I skipped Saturday Links last week due to the holiday weekend. I'm catching up this week.
"... Selke, now 36, is part of a vanguard of young Christians who believe that God uses not only the church and formal ministry but every sphere of society, including business and free markets, to advance his work of shalom. Selke parlayed his experience analyzing companies, creating spreadsheets, and evaluating profitable opportunities for an investment bank into helping social entrepreneurs—people who create organizations in order to benefit society.
In 2010, Selke co-founded Hub Ventures, an accelerator in San Francisco investing in entrepreneurs launching companies that produce a social good. The 12-week program provides up to $20,000 in seed funding, mentorship, workshops, and access to investors in exchange for an average of a 6 percent ownership stake. What separates Selke's program from other business accelerators en vogue in Silicon Valley is the focus on "entrepreneurs building technology solutions for a better world," Selke says. ..."
2. The Global Low Fertility Panic: Just a Phase?
"...Our new book, The Global Spread of Fertility Decline: Population, Fear, and Uncertainty (Yale University Press, 2013) analyzes these trends and the demographic, political and economic consequences and uncertainties as low fertility has become a global phenomenon. Like other facets of globalization, low fertility rates are by no means universal: High fertility persists in sub-Saharan Africa and in parts of the Middle East, but elsewhere low fertility is more the rule than the exception. These underlying trends in childbearing mean that in the near future the rate of population growth both in Europe and Asia are likely to decline. The world is not on a path of unrestrained demographic growth, as some believe. People all over the world have hit the brakes.
Thirty years ago only a small fraction of the world's population lived in the few countries with fertility rates substantially below the "replacement level" - the rate at which the fertility of a hypothetical cohort of women would exactly replace itself in the next generation - normally set at 2.1 children per woman for populations with low mortality conditions. Fast forward to 2013, with roughly 60 percent of the world's population living in countries with such below-replacement fertility rates.
The consequences of these changes are striking. ..."
3. Immigration and Entrepreneurship
According to a Small Business Administration-commissioned report in 2012 by Robert W. Fairlie, an economics professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, the business ownership rate is higher for immigrants than the native-born, with 10.5 percent of the immigrant work force owning a business compared with 9.3 percent of the native-born work force.
4. Graft Is On The Rise Around The World
5. Job-Stealing Robots Go Global
Asian workers have scored some victories in rising wages, but many are learning something the West has known for some time: Employers will seek out the cheapest labor on offer, and machines are even cheaper than an underpaid human. In the late 20th century, manufacturing jobs shifted from America to China, then from China to Southeast Asia, and now even those are being automated.
For America, at least, this trend shouldn't be so disconcerting. After all, it's developed economies like ours that are designing the robots Nike is now using. Low-wage manufacturing jobs are drying up, but they're being replaced by jobs in building, operating, and repairing the tech in question. Increasingly, companies will be likely to "onshore" these jobs to America, when shipping and distribution becomes much easier and cheaper. Manufacturing, it seems, will come full circle.
6. Economist Mark Perry with a provocative claim: Yes, the middle-class has been disappearing, but they haven't fallen into the lower-class, they've risen into the upper-class
7. Co.exist with what they see as 4 Bogus Claims About Why Walmart Can't Pay A Living Wage (I'm not in full agreement but they make they present their side articulately.)
8. Gallup Has Never Seen So Many Americans Sitting Out Of The Stock Market
9. K-State study: Arguments about money best predictor of divorce
"Results revealed it didn't matter how much you made or how much you were worth," Britt said in the university statement. "Arguments about money are the top predictor for divorce because it happens at all levels."
She said couples should seek a financial planner as part of premarital counseling, and talk about finances.
10. How the Dismal Science Got Its Name (It had nothing to do with Thomas Malthus or scarcity ... or even with students who have suffered through Econ 101 classes.)
11. Matt Ridley writes I may follow the crowd, but not because it's a crowd
"... My friend objected that I seemed to follow the herd on matters like the reality of evolution and the safety of genetically modified crops, so why not on climate change? Ah, said I, but I don't. I agree with the majority view on evolution, not because it is a majority view but because I have looked at evidence. It's the data that convince me, not the existence of a consensus. ..."
12. Dan Lewis debunks the myth that the end of the telegraph is here: The Spread of a False Fact
13. PC sales see 'longest decline' in history
Global personal computer (PC) sales have fallen for the fifth quarter in a row, making it the "longest duration of decline" in history.
14. Time of 'Incredible Violence': Historian Gives Readers Glimpse of Medieval Life
15. Farming Got Hip In Iran Some 12,000 Years Ago, Ancient Seeds Reveal
Archaeologists digging in the foothills of Iran's Zagros Mountains have discovered the remains of a Stone Age farming community. It turns out that people living there were growing plants like barley, peas and lentils as early as 12,000 years ago.
The findings offer a rare snapshot of a time when humans first started experimenting with farming. They also show that Iran was an important player in the origin of agriculture.
16. LGBT group finds acceptance at evangelical college
"... Fuller's community standards states that "sexual abstinence is required for the unmarried" and marriage is between one man and one woman.
Nevertheless, Fuller's decision not to push back against OneTable is a critical step toward acceptance for gay evangelical students, said Justin Lee, the executive director of the Gay Christian Network, which tracks the burgeoning movement. An increasing number of young people have been coming out on Christian campuses nationwide, whether they are accepted or not, and Fuller's move acknowledges that and provides a touchstone for students who would otherwise keep their sexuality a secret, he said. ..."
17. New generation activists build bridges
A traditional organizing approach makes opponents into 'enemies,' but a new crop of union and other activists is using love and empathy to create alliances and new possibilities.
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