China’s Latest Five-Year Plan by Martin Feldstein - Project Syndicate

China’s Latest Five-Year Plan by Martin Feldstein - Project Syndicate



The Chinese economy is no longer the state-owned and state-managed system that it was when I first visited more than 30 years ago. In those days, there was no private enterprise, and it was illegal for anyone but the government or a state-owned enterprise to hire an employee. Today, only 20% of employees in China work for SOEs. The rest of the Chinese economy is dynamic, decentralized, and privately owned. American multinational companies and other foreign firms are an important part of the economic scene...

The Chinese government is therefore considering several policies to increase the pace of urbanization, including the creation of several new large cities to accommodate some of the 600 million individuals who still live in rural China. Similarly, the government will phase out the hukou system of residency permits that now prevents migrants to the cities from obtaining full health care and education benefits.

A third policy change aimed at promoting urbanization will be to allow Chinese farmers to sell their land rights at realistic market prices, thereby increasing their incentive to cash out and move. And the introduction of a Western-style rental market will allow families without substantial cash or parental support to move to cities (where families currently must purchase their apartments).

A Military Power Rises in the Mideast, Courtesy of One Man - Bloomberg Business

A Military Power Rises in the Mideast, Courtesy of One Man - Bloomberg Business

The Morning Ledger: Earnings Per Share Get a Buyback Boost - btbirkett@gmail.com - Gmail

The Morning Ledger: Earnings Per Share Get a Buyback Boost - btbirkett@gmail.com - Gmail



Microsoft turned a decline in total earnings into a per-share gain by repurchasing a little more than 3% of its shares in the past 12 months. 

Obama and Putin Agree on Bombing Islamic State's Oil Pipeline - Bloomberg Business

Obama and Putin Agree on Bombing Islamic State's Oil Pipeline - Bloomberg Business

The U.S. is hoping the Paris bloodbath “will galvanize others to do even more” in the effort against terrorism, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Tuesday, according to the Pentagon.

Putin is doing just that. This week, Russian warplanes, backed by increased satellite capabilities, started to “free hunt” vehicles illegally transporting fuel in Islamic State areas. They destroyed around 500 trucks over several days, the Defense Ministry said in a statement, without saying exactly when the attacks occurred.

Russian Tu-22 long-range bombers carried out strikes on Thursday against oil infrastructure controlled by Islamic State in the provinces of Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor. The latter produces around two-thirds of the group’s oil revenue, according to the Pentagon. The planes destroyed three large refining complexes and a crude transport facility, Russia’s Defense Ministry said on its website.

Why U.S. Efforts to Cut Off Islamic State’s Funds Have Failed - Bloomberg Business

Why U.S. Efforts to Cut Off Islamic State’s Funds Have Failed - Bloomberg Business



...Militants increasingly sell raw crude to truckers and middlemen, rather than refining it themselves. So while Islamic State probably maintains some refining capacity, the majority of the oil in IS territory is refined by locals who operate thousands of rudimentary, roadside furnaces that dot the Syrian desert....



...Beyond oil, the caliphate is believed by U.S. officials to have assets including $500 million to $1 billion that it seized from Iraqi bank branches last year, untold “hundreds of millions” of dollars that U.S. officials say are extorted and taxed out of populations under the group’s control, and tens of millions of dollars more earned from looted antiquities and ransoms paid to free kidnap victims.

The taxes bring in real money. One example: Islamic State allows policemen, soldiers, and teachers in its territory to atone for the “sin” of having worked under religiously inappropriate regimes—for a fee. Forgiveness comes in the form of a repentance ID card costing up to $2,500, which requires an additional $200 a year to renew,...

...Arguably the least appreciated resource for Islamic State is its fertile farms. Before even starting the engine of a single tractor, the group is believed to have grabbed as much as $200 million in wheat from Iraqi silos alone. Beyond harvested grains, the acreage now controlled by militants across the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys has historically produced half of Syria’s annual wheat crop, about one-third of Iraq’s, and almost 40 percent of Iraqi barley, according to UN agricultural officials and a Syrian economist. Its fields could yield $200 million per year if those crops are sold, even at the cut rates paid on black markets.



