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WTF?

Japan Stocks Sink

Drag Asian markets down.

Big declines in Japanese stocks continued, as the Nikkei index fell a stunning 6 percent on the day. What gives? Foreign investors who rushed into the rapidly booming Japanese market have apparently realized that stocks there can set as well as rise. Investors are also beginning to question whether Abenomics (the new economic policy of easy money, cheaper yen, and reform) is actually working to promote growth.

Read it at The Wall Street Journal

GAME OF THRONES

Palace Intrigue at Goldman

Deputy Cohn wants top job.

“When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die.” Goldman Sachs, the investment bank everybody loves to hate, could be facing a tumultuous leadership struggle. The New York Times reports that while longtime second-in-command Gary Cohn wants the top job, CEO Lloyd Blankfein, who has helmed the company for seven years, shows no signs of leaving. Over the past few decades, most Goldman heads have gone on to prominent positions in Washington, D.C. But given Goldman’s unpopularity, Blankfein landing a position like Treasury secretary is unlikely.  

Read it at The New York Times

Rookies

Primed for the Majors

Are the big publishing houses using independent presses as a farm league to scout for talent, and giving up gambling on splashy debut novels? James McGirk reports.

When Ben Lerner’s Leaving the Atocha Station came out in 2011, it won major awards and seemed in every respect like one of those dazzling debut novels that preceded it: Everything Is Illuminated, The Art of Fielding, White Teeth. Except that it was published by little-known Minneapolis art-house company Coffee House Press. How could the big publishing houses have missed it? There have been indications that the Big Six—Hachette, Macmillan, Penguin, HarperCollins, Random House, and Simon & Schuster—were steering away from splashy debuts.

Starting Over

Why Oprah’s New Shows Are Working

OWN (3); AP

Oprah’s network got off to a weak start. But a new raft of shows highlighting the real lives of black women is giving audiences something new—and something they want.

Just this week OWN, the cable network founded by talk show icon Oprah Winfrey, announced the renewal of three of its top reality shows: Iyanla: Fix My Life, starring Iyanla Vanzant; Life with La Toya, starring La Toya Jackson; and Raising Whitley, starring Kim Whitley, which all feature black women at the center. Erik Logan, president of OWN, credited each show with increasing the network’s ratings overall and propelling the once-struggling cable station to the No.

Lacerating Ruling

Deathblow for Unpaid Internships?

Dimitri Vervitsiotis, via Getty

A judge for the southern district of New York ruled Wednesday that Fox Searchlight violated the law by not paying interns on ‘Black Swan.’ David Freedlander on whether unpaid internships are on their way out.

Is the unpaid internship dead?That’s what corporate CEOs and employment law attorneys were trying to figure out Wednesday after a U.S. district court judge ruled that Fox Searchlight Pictures had violated the law by not paying interns who worked on the film Black Swan.In a lacerating ruling, Judge William H. Pauley III found that had the interns not been hired to do the mostly remedial tasks they were assigned, paid employees would have been.

Game On

Surrender, Xbox!

Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty

The great gaming wars are over and PlayStation 4 is the clear winner, writes Winston Ross. Plus: Sony's John Koller on the company's smart choices.

For gamers, this week’s Electronic Entertainment Expo (or E3) in Los Angeles arrived with all the suspense and drama of a presidential election. Up for grabs: the spot as America’s favorite new gaming platform. The contenders: Microsoft’s Xbox One and Sony’s PlayStation 4. It’s been eight years since the Xbox 360 came out; seven years since the PS3. Both companies announced there would be updates to the platforms earlier this year, and since then gamers have been anticipating the unveilings, which may have a bigger influence on millennials than the Great Recession did on their ability to buy a videogame console in the first place.

Hallelujah

What Deficit?

Jacquelyn Martin/AP

I hate to say I told you so, but I told you so. The golden age of deficit reduction has arrived. But will Republicans ever admit the truth? Unlikely.

It may not seem like it, but the Golden Age of Deficit Reduction we’ve been writing about is truly upon us.The May monthly treasury statement came out on Wednesday. And while it shows a hefty $139 billion deficit for the month of May, a look inside the data shows why we are entering a brief age of deficit-reduction nirvana.Many analysts believed the huge revenue gains seen in the first few months of 2013 would wilt away as winter turned into spring.

LULU’S SHEER DROP

Chart of the Day

Mary Altaffer/AP

A day after the shocking announcement of Lululemon CEO Christine Day’s resignation, investors continue to cut and run.

As if it were wearing a pair of its see-through pants, Lululemon’s tumble has been laid bare for all to see. Under CEO Christine Day, high-end yoga apparel maker Lululemon was a huge success story, with its stock growing steadily over the past five years. Then on June 11, to the shock of investors and the business world, Day said she would be stepping down as CEO, without naming a replacement or giving a detailed explanation for her departure.

COME ON

First LIBOR, Now Currency Exchanges

Bankers rig exchange rates.

And the reasons clients continue to trust big banks are? Bloomberg News reports that some of the biggest banks globally have been manipulating benchmark foreign-exchange rates to profit from moves they subsequently make for clients. The $4.7 trillion-a-day foreign-exchange market (FX market) is one of the least regulated. The rigging of these rates affects the value of trillions of dollars in funds, including pensions and savings accounts.

Read it at Bloomberg News

WHAT WE EAT

It’s All Greek to Him

Lucas Jackson/Reuters

Five years ago, Chobani didn’t exist. Now it’s a billion-dollar business. How the son of a small-town shepherd made good.

Markets React to Fed Tapering

With news of potential Fed tapering, Julie Hyman joins In the Loop with Betty Liu on Bloomberg News to give analysis of market reaction.

  1. Mac Pro 'Looks Like a Trash Can' Play

    Mac Pro 'Looks Like a Trash Can'

  2. Is Streaming Next for Apple? Play

    Is Streaming Next for Apple?

  3. Colbert Rips 'Spreadsheet Error' in Austerity Supporting Harvard Study Play

    Colbert Rips 'Spreadsheet Error' in Austerity Supporting Harvard Study

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Business

Daniel Gross

Asymmetrical Information

Megan McArdle

Why Aren't We Creating Enough New Jobs?

Labor markets aren't adjusting to the disappearance of certain kinds of work

Latest from The Daily Beast

Channing Tatum’s (Hilarious) Music Video

Channing Tatum’s (Hilarious) Music Video

Jimmy Kimmel Live aired a hilarious music video starring Channing Tatum, Jamie Foxx, Kimmel, and more.

Berlin Speech

Obama To Cut U.S. Nukes

Kanye West

‘Yeezus’’ Quotable Lines