This image provided by Google shows an artistic rendering of the company's self-driving car. The two-seater won't be sold publicly, but Google on Tuesday, May 27, 2014 said it hopes by this time next year, 100 prototypes will be on public roads.Google/Handout/The Associated Press
A roundup of what The Globe and Mail's market strategist Scott Barlow is reading this morning on the World Wide Web.
Google Inc. released footage of its self-driving car Tuesday – no steering wheel, no gas pedal, no nothing. The availability of self-driving cars has been expected for a while but, with Google announcing the car will be ready for the road in a year, the deadline for dealing with a number of touchy legal issues (auto-insurance providers probably aren't sleeping well lately) is a lot closer than most believed. It's a massive sea change in transportation that might eventually obviate the need for personal vehicles.
Minyanville's Vince Foster makes an excellent, startling point about the causes of the financial crisis and the potential for market risk in the next few quarters: "Lehman Brothers didn't fail because people stopped paying their mortgages; it failed because of a blowout in credit risk premiums. Credit risk premiums blew out when the yield curve steepened. The yield curve started steepening when the price of oil spiked. The price of oil spiked due to the weakening dollar. " Mr. Foster expects rising inflation risks ahead which, as in 2007, will expose any credit risks that have been building in the financial system. This is a post to read carefully and repeatedly even for investors that don't accept the conclusions.
In other inflation news, Vox warns of sharp increases in North American food prices as a result of a major drought in California. Let's hope the recent strength in Canadian economic data continues, because slowing growth and rising inflation is a bad combination.
Quartz's Gwynn Guilford highlights an unappreciated environmental trend in the Chinese economy. Ms. Guilford writes that the government's successful efforts to curb rampant air pollution in some of the country's more industrial areas is part of the reason for the recent slowdown in economic activity.
Goldman Sachs applied regression analysis to the sporting world in a mathematical attempt to predict the winner of the upcoming World Cup in Brazil (via the Financial Times, free with registration).
Diversion: Map of incidences of North American obesity – imgur
Follow Scott Barlow on Twitter at @SBarlow_ROB.
Scott Barlow