Joe Merante's Blog

Pasted below from my review on GoodReads.com (which I've been really getting into lately, check it out!). Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money by Woody Tasch My rating: 3 of 5 stars In this book, Tasch proposes a new paradigm in investment and cultural literacy, beginning with the principle that agriculture led us into the industrial age and must be reassessed in order to get us out. He ties together many schools of thought as applied to the tension between industrial finance and agriculture, such as mathematics ("every formula is either complete and inconsistent, or consistent and incomplete"), economics ("either you are a true fiduciary or a false Malthusian'), environmentalism (recounting the destruction of our ecosystem during the 20th century in exchange for faster, cheaper and less wholesome food-- trading shelf life for quality), sociology (the contradictions that 21st century citizens must balance when facing these issues) and politics. As ...

Today, the Supreme Court denied a petition for certiorari in Sony v. Starr .  This class action against the major record labels challenged two joint ventures created to license the majors' music online: pressplay and MusicNet.  Although the two ventures long ago faded into Internet history, the denial of certiorari means that the case can proceed in the lower courts.  The petition came after the Second Circuit's decision in January 2010 that reversed the trial court's summary judgment in favor of the labels on the grounds that the complaint did not satisfy the plausibility standard set forth in Bell Atlantic v. Twombly .  As reiterated in Ashcroft v. Iqbal , “[a] claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.”  In reversing, the Second Circuit found that the allegations, taken as true, amply state a plausible claim of conspi...