The decade-long surge in foreign-currency reserves held by the world’s central banks is coming to an end.
Global reserves declined to $11.6 trillion in March from a record $12.03 trillion in August 2014, halting a five-fold increase that began in 2004, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. While the drop may be overstated because the strengthening dollar reduced the value of other reserve currencies such as the euro, it still underlines a shift after central banks -- with most of them located in developing nations like China and Russia -- added an average $824 billion to reserves each year over the past decade.
Beyond being emblematic of the dollar’s return to its role as the world’s undisputed dominant currency, the drop in reserves has several potential implications for global markets. It could make it harder for emerging-market countries to boost their money supply and shore up faltering economic growth; it could add to declines in the euro; and it could damp demand for U.S. Treasury bonds.
“It’s a big challenge for emerging markets,” Stephen Jen, a former International Monetary Fund economist who’s co-founder of SLJ Macro Partners LLP in London, said by phone. They “now need more stimulus. The seed has been sowed for future volatility,” he said.
Specs are comparable to a mid-range tablet, with a quad-core Intel Z3735F Bay Trail processor and integrated graphics.
Hardware varies depending on the OS. The Windows version has 2GB RAM and 32GB storage. The Linux version has 1GB RAM and 8GB storage. Connectivity includes full-sized and micro USB ports, Bluetooth 4.0, and 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi.
Chromebit
The Chromebit will provide a modern, low-end, PC for under $100 when it launches this summer.
The Chrome OS machine can be plugged into any monitor or TV with an HDMI port. The device should have enough power to meet the needs of the average home user, with specs reported to include a Rockchip 3288 system on a chip, 2GB RAM, and 16GB storage, as well as 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity.
MK802 V5 Linux Edition
Another HDMI stick housing a Linux PC, the £105 ($155) V5 LE packs similar power to the Chromebit.
The machine is aimed at home-desktop, thin-client and other users, and runs Ubuntu 14.04 LTS with the Xfce desktop. Manufacturer Rikomagic says it can boot within six seconds.
The computer requires a separate power supply and runs on a 1.8GHz quad-core RK3288 processor, a Mali-T764 GPU and 2GB RAM. It offers 16GB eMMC storage, expandable via MicroSD card, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi and Gigabit Ethernet.
Running PicUntu Linux, a custom-build of the Ubuntu 12.10 OS, the machine is slightly less well-specced than the others listed here, with a 1.6GHz dual-core ARM processor and 1GB RAM. Once again, it connects to displays via HDMI. Network connectivity is provided via Wi-Fi and peripherals can be hooked up to the two USB ports.
The manufacturer warns the device is intended for developers and early adopters who don't mind delving into the Linux command line, cautioning "many of the features are still under development so certain things might not behave as expected".
MeeGoPad T01
Like the Intel Compute Stick, this $108 Windows 8.1 machine packs a quad-core processor and 2GB RAM.
The device offers 32GB of eMMC storage and connectivity via Bluetooth 4.0 and 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi. Peripherals can be hooked up to the one micro and one regular USB 2.0 port. Once again it connects to displays via HDMI
First he was assaulted for wearing the wrong team's clothes. Then he was sucker-punched by the insurance system.
San Francisco Giants fan Bryan Stow, center, before announcing “Play Ball!” with third base coach Tim Flannery and Jeremy Affeldt before a game against the Kansas City Royals at AT&T Park on Oct. 25, 2014.
Dave Stow, 71, strains to push the wheelchair carrying his 250-pound son, Bryan, up a series of ramps and into the basement of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Capitola, Calif., for its Friday fish fry. Bryan Stow is greeted by ladies who kiss him, men who hug him, and a 103-year-old woman who grabs his hand and asks if he is walking yet.
Four years ago, Bryan Stow was a strapping paramedic who spent his days off biking with his son and daughter. That was before March 31, 2011, when he and three friends made the mistake of wearing San Francisco Giants garb to an Opening Day game against the rival Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodger Stadium. They were harassed and threatened in the stands. Afterwards, two Dodgers fans beat Stow so savagely in a parking lot that doctors had to induce a coma to save him. He was hospitalized for seven months.
The damage to Stow, 46, remains unmistakable. A scar runs from the left side of his forehead to the back of his head. On the right side, a shunt used to drain fluid from his brain protrudes from his skull. The thick black hair he once fussed over is now patchy and thin. Special stockings on his legs prevent life-threatening blood clots.
The beating of Stow drew national attention to sports hooliganism. It’s also brought to light a virtually unknown aspect of the legal system that cuts compensation to victims. In effect, Stow was sucker-punched twice: first by his assailant and then by his health insurer.
