Juggling Dynamite

The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change emphasizes the need for people to change their lifestyle and consumption patterns in three key areas: eating fewer animal products, transportation, and heating/cooling of our buildings.

If individuals aren’t actively making the changes needed today, we are actively making the problems worse; these are the facts thinking people must internalize. See What the new report on climate change expects from you.  Here is the report’s bottom line on food:

“Eating less meat is one of a number of mitigation strategies suggested by the IPCC to overhaul agricultural and land-use practices, including the protection of forests. The livestock sector is estimated to account for 14.5% of greenhouse gas emissions globally, more than direct emissions from the transport sector.”

The good news is that we know what to do to and can do it so long as we act now as explained by new Nobel Prize winner Paul Romer in his CBC radio interview this week:

Just hours before William Nordhaus and Paul Romer won a Nobel Prize on Monday for their work on the economics of climate change, the UN issued a dire warning about global warming.

…But Romer — whose work focuses on adapting economic theory to take better account of environmental issues and technological progress — says this crisis can easily be averted through economic policy.

The economist from New York University’s Stern School of Business spoke with As It Happens host Carol Off.

Here is a direct audio link  to part of their conversation.

Similar themes and catalysts here with the US in 2006 and Canada today.  As property prices mean revert so goes highly levered economies and financial markets.  Expecting other outcomes is unrealistic.

It’s no secret that Australia is experiencing a downturn in the property market. But for Aussies who own their own home or have a mortgage, there’s worse news. Many believe calling it a downturn is foolishly optimistic – the slump we are in is more like falling off a cliff. On 60 MINUTES, Tom Steinfort speaks with real estate and finance experts who predict property prices could slide by as much as 40 per cent in the next year. And if they’re right and numbers like that eventuate, there’s only one certainty: our entire economy faces catastrophe.

Here is a direct video link.

Here is a link to part 2.

Here is a direct link to part 3.

Preferential access and paid predatory advantage at the expense of would-be-legitimate investors have no place in free and transparent markets. The indefensible, dominant business models adopted by for-profit exchanges over the last decade must be outlawed to restore the semblance of integrity and fairness to public markets.  Katsyuama explains the reality well in this clip, particularly starting at 2:55.

With Interactive Brokers moving to the IEX, Brad Katsuyama, IEX CEO and co-founder, discusses how the exchange is working to convert other big-name companies to its trading platform.  Here is a direct video link.

IEX’s Brad Katsuyama: Our exchange is a fight against the establishment from CNBC.