Rand estimates the biggest and most important drain on Islamic State’s budget is the salary line for up to 100,000 fighters. But the oil revenue alone could likely pay those salaries almost two times over, 

Wary Of The “Next Warby” | TechCrunch

Wary Of The “Next Warby” | TechCrunch

Portugal's Problematic Bank - Bloomberg Gadfly

Portugal's Problematic Bank - Bloomberg Gadfly

Islamic State Doesn't Need Facebook and Twitter - Bloomberg View

Islamic State Doesn't Need Facebook and Twitter - Bloomberg View

Is US Monetary Policy Made in China? by Barry Eichengreen - Project Syndicate

Is US Monetary Policy Made in China? by Barry Eichengreen - Project Syndicate



...Menzie Chinn of the University of Wisconsin has examined the impact of foreign purchases and sales of US government securities on ten-year Treasury yields. His estimates imply that foreign sales at a rate of $60 billion per month raise yields by ten basis points. Given that China has been at it for 2.5 months, this implies that the equivalent of a 25-basis-point increase in interest rates has already been injected into the market....









Read more at https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/why-fed-is-delaying-interest-rate-liftoff-by-barry-eichengreen-2015-11#ymVvJ728EIbzhf4b.99

62 Tips From Y Combinator’s Startup Instruction Manual | TechCrunch

62 Tips From Y Combinator’s Startup Instruction Manual | TechCrunch

What Does Islamic State Think It Is Doing? - Bloomberg View

What Does Islamic State Think It Is Doing? - Bloomberg View

Fidelity Venture Write-Downs, Term Sheet: November 13, 2015 - btbirkett@gmail.com - Gmail

Term Sheet: November 13, 2015 - btbirkett@gmail.com - Gmail

It's also probably important to understand how Fidelity generally invests in privately-held companies. Rather than having each mutual fund do its own deals, the firm's global equity capital markets group — led by Andy Boyd — negotiates an investment with the company, and then asks individual Fidelity portfolio managers if they want an allocation.

Moreover, while Fidelity marks each of its securities to market every single day (including for unlisted companies), the firm does not leave those calculations to portfolio managers (who might have conflicts of interest). Instead, Fidelity utilizes a Fair Value Committee that determines the appropriate price for each security. That means that every Fidelity mutual fund that holds Uber's Series D stock — there are lots of them — is valuing those shares at the exact same price.

http://fortune.com/2015/11/12/fidelity-marks-down-tech-unicorns/

Russia's Promising Peace Plan for Syria - Bloomberg View

Russia's Promising Peace Plan for Syria - Bloomberg View

No longer does Russia dismiss all of Assad's armed opponents as terrorists. Now it is asking the diplomats who will gather in Vienna on Saturday to draw up two lists, one that designates terrorist organizations in Syria and another that identifies legitimate opposition groups that can take part in peace talks. 

Such a strategy is probably the only way to unwind Syria's complex proxy war, though it isn't proving easy for the sides to agree on which groups are which. Russia wants the terrorist list to be long, so it can attack as many of Assad's opponents as possible. Saudi Arabia and Turkey want it to be short. ...

Equally, however, Assad cannot simply be removed. That would invite institutional collapse and potential catastrophe for the roughly 12 million people still under his control, many of them religious minorities who have reason to fear Syria's Sunni rebels. 

If the diplomatic process in Vienna is to have a productive future, the U.S., Russia and all other players must accept that, during Syria's inevitably long transition, local security is best left in local hands, allowing Assad to remain in place without threatening people in rebel-controlled areas. Syria has already broken into sections, and putting the country back together will take time. 

The Morning Ledger: Highly valued startup Zenefits runs into turbulence

The Morning Ledger: The Secretive Path Funds Follow Into Startups - btbirkett@gmail.com - Gmail



Highly valued startup Zenefits runs into turbulence. Human-resources startup Zenefits Inc. is falling short of its aggressive revenue targets and has started to curb expenses, making it the latest highly valued venture-backed company struggling to meet investor expectations. Between Aug. 1 - Sept.. 30g. 1 and Sept. 30, mutual-fund giant Fidelity Investments marked down the value of its investment in Zenefits by 48%, implying a valuation of $2.34 billion—casting doubt ! on the $4.5 billion valuation investors, including Fidelity, had placed on Zenefits in May.

U.K. Needs 'Urgent Action' to Keep Banks in London, BBA Says - Bloomberg Business

U.K. Needs 'Urgent Action' to Keep Banks in London, BBA Says - Bloomberg Business

The BBA’s wishlist includes a demand the Chancellor cut the bank levy faster. Under current plans the tax will be reduced over six years and then limited to domestic balance sheets until 2021. The lobby group also wants an 8 percent surcharge on bank profits to be phased out over time.

Financial services is the U.K.’s biggest export industry selling 62 billion pounds abroad every year, and employing more than 405,000 people, the BBA said.

This British Property Firm Helps Pad the Queen's Bank Account - Bloomberg Business

This British Property Firm Helps Pad the Queen's Bank Account - Bloomberg Business

Separating The Sizzle From The Steak | TechCrunch

Separating The Sizzle From The Steak | TechCrunch



Seed rounds are all about the sizzle, the exciting promise of the future if things go as dreamed. Risk is high — but the reward, if it works, is far greater. ...