Although a Los Angeles Superior Court jury awarded Stow $18 million from the Dodgers and his assailants last year, he has yet to receive any money. And, in a bizarre twist, the Dodgers’ liability insurer, ACE Property and Casualty Insurance Company, stands to net $1.6 million from a side deal in the case.
It’s all because Stow’s health insurer is entitled to a huge slice of the settlement, even before Stow is paid. A growing body of federal law, including a recent U.S. Supreme Court case, gives insurers power to recoup medical costs caused by a third party—in the face of state laws that specifically prohibit it. “This is what people pay premiums for,” says Stow’s ex-wife, Jacqueline Kain. “To worry about some insurance company taking what is his is absurd.”
The concept is known as subrogation. The modern version dates back to the American Revolution and was applied in areas such as property insurance. An insurer, for instance, might seek to be repaid by the maker of a faulty furnace that caused a fire in a building the company covered. In recent years, subrogation has mushroomed into a multibillion-dollar source of offsetting costs for private health insurers as well as Medicare and Medicaid. Medicare reaped nearly $2.5 billion last year, aided by a 2007 law that requires the federal insurer for the elderly to be notified of any legal settlements paid to its beneficiaries so it can subrogate the funds.
Such medical liens have reduced and delayed compensation in several cases—from the thousands of patients who suffered heart attacks or strokes from diabetes drug Avandia to the 1,000 Montana residents sickened by asbestos from a mine. “It is extremely frustrating for people who are sick, or dying, or who have loved ones who have died and are desperately in need of money,” says Allan McGarvey, an attorney representing some of the asbestos victims.
The liens have spawned companies and law firms that identify cases and, representing the interests of medical insurers, pursue patients who have received court settlements. A unit of Xerox recovered more than $1 billion for health-care clients in a recent three year period. Optum, a company owned by insurance giant UnitedHealth Group, is a major player.
Attorney Thomas Girardi, left, with David Stow, and his wife Ann, outside the Los Angeles courthouse on Wednesday, July 9, 2014.
Insurers and employers say getting back money in these cases helps lower premiums for all members of a group plan. University of South Dakota law professor Roger Baron disagrees. He says research shows the recovered money does little to reduce insurance rates while increasing executive pay and shareholder payouts. “It would be wrong to think that the insureds benefit from subrogated recoveries, because they don’t,” says Baron, who has consulted for injured people facing health-care liens.
All but two states either ban subrogation outright or limit how much insurers can collect. Unfortunately, many employers provide health insurance as an employee benefit under the Employment Retirement Income Security Act, or ERISA, which is a federal law. Congress specifically designed ERISA to supersede any state statutes related to employee benefit plans. More than 90 percent of workers with medical coverage at the largest U.S. corporations are insured this way, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Hailed at its passage in 1974 for safeguarding employees’ pension plans, ERISA now helps deny or reduce compensation to workers injured through someone else’s negligence.
Stow received his health insurance through an ERISA plan. So did James McCutchen, a US Airways mechanic badly injured in a highway wreck in 2007. When US Airways demanded repayment of $66,866 it spent on his medical treatment—a figure slightly exceeding the $66,000 he netted in a settlement after paying his lawyer—McCutchen refused to pay. He argued that the US Airways lien was unfair because he had not been fully compensated for his injuries. A federal appeals court agreed, calling it a “windfall” for the airline.
In 2013 the U.S. Supreme Court sided with US Airways, ruling that as long as the health plan’s contract with employees specifies that it can be reimbursed for medical costs in these situations, it has a legal right to collect. Most employees have no idea these provisions exist.
Stow and his family certainly didn’t. As a paramedic for American Medical Response, a subsidiary of Envision Healthcare, Stow dutifully paid a $334 monthly premium for the insurance coverage that was a perk of the job. After the attack, his family initially didn’t worry about the cost of his care, knowing he was insured.
Then Envision demanded repayment of the more than $3.4 million it paid for Bryan’s treatment. Bryan’s mother, Ann, couldn’t believe it. She asked her attorneys how the insurer “could get away with this,’’ she says. “The thing is, it is not illegal.”
The Stows had another surprise when they sued the Dodgers and the two assailants. During the civil trial last year, Envision quietly assigned its rights to the $3.4 million to the Dodgers’ liability insurer, ACE Casualty Insurance and Property, at the discounted price of $1.8 million.
