The Southwood Group, Minimum Wage Jobs Won't Be Replaced With This Robot Anytime Soon

The poster boy for the movement that opposes a major increase in the minimum wage is a burger-flipping fraud. A Japanese "robotic chef" that was held up Thursday as a hassle-free alternative for restaurant owners sick of dealing with human line cooks would simply not be able to do the job, the machine's manufacturer told The Huffington Post.

The Motoman SDA10 robot gained brief notoriety Thursday when it appeared on a full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal that stated "robots could soon replace fast food workers demanding a minimum higher wage."  Friday, the Japanese electronics giant that manufactures the robot told HuffPost that the machine was designed for industrial applications and would not be able to replace a cook in a restaurant.

"The robot does not have a real capability for that," Sam Komiyaji, a marketing manager at Yaskawa Motoman, said in a phone interview from Tokyo.

Komiyaji explained the picture was taken at a 2009 exhibit that was a marketing stunt intended to show the industrial robot has a greater degree of flexibility and dexterity than competitor's offerings. Similar stunts have seen the same robot deal cards and serve ice cream. During the exhibit, the robot was placed in a carefully constructed kitchen and was able to dump a bowl of pre-mixed batter on a hot griddle, flip a savory okonomiya pancake with a spatula, and serve the meal.

SOURCE:   The Southwood Group

Trade data improve economic prospects

China's exports in July rose 5.1 percent year-on-year after sliding 3.1 percent in June, the General Administration of Customs said. Imports surged 10.9 percent, compared with the 0.7 percent decline in June. "The July figures are satisfactory," said Huo Jianguo, president of the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, a government think tank. "Exports returned to the normal growth track and the sharp rebound of imports signals the easing of downward pressure on the Chinese economy," Huo said.

Global stock markets responded positively to China's data as shares jumped in Sydney, Seoul, Hong Kong and European cities on Thursday. The Chinese economy recorded its worst performance in 13 years in 2012, with GDP expanding 7.8 percent. Growth dipped to 7.7 percent in the January-March period and slowed further to 7.5 percent in the second quarter. The July trade figures soothed worries that China's economy may experience a hard landing.

Chen Hufei, a researcher at Bank of Communications, said the improvement in exports came after a recovery in demand for Chinese goods, although the recovery is not solid. China's shipments to the United States and the European Union, its top two markets, increased in July for the first time in five months. July exports to the US climbed 5.27 percent year-on-year and those to the EU gained 5.87 percent. Jean-Paul Larcon, a professor of strategy and international business at HEC Paris, said the recovery in China's exports to the EU was "because Europe is gradually recovering and European enterprises are starting to import more from China and the rest of the world".

"I am optimistic about the future trade prospects," Larcon said. "The economic recovery is on track (in the EU). The trade data is a good sign that we are going out of the bottom of the crisis. So in the next six months, the situation could be better and major economic indicators could be back to the normal level." China's exports are shifting to a moderate rate of growth from the double-digit expansion of past years, but economic transformation and restructuring helped exporters retain their markets, Huo said. Huo expressed confidence that the country can achieve its 8 percent trade growth target for the year.

Source: Southwoood Group

Southwood Norsemytho group movie reviews - In the annals of Hollywood

From “Wall Street” to “Boiler Room”, “Trading Places” to “American Psycho”, the halls of finance are usually portrayed as places of shiny excesses and dark hearts.

Now buzz is building over a new contender, which could become one of the defining films of Wall Street. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio and directed by Martin Scorsese, “The Wolf of Wall Street” is slated to come out this November, and is sure to have brokers scrambling for red-carpet invites.

But what do the nation’s foremost finance gurus think of the movies that put their industry on the big screen? We asked a few for their favorites.

Name: Jim Cramer Title: Host, Mad Money, CNBC Favorite movie: “Margin Call”

It is far and away my favorite, and I have watched it multiple times. It is the most realistic movie about Wall Street I have ever seen. When I first watched it I was spellbound, because I could not believe how they got it so right.

From Kevin Spacey as the manager who is fighting between the notions of protecting ownership or protecting clients, to Stanley Tucci as the guy who was too honest and had to be farmed out, to Jeremy Irons as the clueless guy at the top who looks good: I’ve been in the industry 33 years, and we all know who these people are.

I tell people who are going into the business, ‘This is what happens on Wall Street. If you can handle what happens in “Margin Call”, then you’re ready.’

Southwood Group Norsemytho movie reviews - I’ll Eat You Last

Chances are you are not a movie star. Chances are equally good that this state of affairs is not likely to change soon. But if you’ve ever wondered what it might be like to explore that golden realm where the gods and goddesses of the screen dwell, race over to the Booth Theater, where you can enjoy an audience with a woman who consorted almost exclusively with box office luminaries, or “twinklies” as she affectionately calls them.

In “I’ll Eat You Last,” a delectable soufflé of a solo show by John Logan that opened Wednesday night on Broadway, Bette Midler portrays the Hollywood agent Sue Mengers, who at the height of her reign in the 1970s could make a career merely by issuing an invitation to one of her A-list-only dinner parties. For a limited time, the tightly closed doors of the Beverly Hills aerie in which Mengers held court are being thrown open, and for the price of a ticket we all get to feel a little twinkly for a night.

It’s a heady sensation, thanks to the buoyant, witty writing of Mr. Logan (“Red”), the focused direction of Joe Mantello and above all to Ms. Midler, who gives the most lusciously entertaining performance of the Broadway season. Dropping names as if to the rhythm of a disco beat, snapping out wisecracks like acid-tipped darts that find the sweet spot every time, proffering profanity-laden advice about how to get ahead in show business: as the frank, brassy, foul-mouthed Mengers, who died in 2011, Ms. Midler cradles a spellbound audience in the palm of her hand from first joke to last toke. (Mengers’s love of celebrity was perhaps equaled only by her affection for marijuana.)

Or rather she would so cradle us, if both hands were not otherwise engaged. As she welcomes us, Sue does not deign to rise from the pillow-bestrewn couch on which she sits, or rather slinks (“Forgive me for not getting up,” she says, unapologetically. “Think of me as that caterpillar from ‘Alice in Wonderland,’ the one with the hash pipe”), but her silver-taloned fingers are in continual motion: slicing the air to accentuate a point, fiddling with the white-blond tresses framing her face, adjusting her signature glasses — oversize circles that symbolize a lifelong obsession with stargazing — or grabbing another cigarette or a joint, if not both at the same time.

http://theater.nytimes.com/2013/04/25/theater/reviews/ill-eat-you-last-starring-bette-midler.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0