But when it comes time to raise a Series A, it’s all about the steak — what you’ve accomplished.

Raising a Series A is 80 percent about what you are and have been doing, and how that projects into the future, and 20 percent about your new ideas for the future.

Tor Project: Anonymity Online

Tor Project: Anonymity Online

Deck the halls with discounts - The Morning Ledger: Lease Accounting Rules May Have $2 Trillion Impact - btbirkett@gmail.com - Gmail

The Morning Ledger: Lease Accounting Rules May Have $2 Trillion Impact - btbirkett@gmail.com - Gmail



Deck the halls with discounts. Unsold goods are piling up on retailers’ shelves ahead of the Black Friday kickoff to the holiday selling season, say analysts, a possible boon for discount-hungry shoppers. A glut could make it harder for department-store chains to hit their earnings targets in reported results arriving this week.

Workday - Alternative to ERP For HR and Financial Management

Workday - Alternative to ERP For HR and Financial Management

Patent Reform and CFO Considerations: Views from Google, Intellectual Ventures, ManyWorlds and RPX - Deloitte CFO - WSJ

Patent Reform and CFO Considerations: Views from Google, Intellectual Ventures, ManyWorlds and RPX - Deloitte CFO - WSJ

Legislative Background

Congress has introduced legislative reforms and is considering more with the stated goals of protecting innovation and to prevent patent laws and regulation from being misused in the pursuit of patent litigation. The 2011 America Invents Act (AIA) established new functions in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) to introduce a faster, less costly process to determine a patent’s validity. In addition, as a result of certain case rulings, the definition of what IP is eligible for patentability has changed in recent years. In June 2015, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved the Protecting American Talent and Entrepreneurship Act (PATENT Act), which seeks to further reform patent litigation and address abusive practices. And the Innovation Act, passed by the House Judiciary Committee in June 2015, remains to be voted on by the full House.

The Next Generation of Enterprise | The University of Chicago Booth School of Business

The Next Generation of Enterprise | The University of Chicago Booth School of Business



On the day of the NVC finals in May, David Rabie, ’15, and his team stood in front of a panel of judges in a Booth classroom and passed out samples of Thai chicken curry, quinoa, and ginger soy broccoli. The meals had been cooked in a futuristic countertop device—similar to a crockpot—called Maestro. Rabie’s vision of simple, healthy meals Matt Maloney's $2.5 billion food delivery company took shape at Booth.calls for customers to pop pods of raw vacuum-sealed vegetables, grains, and proteins into the machine and scan the QR-coded cooking instructions on the package. In a half hour, a well-rounded meal is ready to go. 

The Devil's in the Debt - Bloomberg View

The Devil's in the Debt - Bloomberg View



the vast majority of bank lending in advanced economies doesn't support new business investment but funds either increased consumption or the purchase of existing assets, in particular real estate. 

At $27 Billion, Mining in Space Could Cost Less Than a Gas Plant - Bloomberg Business

At $27 Billion, Mining in Space Could Cost Less Than a Gas Plant - Bloomberg Business



it's fascinating to think of these budgets compared to the budget deficits of many European countries - a totally different level of available and deployable resources and related benefits

The $377 Million Taubman Sale - artnet News

The $377 Million Taubman Sale - artnet News

With Smart Reply, Google’s Inbox Can Now Respond To Emails For You Automatically | TechCrunch

With Smart Reply, Google’s Inbox Can Now Respond To Emails For You Automatically | TechCrunch



In both the case of that app and Smart Reply, the pain point is a well-known one: it’s actually kind of a pain to type on smartphones for most people and so creating ways to circumvent this as much as possible makes a lot of sense.

A+E, Vice Create New Cable Network Viceland - Bloomberg Business

A+E, Vice Create New Cable Network Viceland - Bloomberg Business

A+E Networks, co-owned by Walt Disney Co. and Hearst Corp., formed a new cable network with Vice Media Inc., called Viceland, giving the upstart video company a mainstream TV outlet to air shows about gay culture, marijuana and music. Bloomberg's Gerry Smith has more on "Bloomberg Markets." (Source: Bloomberg)

Magnets Explain How the Elevator Industry Plans to Cut the Cord - Bloomberg Business

Magnets Explain How the Elevator Industry Plans to Cut the Cord - Bloomberg Business

Magnets Explain How the Elevator Industry Plans to Cut the Cord

For more than 150 years, elevators have gone in two directions: up and down. In the future, you might ride them sideways.

