Where will you live in retirement? Having recently been to New York City it’s a wonderful place to visit, but nowhere I’d like to spend most of my time. Plus, who can afford it? Check out the quote at the end of this piece. But first… Imagine retiring in 1999 and dreaming about the trips you would take using the profits from the stock market. Well for ten-years hence, the Dow lost money. That’s right, from March 1999 to March 2009 the Dow went from over 9,800 to just under 7,300—not including dividends. And that’s the key. For dividend-centric investors, living through such periods of … [Read more...]
These Cities will Pay you to Move There
Desperate times call for desperate measures. With unemployment rates so low, towns and cities are competing for the workers they need to fill their factories and service jobs. Some have gotten creative, offering new residents cash to relocate within their borders. David Harrison and Shayndi Raice report: Jobs at the paper mills and safe manufacturers on this stretch of the Great Miami River mostly dried up by the early 2000s, leaving behind closed factories and an abandoned downtown. Today, a spruced-up waterfront, loft apartments and help-wanted signs give the appearance of economic … [Read more...]
Will These Gentle New Robots Replace Even More Employees?
For years the most delicate work has been reserved for human hands. Carefully picking items out in warehouses has been a growing place of employment for real live people as online retail has decimated service positions like cashiers and sales representatives. But now it appears robots may even be coming for the warehouse picking jobs. Soft Robotics is developing robots with "pliable grasp," capabilities that will enable the automatons to replace humans in an even greater number of tasks. Jennifer Smith reports: Soft Robotics Inc., which makes pliable grippers to pick up objects from pens … [Read more...]
Blue Origin’s New Shepard Soars
The crew capsule on the Blue Origin New Shepard rocket that blasted off on April 29 reached an apogee of 351,000 feet. The test was a successful reflight of the vehicle flown on Blue Origin's last mission. The team explained the launch in an email, writing: New Shepard flew again for the eighth time on April 29, 2018, from Blue Origin’s West Texas Launch Site. Known as Mission 8 (M8), the mission featured a reflight of the vehicle flown on Mission 7. The Crew Capsule reached an apogee of 351,000 feet (66 miles, 107 kilometers) – the altitude we’ve been targeting for operations. For the … [Read more...]
Is Commercial Coal-to-Hydrogen Imminent?
Scientists working for Kawasaki Heavy Industries and the government of Australia are working together to test ways to turn coal into liquid hydrogen. The group is putting over $380 million (US) into the plan. FT reports: The pilot project aims to generate “green energy” for use in cars, electricity generation and industry in Japan from one of the dirtiest fuels, brown coal. It involves converting coal to hydrogen at a power plant in the Latrobe Valley — a region in Australia with some of the world’s most abundant supplies of the fossil fuel, which is also called lignite. “The global … [Read more...]
Is China’s Recovery Fizzling Out?
The FT's Confidential Research team has been tracking Chinese business activity, and the country's economic recovery looks to be slowing down. The team reports: China’s economy lost a little more steam in April, deepening a slowdown seen at the end of the first quarter. The latest data from FT Confidential Research showed fresh weakness in the freight and export industries, and a household sector less confident in the domestic economy. The all-important property sector lent support, with the FTCR Real Estate Index showing a second successive month of improving conditions. That helped … [Read more...]
Your Retirement Life: It’s OK to Take It Easy
When you retire, the feeling that you need to always be doing something will be there. It’s important to remember you’ve earned the luxury to “Take it Easy.” David Ekerdt writes: Instead, I believe that the mantra should be: Let retirement be retirement. Studies of people who pass from work to retirement consistently find that they prize sovereignty over time—freedom—as the great gift of their new stage of life. This should include the freedom to shrug off any pressure to conform to a busy standard. Our society has a sufficient number of retirees who feel driven to pass their later years … [Read more...]
Long Needed Rise in Worker Compensation Emerges
The Employment Cost Index, reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a 2.71% increase in the cost of employing American labor in the first quarter, the fastest rise since the third quarter of 2008. The first quarter of 2018 was the fastest growing quarter for the index since the fourth quarter of 2007. … [Read more...]
Cryptocurrencies: The Kolion
“Mr. Shlyapnikov has launched a cryptocurrency, the kolion, named after his hamlet some 80 miles southeast of Moscow, buoyed by an initial investment of a half-million dollars from investors in Russia and abroad,” writes Thomas Grove in the WSJ. It is an example of a crypto doing what it’s supposed to do: offer a trading network where money and trust are scarce. Grove continues: “Banks don’t want to lend to small farmers,” said Mr. Shlyapnikov. “So we created our own currency.” He said he wasn’t personally profiting, and appeared to live frugally. The tactic is popular in a part of … [Read more...]
Bonds Break Through 3%
10-year Treasury yields cracked through 3% for the first time since 2013. With short-term yields on the rise, and now long-term yields starting to follow suit, the yield drought appears to be coming to an end. … [Read more...]
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