The jury ordered the Dodgers to pay $13.9 million. The Dodgers’ insurance company, ACE, then sent a check to Stow’s lawyer, Thomas Girardi, deducting $3.4 million for the medical lien that they purchased at a discount. The maneuver would effectively allow the team’s insurer to realize $1.6 million from its lien deal.
“It’s disgusting,’’ says Girardi, who returned the check and is refusing to pay the lien. Stow’s legal team expects Ace to file a lawsuit to collect the $3.4 million. Given the Supreme Court decision, Stow faces an uphill fight. “The problem now is the law is pretty clear with the McCutchen case,” says one of Stow’s lawyers, Christopher Aumais. The “options are severely limited,” he adds.
Stow’s attackers are responsible for the other $4 million of the $18 million judgment, but no one expects they will ever pay. Louie Sanchez, who jumped out from behind a car, punched Stow from the back and kicked him in the head several times, pleaded guilty to one count of mayhem and was sentenced to eight years in prison. Co-defendant Marvin Norwood pleaded guilty to a count of assault and received four years of jail time.
Stow also owes his lawyers $3.6 million. And San Francisco General Hospital, where Stow was transferred from Los Angeles, has filed its own lien of $1.2 million for care not reimbursed by his health insurer, according to Stow’s lawyers.
Unless he wins his long-shot effort to nullify or reduce the multimillion-dollar insurance lien, Stow will be left with $5.8 million, far short of what he’s likely to need for a lifetime of care. An expert hired by the Stows pegged his future medical costs and rehabilitation at more than $30 million.
Envision says that “fortunately” its plan provided Stow with medical benefits. It didn’t comment on the sale of the lien to ACE. The Dodgers’ insurer said in a statement that “acquiring medical liens is common practice that is regulated by the health-care industry. By acquiring a lien, lien purchasers also acquire the risk of default on the lien.”
To accommodate Stow, volunteers built a cement ramp from the driveway to the front door the modest, single-family home near Santa Cruz, Calif., that his father and mother, Ann, bought for $43,000 in 1975. Famous supporters—from Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder to many current and former San Francisco Giants—have done their best to lighten the burdens that come with taking 56 pills each day to ward off seizures, pain, and other complications from the beating. On April 16, Stow is scheduled to throw out the first pitch at the home opener of the San Jose Giants, a minor league affiliate of the big league team. He’s been practicing with his dad in the backyard, and he plans to get up from his wheelchair and make his way onto the field using a walker. He will not throw from the mound. Sixty feet is an unthinkable distance now. But he will throw to the catcher. And he plans on tossing a strike.
Con todo éxito Irma Sánchez organizó un evento para enaltecer
los valores de la mujer latina en la sala de conferencias deCAMACOLTower,
la cual contó con el apoyo de Latin America Invest y de la Cámara de Comercio
Latina de los Estados Unidos. (CAMACOL) además de personalidades como Paula
Arcila - P productora, presentadora, empresaria; Natalia Cruz - , periodista
, empresaria; ambas de Univision TV ; Soraya Rivera -Mora - Directora de la
Casa de Caridad Ronald McDonald y otras, IRMA SANCHEZ. Defensora por los derechos de la Mujer.
Actualmente se destaca como directora de Latin America Invest Miami, empresa
afiliada a CAMACOL en el desarrollo de negocios y medios.
También Irma
Sánchez es embajadora de Marcas que tienen una enorme responsabilidad social
como lo es la mundialmente reconocida marca de Inca Kola junto a estas
poderosas marcas Irma se une en proyectos filantropos para Empoderar a la
Mujer Latina y ayudar a los niños menos favorecidos @irmafsanchezhttp://latinamericainvest.com/
@lainvest
Successful Latin Women in CAMACOL
With outmost success Irma Sánchez organized an event to dignify
the values of the Latin women in CAMACOL Tower's conference room, with
support of Latin America Invest and of the Latin Chamber of Commerce of the
United States. CAMACOL, in addition to numerous personalities as Paula
Arcila, Producer, presenter, businesswoman; Natalia Cruz-, Journalist,
businesswoman; both of Univision TV; Soraya Rivera - Mulberry, Director of
the Ronald McDonald House of Charity amongst others.
Irma Sanchez is a true advocate for women rights. At present she
is a Director of Latin America Invest Miami, company affiliated to CAMACOL in
the development of business and she is also an ambassadress of trademarks
that have an enormous social responsibility as it is worldwide recognized
Inca Kola, along with these powerful partners Irma joins in philanthropists
projects for the Empowerment of the Latin Women and to help the least favored
children. @irmafsanchez http://latinamericainvest.com/@lainvest
Human hands can now be replaced using robotics but only at a prohibitive cost.
