Stop Subsidizing Wall Street … Imagine if the United States had an airline industry in which the biggest carriers that fly both domestically and internationally received a larger government fuel subsidy than those flying only domestic routes. Unfair? Yes — and that's exactly how the U.S. financial system works. The fuel of the largest firms in our financial services industry is sub...Read More
Why We Need to Fix Our Health care … I think you should read both Brill's essay and Goldhill's book. There are actually some points of agreement about how to reform what everyone accepts is a badly functioning, almost crooked, marketplace for health care. (Goldhill, by the way, wants universal health care and thinks the government has a big role to play, so this is not an argument fo...Read More
What the UN Doesn't Want You to Know … In 1999, Kathryn Bolkovac went to Bosnia as part of a UN mission. She discovered terrible wrongdoing – and refused to stay silent about it … The UN mission in Bosnia finished in January 2003 but the abuses did not end there. In fact, Jacques Paul Klein, the head of the UN mission in Bosnia, went on to lead the UN mission in Liberia, wher...Read More
Southern Europe lies prostrate before the German imperium … Cyprus is only the first victim of a one-size-must-fit-all policy that is made in Berlin … 'Cyprus is capitulating not out of euro-patriotism, but out of fear; this is not European "solidarity", but coercion.' … Othello was sent there from Venice to repel the Turks, though luckily they all got blown awa...Read More
900,000 choose to come off sickness benefit ahead of tests … Nearly 900,000 people who were on incapacity benefit dropped their claim to the payments rather than undergo a tough medical test, latest government figures show. – UK TelegraphDominant Social Theme: In order to catch malingerers we need a stern paternalism.Free-Market Analysis: When large democracies create state mandates th...Read More
Thanks, World Reserve Currency, But No Thanks: Australia And China To Enable Direct Currency Convertibility … A month ago we pointed out that as a result of Australia's unprecedented reliance on China as a target export market, accounting for nearly 30% of all Australian exports (with the flipside being just as true, as Australia now is the fifth-biggest source of Chinese imports), the t...Read More
Who Destroyed the Economy? The Case Against the Baby Boomers … Retirees and near-retirees are leaving behind a devastated economy for their children … but are we doing anything to fix it? Here, two generations debate who's really to blame for the wreckage. … This is the charge I've leveled against him on a summer day in our Pacific Northwest vision of paradise. I have ask...Read More
Now that the crisis in Cyprus has passed, we can finally admit the obvious: The "crisis" it provoked did not deserve the attention it received. Cyprus makes up a fraction of one percent of the European Union's GDP and it's a backwater for sketchy Russian dealings. If Cyprus had drowned in a sea of Mediterranean debt, the Eurozone would not have gone under with it. – Reuters...Read More
As Banks in Cyprus Falter, Other Tax Havens Step In … Similar unsolicited offers have originated in well-known havens … Bloodied by a harsh bailout deal that drives a stake through the heart of this Mediterranean country's oversize financial industry, Cyprus now faces a further blow to its role as an offshore tax haven: the vultures from competing countries are circling. "We a...Read More
Thanks, World Reserve Currency, But No Thanks: Australia And China To Enable Direct Currency Convertibility … A month ago we pointed out that as a result of Australia's unprecedented reliance on China as a target export market, accounting for nearly 30% of all Australian exports (with the flipside being just as true, as Australia now is the fifth-biggest source of Chinese imports), the t...Read More
Who Destroyed the Economy? The Case Against the Baby Boomers … Retirees and near-retirees are leaving behind a devastated economy for their children … but are we doing anything to fix it? Here, two generations debate who's really to blame for the wreckage. … This is the charge I've leveled against him on a summer day in our Pacific Northwest vision of paradise. I have ask...Read More
Now that the crisis in Cyprus has passed, we can finally admit the obvious: The "crisis" it provoked did not deserve the attention it received. Cyprus makes up a fraction of one percent of the European Union's GDP and it's a backwater for sketchy Russian dealings. If Cyprus had drowned in a sea of Mediterranean debt, the Eurozone would not have gone under with it. – Reuters...Read More
As Banks in Cyprus Falter, Other Tax Havens Step In … Similar unsolicited offers have originated in well-known havens … Bloodied by a harsh bailout deal that drives a stake through the heart of this Mediterranean country's oversize financial industry, Cyprus now faces a further blow to its role as an offshore tax haven: the vultures from competing countries are circling. "We a...Read More
Why Fed hawks and doves are both starting to talk about ending QE … Inside the Federal Reserve, consensus is growing over the need to dial back the central bank's $85-billion-dollar-a-month bond-buying program — but for very different reasons. It boils down to two sides: Hawks, who want to curtail quantitative easing programs because of the risks they create. And doves, who see evi...Read More
Center-left leader Pier Luigi Bersani has assessed options after failing in his attempt to find a way out of Italy's political deadlock and President Giorgio Napolitano Italy center-left says will now seek another solution. Napolitano's office said Bersani, who took the largest share of the vote but failed to win a viable majority, had told him his talks with other parties had ended withou...Read More
On thinning ice … Disappointing exports, stalled investment and fiscal austerity leave the overstretched consumer as Canada's only hope for growth … WHEN the world financial system collapsed in 2007, triggering a global recession, Canada recovered faster than any of the other members of the G7 group of large developed countries. Its banks remained solid, while low interest rates en...Read More
Can India become a great power? … India's lack of a strategic culture hobbles its ambition to be a force in the world … Nobody doubts that China has joined the ranks of the great powers: the idea of a G2 with America is mooted, albeit prematurely. India is often spoken of in the same breath as China because of its billion-plus population, economic promise, value as a trading partne...Read More
Why Fed hawks and doves are both starting to talk about ending QE … Inside the Federal Reserve, consensus is growing over the need to dial back the central bank's $85-billion-dollar-a-month bond-buying program — but for very different reasons. It boils down to two sides: Hawks, who want to curtail quantitative easing programs because of the risks they create. And doves, who see evi...Read More
Center-left leader Pier Luigi Bersani has assessed options after failing in his attempt to find a way out of Italy's political deadlock and President Giorgio Napolitano Italy center-left says will now seek another solution. Napolitano's office said Bersani, who took the largest share of the vote but failed to win a viable majority, had told him his talks with other parties had ended withou...Read More
On thinning ice … Disappointing exports, stalled investment and fiscal austerity leave the overstretched consumer as Canada's only hope for growth … WHEN the world financial system collapsed in 2007, triggering a global recession, Canada recovered faster than any of the other members of the G7 group of large developed countries. Its banks remained solid, while low interest rates en...Read More