If Bernanke really shakes the tree, half the world may fall out … We no longer have a free market. The world's financial asset prices have become a plaything of central banks and the sovereign wealth funds of a few emerging powers. Julian Callow from Barclays says they are buying $1.8 trillion worth of AAA or safe-haven bonds each year from an available pool of $2 trillion. Nothing like...Read More
Corrupted credit ratings: Standard & Poor's lawsuit and the evidence … In response to the civil lawsuit filed by the US Department of Justice in February 2013, Standard & Poor's affirms that its ratings were "objective, independent and uninfluenced by conflicts of interest". This column presents empirical evidence opposing this claim. The data suggests a systemati...Read More
How Cities Are Fixing America … Mired in partisan division and rancor, the federal government appears incapable of taking bold action to restructure our economy and grapple with changing demography and rising inequality. With each illustration of partisan gridlock and each indication of federal, and also state, unreliability, metros are becoming more ambitious in their design, more assertive...Read More
Woz: This is not my America … Stopped by Spanish language tech journalists at an airport, the Apple co-founder says that after the NSA revelations, he questions his own government and wonders whether it's behaving like a king. As the passions and justifications swirl around the revelations concerning the NSA, the rest of the world sits and wonders. Is only the U.S. involved? Or might, pe...Read More
If Bernanke really shakes the tree, half the world may fall out … We no longer have a free market. The world's financial asset prices have become a plaything of central banks and the sovereign wealth funds of a few emerging powers. Julian Callow from Barclays says they are buying $1.8 trillion worth of AAA or safe-haven bonds each year from an available pool of $2 trillion. Nothing like...Read More
Corrupted credit ratings: Standard & Poor's lawsuit and the evidence … In response to the civil lawsuit filed by the US Department of Justice in February 2013, Standard & Poor's affirms that its ratings were "objective, independent and uninfluenced by conflicts of interest". This column presents empirical evidence opposing this claim. The data suggests a systemati...Read More
How Cities Are Fixing America … Mired in partisan division and rancor, the federal government appears incapable of taking bold action to restructure our economy and grapple with changing demography and rising inequality. With each illustration of partisan gridlock and each indication of federal, and also state, unreliability, metros are becoming more ambitious in their design, more assertive...Read More
Woz: This is not my America … Stopped by Spanish language tech journalists at an airport, the Apple co-founder says that after the NSA revelations, he questions his own government and wonders whether it's behaving like a king. As the passions and justifications swirl around the revelations concerning the NSA, the rest of the world sits and wonders. Is only the U.S. involved? Or might, pe...Read More
Ben Bernanke under pressure to spell out QE timeline … Ben Bernanke under pressure to spell out QE timeline. US stocks jumped and the dollar climbed against the yen on Monday, amid expectations that Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke will spell out how it will decide when to put the brakes on America's quantitative easing programme, at its two-day meeting this week. Ben Bernanke cauti...Read More
U.S. says Taliban agrees to Afghanistan peace talks … Senior Obama administration officials said Tuesday that the Taliban has agreed to participate in peace talks based in Qatar, a key step forward in the effort to jump-start a political resolution of the war in Afghanistan ahead of U.S. plans to withdraw troops. Officials said direct talks between U.S. officials and Taliban representatives...Read More
EU and US 'in biggest trade deal' … UK Prime Minister David Cameron has announced plans for what could be "the biggest bilateral trade deal in history" between the EU and the US. He announced the start of formal negotiations on a trade deal worth hundreds of billions of pounds, aimed at boosting exports and driving growth. Mr Cameron said a successful agreement would have a...Read More
Tilting at windmills in Germany … The wheels are falling off of Germany's green energy revolution … The quiet backwater in the Ruhr, close to Düsseldorf, is the proposed site for the biggest converter station in Europe. This vast installation will transform high-voltage direct current to alternating current. It will be an important link in Germany's new "power highway...Read More
Ben Bernanke under pressure to spell out QE timeline … Ben Bernanke under pressure to spell out QE timeline. US stocks jumped and the dollar climbed against the yen on Monday, amid expectations that Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke will spell out how it will decide when to put the brakes on America's quantitative easing programme, at its two-day meeting this week. Ben Bernanke cauti...Read More
U.S. says Taliban agrees to Afghanistan peace talks … Senior Obama administration officials said Tuesday that the Taliban has agreed to participate in peace talks based in Qatar, a key step forward in the effort to jump-start a political resolution of the war in Afghanistan ahead of U.S. plans to withdraw troops. Officials said direct talks between U.S. officials and Taliban representatives...Read More
EU and US 'in biggest trade deal' … UK Prime Minister David Cameron has announced plans for what could be "the biggest bilateral trade deal in history" between the EU and the US. He announced the start of formal negotiations on a trade deal worth hundreds of billions of pounds, aimed at boosting exports and driving growth. Mr Cameron said a successful agreement would have a...Read More
Tilting at windmills in Germany … The wheels are falling off of Germany's green energy revolution … The quiet backwater in the Ruhr, close to Düsseldorf, is the proposed site for the biggest converter station in Europe. This vast installation will transform high-voltage direct current to alternating current. It will be an important link in Germany's new "power highway...Read More
"We are going to do it our way, this is our decision," Sveinsson, 45, said in an interview in Brussels today. "This government is not going to keep on pushing forward this application. At some time, there will be a referendum, but I cannot tell you when and by whom." EU leaders had celebrated the prospect of welcoming Iceland — a developed nation where the economy grew 1....Read More
IMF warns US economic recovery has been slowed by 'ill-designed' cuts but warns Congress against spending less on infrastructure and education … IMF managing director Christine Lagarde said: 'The IMF's advice is to slow down but hurry up.' … The International Monetary Fund said on Friday that an "excessively rapid and ill-designed" deficit reduction plan h...Read More
Syria: The slippery slope to an international crisis … The proposed talks in Geneva, under joint American and Russian auspices, remain the only realistic opportunity for producing a solution to the civil war in Syria … With the United Nations this week reporting 93,000 fatalities in Syria since the civil war began, it is arguably somewhat late in the day to be considering intervention...Read More
Fitch says China credit bubble unprecedented in modern world history … China's shadow banking system is out of control and under mounting stress as borrowers struggle to roll over short-term debts, Fitch Ratings has warned. Fitch warned that wealth products worth $2 trillion of lending are in reality a "hidden second balance sheet" for banks, allowing them to circumvent loan cu...Read More