—without the consent of a party to the communications. State attorneys general. Every state has a law on the books making it illegal for companies to engage in deceptive practices. Litigation (or arbitration) against providers that violate their privacy policies. Nearly every ISP maintains a privacy policy or terms of service that sets forth the circumstances in which it may collect and disclose subscriber information... The FCC itself. Even without the privacy rule, the FCC is authorized under Section 201(b) of the Communications Act to police 'unjust' or 'unreasonable' practices by broadband providers, including conduct related to data privacy. Technologies that circumvent surveillance. Many tools can protect Internet users’ communications from ISP monitoring. Some of these are often 'on' by default. The marketplace. Speaking of voluntary measures, not every hypothetical scenario involving unseemly corporate conduct justifies a federal regulatory response."
NEWS:
- ‘Way Out of Line’: Iowa Voters Rethink Support for Steve King (NYT) "And there is no shortage of voters who echo Mr. King’s contention that 'culture and demographics are our destiny,' as he said earlier this month to cheers from white supremacists. Sitting at the Hardees in Orange City last week, Don Engeltjes, 76, said he agreed with Mr. King on the need to clamp down on immigration. He said he believed new arrivals were a drain on taxpayers’ money, lumping immigrants from Mexico in with those from the Muslim world. 'But Don, your dad is an immigrant too,' another man piped up, noting that Mr. Engeltjes’s father, like many forebears of the district’s voters, had come over from Holland at age 9. 'You bet he was,' Mr. Engeltjes replied. 'But the way it’s going nowadays, man, they’re outproducing us. We’re going to be the minority in a few years.' Asked by a reporter who he meant by 'we,' Mr. Engeltjes said: 'The white people. The American people.'"
- Trump now says he wants to work with Democrats — but it may already be too late (WaPo) "The abrupt talk of bipartisanship comes after two months in which Trump alienated Democrats with personal attacks and polarizing policies, both of which have made the road to cooperation more politically risky for the minority party. And Trump’s halting overtures to moderate Democrats and unions early in the administration have produced little, if anything, in the way of policies or legislation."
UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE:
- Repeal of Affordable Care Act Is Back on Agenda, Republicans Say (NYT) "It is not clear what political dynamics might have changed since Friday, when a coalition of hard-line conservatives and more moderate Republicans torpedoed legislation to repeal President Barack Obama’s signature domestic achievement. The new talks, which have been going on quietly this week, involve Stephen K. Bannon, the president’s chief strategist, and members of the two Republican factions that helped sink the bill last week, the hard-right Freedom Caucus and the more centrist Tuesday Group."
- Kansas moves to expand Medicaid as GOP legislatures face pressure after ‘Trumpcare’ failure (WaPo) "The abrupt reversal in Kansas could be the front edge of a larger shift nationally, as state lawmakers absorb the repercussions of congressional Republicans’ failed attempt to repeal and replace elements of the Affordable Care Act. Kansas lawmakers are shrugging off what had long been a concern for critics of the health law: that agreeing to expand Medicaid would make the law far more difficult to repeal because it is politically dangerous to revoke benefits once people have them."
BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:
- Mysterious Buyer of Trump’s Childhood Home Said to Be From China (NYT) "But while the buyer’s identity remained unknown, a person with knowledge of the deal said that the new owner, who spent over $2 million for the childhood home of the current president of the United States, is a woman from China."
TODAY'S SONG:
- Why We Fight (Fast Romantics)
- Repeal of Affordable Care Act Is Back on Agenda, Republicans Say (NYT) "It is not clear what political dynamics might have changed since Friday, when a coalition of hard-line conservatives and more moderate Republicans torpedoed legislation to repeal President Barack Obama’s signature domestic achievement. The new talks, which have been going on quietly this week, involve Stephen K. Bannon, the president’s chief strategist, and members of the two Republican factions that helped sink the bill last week, the hard-right Freedom Caucus and the more centrist Tuesday Group."
- Kansas moves to expand Medicaid as GOP legislatures face pressure after ‘Trumpcare’ failure (WaPo) "The abrupt reversal in Kansas could be the front edge of a larger shift nationally, as state lawmakers absorb the repercussions of congressional Republicans’ failed attempt to repeal and replace elements of the Affordable Care Act. Kansas lawmakers are shrugging off what had long been a concern for critics of the health law: that agreeing to expand Medicaid would make the law far more difficult to repeal because it is politically dangerous to revoke benefits once people have them."
BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:
- Mysterious Buyer of Trump’s Childhood Home Said to Be From China (NYT) "But while the buyer’s identity remained unknown, a person with knowledge of the deal said that the new owner, who spent over $2 million for the childhood home of the current president of the United States, is a woman from China."
TODAY'S SONG:
- Why We Fight (Fast Romantics)
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