Interesting Links for 01-06-2016

[andrewducker]

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child cast photos released (tags: harrypotter ) The Untold Story Behind Saudi Arabia’s 41-Year U.S. Debt Secret (tags: saudiarabia middle_east politics oil debt money usa ) The EU’s proposed “link tax”: a modest proposal (tags: internet satire web publishing ) Study that found cell phones cause cancer in rats is

Comments

[cartesiandaemon]

I think I would have said that "finds that cell phones cause cancer" was a red flag. "The data is flawed and doesn't support the conclusion" I would say rises to the status of a bona fide error :)

[naath]

I think "title contains 'cause cancer' and 'in rats'" is a red flag...

[danieldwilliam]

i"Whle oil’s collapse has deepened concern that Saudi Arabia will need to liquidate its Treasuries to raise cash, a more troubling worry has also emerged: the specter of the kingdom using its outsize position in the world’s most important debt market as a political weapon, much as it did with oil in the 1970s."

I'm struggling to work out how one uses debt instruments as a weapon in the circumstances of Saudi Arabia and the USA.

[drdoug]

Saudi Arabia could sell its debt holdings, or some of them, or threaten to do so

[danieldwilliam]

Aye - I'm guess I'm wondering at the ability of Saudi Arabia to shift the price of US debt and to do so in a way that doesn't also damage them.

Saudi Arabia is a country with an economy (and a political system of transfers ) that is almot entirely tied to the price of oil which in turn is strongly linked to the health of the world economy and the US economy. So blowing up the world economy doesn't seem consequence free for the Saudis.

If all they manage to do is to lower the price of US debt for a bit then, unless they've managed to sell everything and transfer it to a currency that isn't affected by the US economy suffering, they've lowered the price of their own assets.

[drdoug]

Personal finance analogies are often misleading for national economies, but here I think it holds

[bart_calendar]

I am astounded that there isn't a law saying you have to have an armed guard at a better shop whenever it's open.

[naath]

In England there is probably a law saying you can't have an armed guard. Going armed is not generally legal.

I'm shocked that they have only one employee in the shop though.

[danieldwilliam]

My sister used to work at a bookies and was involved in an armed robbery. Very unpleasant.

I don't think she was alone. There might have been two other staff on with her.

[danieldwilliam]

I think an armed guard would be illegal in the UK unless it was provided by the police and I don't think they have the resources.

A quick google search tells me (I think) that there are 6,866 fire arms qualified police officers in the UK out of a total of about 127,000 in England and Wales and some more in Scotland and Northern Irelend. So, about 5% of police officers are qualified to carry a gun.

I'm not aware of any rule that would permit the carrying of a gun by a guard at a shop (or a bank). Thinking back to the law on self-defence I'd suggest that going in to a violent situation when you are had armed yourself in advance might well scupper a defence of self-defence if you ended up wounding or killing someone.

[movingfinger]

I was in a store the other day which had such loudly intrusive music that I could not concentrate on choosing what I went in for (band-aids), so maybe that's the purpose of muzak. Hope this trend spreads.