ThyssenKrupp AG this week will show the public for the first time a 10 meter (32 feet) functioning model that uses giant magnets to move cars in multiple directions. The technology, called magnetic levitation, is borrowed from high-speed trains and doesn’t rely on cables. The German industrial company says the system allows for multiple cars in one shaft and can increase transport capacity as much as 50 percent.

“The concept is convincing,” Ingo Martin Schachel, an analyst at Commerzbank AG, said by phone from Frankfurt. “If the technology can be brought onto the market at competitive prices, it may offer great opportunities.”

With more of the world’s population moving to cities and buildings rising higher, ThyssenKrupp is betting on elevators, a business that brings in almost half of the company’s profit. By 2050, about 66 percent of the world’s population will live in urban areas, compared with 54 percent currently, according to estimates from the United Nations.

The company’s miniature model will be unveiled in Gijon, Spain on Thursday. A bigger example of ThyssenKrupp’s technology is being built at a research center in Rottweil, Germany, known as the Test Tower. The site will be 246 meters tall, only slightly shorter than the Eiffel Tower in Paris, and eventually be open to the public.

‘Massive’ Market

“This technology could be a significant revenue and income generator for ThyssenKrupp, particularly in the long run,’’ according to Johnson Imode and Mustafa Okur, analysts at Bloomberg Intelligence. They described the market as “massive.” 

ThyssenKrupp says the magnetic-levitation elevators are best for buildings higher than 300 meters.

ThyssenKrupp said it has received about 30 expressions of interest. The company, which provided elevators and moving stairs for New York’s One World Trade Center, said the “era of the rope-dependent elevator is now over,’’ when it revealed its plans in its headquarters in Essen, Germany last year.

The crucial question is how shafts can carry multiple cars, according to Henrik Ehrnrooth, chief executive officer of Kone Oyj, one of the biggest elevator manufacturers.

“The technology is not quite mature yet, but when we look forward, there are most likely going to be interesting solutions based on that or similar types of technologies,’’ he said in an Oct. 22 phone interview.

Kone is working on ways to extend the distance elevators can travel and make them lighter. The company introduced a carbon fiber-based rope in 2013 that weighs less than traditional steel. It will be used in the world’s tallest building, the Kingdom Tower in Saudi Arabia, and Kone claims it can double the possible distance of journeys. 

Disruptive Students Hurt High Achievers Most - Bloomberg View

Disruptive Students Hurt High Achievers Most - Bloomberg View

The Digital Transformation of Healthcare

The Digital Transformation of Healthcare

BY DIRK LAMMERTS · NOVEMBER 2, 2015

The entire world has gone digital:

• Access to information – digital: Google, Yahoo, Wikipedia
• Social interactions – digital: Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram
• Networking – digital: LinkedIn
• Collaboration – digital: Yammer, Slack
• Marketplaces & transactions – digital: eBay, OpenTable, Kayak, TaskRabbit
• Delivery of content – digital: iTunes, YouTube, Pandora

And in cases where physical goods or services are involved, there is a smooth online-offline transition: Uber, Airbnb, Instacart.

Healthcare Needs to Catch Up

The entire world? Almost. Healthcare is one of the last remaining industries using paper- pencil and analog technologies. A 2012 survey revealed that the phone was the preferred means of physician-to-physician (95%) and physician-to-patient (91%) communication, followed by fax (63%) and in-person (58%) for communication between physicians and in person (84%) for communication with patients [1].

The low utilization of digital technologies has not only made dealing with the healthcare system inconvenient. It has also perpetuated healthcare as one of the most inefficient industries. In a worldwide comparison of 10 major industries, healthcare was the single most inefficient industry with more than 40% or USD 2.5 trillion wasted annually on a global scale [2].

The Change in Healthcare

This picture has started to change over the past five years. Biosensors, mobile devices, data analytics, telemedicine platforms, patient engagement apps, dedicated social networks (connecting patients, physician peer networks, and social connectivity across care teams), transparency tools, and marketplaces to transact healthcare services have started to “digitize” healthcare.

Venture funding for digital health companies surpassed $2 billion in the U.S. in the first six months of 2015; on track to match the 2014 record of $4.3 billion [3]. The top six categories in the first half of 2015 were: wearables and biosensors, analytics and big data, healthcare consumer engagement, telemedicine, enterprise wellness, and EHR and clinical workflow. These categories represent consumer-facing digital health solutions as well as technologies improving the performance of healthcare delivery and systems.