These bionic hands cost around £20,000 on average - putting them out of reach of many of the 11.4 million people who need them worldwide.
A British start-up wants to reduce that cost twenty-fold, making such hands affordable to a far wider range of people.
"The very first robotic hand I made was at home, just tinkering when I was about 17," said Open Bionicsfounder Joel Gibbard.
"After doing some research I found it was an area that was really lacking, because the devices that were being developed were far too expensive to filter down to the average amputee.
"So most people weren't wearing them or having access to them, especially kids."
Open Bionics are taking a different approach - building robotic arms using 3D printers.
"As the 3D printing industry grew in the late 2000s, I picked up on it and realised this is perfect for prosthetics because every prosthetic is customised to the individual and using the 3D printer means you can make them really quickly, precisely and each one is different but relatively low-cost," said Gibbard.
Beyond lowering the price of the arm, 3D printing allows Open Bionics to design custom prosthesis. By making prosthesis based on a 3D scan of the residual limb, the firm can create a tightly fitting socket and hand that matches the person's physique.
"When it comes to the hand we can customise the size and shape of that to mirror the amputees other hand, which, for one, makes them look and feel proportioned and balanced."
Unlike traditional manufacturing techniques 3D printing also allows Open Bionics to change the design of each arm, simply by tweaking the digital 3D models.
Gibbard hopes that latitude to play with the look and feel of the limbs will let users stamp their personality on the bionics.
"People love the fact that it's their own, that it's completely customised to them and nobody else has the same one," he said.
A rather dazzling example of how customisable Open Bionics limbs are was on show at a recent Wearables Conference in London, where actress Grace Mandeville was showing off a prosthetic studded with Swarovksi crystals.
"This is awesome because it looks really cool and I'm really into fashion. An arm that stands out and shows your personality is the best thing ever," Mandeville said.
Open Bionics prototype hands can open and close individual fingers and the thumb. Each finger has an actuator that affords the hand enough movement to allow users to pick up a cup or bottle. Gibbard is confident that people will eventually be able to pinch items between individual fingers and the thumb.
"At the moment we've found you can shake hands with it, people love doing that," Gibbard said.
"We're still working on the grip of the fingers. They're not very grippy at the moment and we haven't perfected the way the fingers close.
"We want it to be really intuitive and really easy to pick up stuff like that. With the next prototype it will be, but we've got a bit of work to do yet."
As well as being dextrous, robotic prosthetics must be light, and it is here that Open Bionics has an advantage over the competition, weighing 250g compared to the 450g - 500g of more expensive models.
Printing a hand and a socket using a Lulzbotcurrently takes about three days. The hand is printed as "one solid piece of flexible material", which reduces the number of components and saves on manufacturing and assembly time.
Beyond making for a lighter hand, the approach will also allow Open Bionics to vary the flexibility of the finger joints so items can be grasped delicately.
The hand is controlled by muscles in the user's arm or back. Inside the prosthetic are sensors that detect electrical signals being sent to these muscles. Electronics then amplify these signals and translate them into movement commands for the fingers and thumb.
"It works using electromyographic sensors. It's a tried and tested technology in the prosthetics industry," said Gibbard.
"We don't have the power to match human fingers at the moment so you just send it a pulse to say 'open' and it will open stroke and 'close' and it will do the close stroke. It's very intuitive."
Learning how to control the hand takes as little as 10 minutes according to Gibbard, with further time required to become proficient.
Before the arm can be sold the team need approval from medical regulators, but Gibbard is hopeful that an Open Bionics arm could be ready in about one year's time. The team of four is growing and the business has funding from various sources. Itsuccessfully completed a crowd-funding campaign in 2013 and took second prize in Intel's Make it Wearable contest last year.
Eventually Gibbard plans to release the designs and software for the prothesis so that universities and maybe the occasional individual could 3D print and tweak the hands.
The team's aim is to gradually reduce the price of hands until they hit their goal of selling for under £1,000.
"It's easier to take the price down than to take it up. I think when we start the process won't be as automated as we want it to be and there will also be designers in the loop for a lot of the process, so it will probably be more like £2,000. It's still a small fraction of the alternative."
Ultimately making a hand that is affordable and that lessens the stigma of wearing a prosthetic, particularly for children, remains an important goal for Gibbard.
"You have kids at school who are shy about their limb difference and it's heartbreaking for their parents to see them grow up being a bit self-conscious. If we can make something that's inspirational for them, a superhero-style robot hand that makes them feel proud about their limb difference, that would be very worthwhile."
