Solar Jobs Report Shows Huge Growth →

The solar industry reports job growth 20 times higher than the rest of the U.S. economy, according to a new analysis.

As of 2014, there were nearly 174,000 jobs in the solar industry, according to the report from the nonprofit Solar Foundation. That represents 86 percent employment growth since the organization began tracking job figures in 2010. By the end of 2015, companies said they expect to hire an additional 36,000 new solar workers.

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"The reason that installations are growing like gangbusters is because of cost reductions," Luecke said, noting that the average price of solar panels has declined 64 percent since 2010.

Money Dries Up for Oil and Gas, Layoffs Spread, Write-Offs Start →

When money was growing on trees even for junk-rated companies, and when Wall Street still performed miracles for a fee, thanks to the greatest credit bubble in US history, oil and gas drillers grabbed this money channeled to them from investors and refilled the ever deeper holes fracking was drilling into their balance sheets.

But the prices for crude oil, US natural gas, and natural gas liquids have all plunged. Revenues from unhedged production are down 40% or 50%, or more from just seven months ago. And when the hedges expire, the problem will get worse. The industry has been through this before. It knows what to do.

Layoffs are cascading through the oil and gas sector. On Tuesday, the Dallas Fed projected that in Texas alone, 140,000 jobs could be eliminated. Halliburton said that it was axing an undisclosed number of people in Houston. Suncor Energy, Canada’s largest oil producer, will dump 1,000 workers in its tar-sands projects. Helmerich & Payne is idling rigs and cutting jobs. Smaller companies are slashing projects and jobs at an even faster pace. And now Slumberger, the world’s biggest oilfield-services company, will cut 9,000 jobs.

Robert Reich Is Right: Higher Wages Aren't Coming Back, And Here's Why →

For a large portion of employers, there’s no need to offer more to employees. There are still millions who are out of the labor market and whom the government has officially stopped counting as unemployed. These people aren’t sitting on personal wealth that can fund a permanent vacation. They eventually need an income, and for companies effectively looking to keep a body in place, that’s enough to continue wage depression. Labor union representation of workers has been low for years, which means that negotiations between employees and employers is always tipped in the latter’s favor.
Increasingly, there are other options, as well. Companies can outsource, as Reich argues, although that’s often more a matter of avoiding environmental and safety regulations, because, for many businesses, labor is a small portion of the cost of their goods. A bigger issue is how industries have increasingly automated operations and services. When even the work of anesthesiologists can be automated, as Johnson & Johnson JNJ +1.51% has done with its Sedasys system, how can anyone expect any job to be secure? The combination of high education, high demand, and need to administer a service locally was supposed to be the sine qua non of professional security. But it doesn’t exist.
Perhaps reality will sink in when CEOs realize that their jobs can also be sent overseas to thoroughly competent managers in a global marketplace who will cost the company less money. However, for now, the premium is still on reducing human costs and increasing profits, all the while falsely claiming that they can’t help it because there’s a legal mandate to maximize shareholder value...

As William Lazonick, professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, wrote in the Harvard Business Review, we currently have profits without prosperity. Corporate profits are high and the stock market has never done better, but most Americans don’t partake of the benefits. As Lazonick wrote, “While the top 0.1% of income recipients—which include most of the highest-ranking corporate executives—reap almost all the income gains, good jobs keep disappearing, and new employment opportunities tend to be insecure and underpaid.”

Companies aren’t investing their capital and are even borrowing money — and keeping wages low and not hiring people for expansion — to push cash into stock buybacks...

Why? CEOs are paid largely in stock and, Lazonick argues, buybacks increase share prices and, as a result, their own compensation. Corporate boards are part of the system because they typically are filled by executives who have their own compensation to consider. It’s an incestuous economic system combined with a sense of entitlement...

There's a Problem in the Silk Road Trial: the Jury Doesn't Get the Internet →

How do you get a fair trial, heard by a "jury of your peers", if they don't understand the ABCs of your alleged crime?

Judge Katherine Forrest said rig off the bat when the case began that “highly technical” issues must be made clear to the jury.
"If I believe things are not understandable to the average juror, we will talk about what might be a reasonable way to proceed at that time," she said.
After the first day of proceedings, Forrest told the prosecution to be more clear with explanations of concepts central to the case, noting sh was unhappy with its “mumbo-jumbo” explanation of the anonymizing service Tor. She also requested all readings of chat transcripts include emoticons.
The majority of the second day of testimony from Homeland Security Special Investigation Agent Jared DerYeghiayan continued setting the groundwork for the case, explaining in-depth many concepts central to Silk Road. US Attorney Serrin Turner’s questioning was so thorough it bordered on tedious for the more tech-savvy observer, asking DerYeghiayan to explain ‘wiki,’ ‘internet chat,’ and ‘add buddy.’

There’s a distinct knowledge gap between what an average juror or judge can be expected to already know and the intricacies of modern cybercrime. This is true of any legal case, of course. In any courtroom there are terms, specifics, and details that the lawyers have to walk the jury through in order to make their case. But when it comes to the web, that knowledge gap becomes even wider.

Many more people are dying from gun suicides than gun-related homicides →

Gun suicides are becoming far more common than gun-related homicides, accounting for 64 percent of all gun deaths in 2012, according to new statistics. And the suicides have become especially common among older white men.
There were 32,288 deaths from firearm violence in the United States in 2012, a rate that's remained relatively stable over the past few years. But since 2006, gun suicides have increased from 57 percent of all firearm-related deaths, according to research published this month in the Annual Review of Public Health.
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Suicide risk rises in adolescence, but it also increases sharply among white men in retirement age. By 85 and older, the gun suicide rate for white men was five times higher than the rate for black men and 3.2 times the rate for Hispanic men.
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The new U.S. Surgeon General's nomination was held up by more than a year largely because the NRA opposed him for having the nerve to call guns a health care issue. But these new statistics underscore why you can't ignore firearm deaths as a threat to public health.

A Veteran’s View of ‘American Sniper’ →

An interesting and detailed look at the movie from a veteran and movie producer. One such quote:

“American Sniper” does not, however, much address the overall complexity of the larger political issues surrounding the war — or the complexity of the Iraqi side of the experience. And that’s OK. Kyle, much like many I served with, and our president himself during most of the Iraq War, held a very black-and-white view of the conflict. We were right, they were wrong. That’s how they saw things. Eastwood and Cooper have both commented extensively that they looked to classic Hollywood Westerns to inspire this film. And they succeeded. In “American Sniper,” like in Chris Kyle and George Bush’s Iraq War, American troops wore the white hats, and Iraqi fighters wore the black ones. That was their war. That was their truth.

Navy bribery probe far from over despite key figure’s plea →

The Navy has put more checks in place and says it is better scrutinizing its contracts. But questions remain as to how such a large-scale scheme that overbilled the Navy by as much as $20 million and involved officers who went as far as changing the routes of major military ships could happen.

Bowling Ball →

You are in a boat directly over the Mariana Trench. If you drop a 7kg bowling ball over the side, how long would it take to hit the bottom?