Healthcare Startups

In addition to digital health innovation driven by startups, big technology players started to move into this space. Apple launched HealthKit and ResearchKit, and the Apple Watch includes an optical heart rate sensor. Samsung introduced the Simband wearable reference design and the SAMIIO data exchange platform as part of its “Voice of the Body” digital health initiative. And Google is pursuing a wide array of health-related initiatives ranging from the Baseline study aimed at understanding what it means to be healthy down to the molecular and cellular level, to glucose-sensing contact lenses, and storage and processing of DNA data on Google Cloud.

The traditional healthcare players, including provider systems, payors, pharmaceutical, and medical device companies are all evaluating digital technologies, piloting digitally enabled applications and exploring new service and revenue models in the digital healthcare economy.

The Future of Healthcare

Where will all this lead to? No single technology, no new business model has established itself as the new standard for a digital future of healthcare. The balance between traditional healthcare participants, patients/consumers, and technology/information/consumer electronics companies is shifting toward a new equilibrium that is still hard to predict. But what is becoming clear is that the world of fax machine and paper-pencil technologies in healthcare is over. It is increasingly replaced by the digitization of the human body, by data analytics tools generating insights from the new flood of biometric and contextual data, and by emerging marketplaces for transacting healthcare services. This all is driving a consumerization of healthcare like we have seen with many other disruptive innovations before – from the desktop copier to the personal computer to retail brokers.

[1] 2012 National Physicians Survey, Little Blue Book/Sharecare, 2012
[2] The World’s 4 Trillion Dollar Challenge, IBM Institute for Business Value, 2010
[3] Digital Health Funding 2015 Midyear Review, Rock Health, 2015

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  By: Dirk Lammerts
  Dirk is the founder and CEO of myNEXT, a management consulting firm assisting companies ranging from Fortune 500 to startups in shaping the future by leveraging disruptive technologies and building new businesses. He is also an advisor to high tech, consumer electronics, healthcare, and life sciences clients.

A New ‘Star Trek’ TV Series Will Debut in 2017 - The New York Times

A New ‘Star Trek’ TV Series Will Debut in 2017 - The New York Times

A New ‘Star Trek’ TV Series Will Debut in 2017

By DAVE ITZKOFFNOV. 2, 2015

Photo

Leonard Nimoy in the original “Star Trek,” which ran on NBC from 1966 to 1969. CreditCBS

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“Star Trek,” that venerable outer-space adventure, is boldly going where it’s been before, but hasn’t been seen in more than a decade: back to television. The science-fiction program that chronicled the voyages of the Starship Enterprise and its intrepid crew will return to TV in 2017, CBS said on Monday, in a new series that will be introduced on the network but will be shown primarily on its digital subscription video service.

This latest “Star Trek” series will focus on “new characters seeking imaginative new worlds and new civilizations, while exploring the dramatic contemporary themes that have been a signature of the franchise since its inception,” CBS said in a news release.

It will be executive-produced by Alex Kurtzman, a writer and producer of the rebooted 2009 “Star Trek” movie and its 2013 sequel, “Star Trek Into Darkness.” Mr. Kurtzman has also been involved with other popular works of geek culture like the TV shows “Alias,” “Fringe,” “Sleepy Hollow” and “Xena: Warrior Princess.”

The original “Star Trek” series, created by Gene Roddenberry, ran on NBC from 1966 to 1969. It introduced audiences to heroes like the hot-blooded Capt. James T. Kirk (played by William Shatner) and his serene half-alien officer, Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy), and was distinguished by storytelling more focused on social themes of the 1960s than on the (minimal) special effects of that era.

A motion picture franchise followed, as did the TV spinoffs “Star Trek: The Next Generation” (which ran from 1987 to 1994); “Deep Space Nine” (1993 to 1999); “Voyager” (1995 to 2001); and “Enterprise” (2001 to 2005). Each of these series focused on different crews and eras in future history.

CBS said that the new “Star Trek” series would begin in January 2017 with a “special preview” episode shown on the network. That premiere and subsequent first-run episodes would then be shown on CBS All Access, its subscription video site.

A new movie in the film franchise (with a new crop of actors playing the characters on Kirk and Spock’s Enterprise), called “Star Trek Beyond,” is planned for release next summer, but is “not related” to this latest TV series, CBS said.

Noting that “Star Trek” will celebrate its 50th anniversary next year, David Stapf, the president of CBS Television Studios, said in a statement, “Everyone here has great respect for this storied franchise, and we’re excited to launch its next television chapter in the creative mind and skilled hands of Alex Kurtzman, someone who knows this world and its audience intimately.”

A New ‘Star Trek’ TV Series Will Debut in 2017 - The New York Times

A New ‘Star Trek’ TV Series Will Debut in 2017 - The New York Times