What We Know About Recessions Might Be Wrong … What are business cycles? Many people think that booms naturally lead to busts — that excesses built up during good times lead inevitably to a crash. Today's economists don't see it that way. Modern macroeconomists think that recessions and booms are random fluctuations around a trend. These fluctuations tend to die out — a d...Read More

Greece presents bailout plans to EU finance ministers … Greece's anti-austerity government is presenting its first concrete proposals for an alternative debt plan at an emergency meeting of eurozone finance ministers in Brussels. The government wants to overhaul 30% of its bailout obligations, replacing them with a 10-point plan of reforms. But EU ministers have warned that Greece must a...Read More

For the third time in a century, America will have to ride to Europe's rescue … From the sidelines, the US is watching the unfolding Greek tragedy with growing horror. It must stand ready to assist as the euro breaks apart. It would be the third time in a century. Will America once more end up having to save the fratricidal Europeans from themselves? – UK TelegraphDominant Social T...Read More

Rand Paul's Know-Nothing Fed Bashing … See if you can spot the errors in Senator Rand Paul's push to audit the Federal Reserve, which he laid out Friday in Des Moines: "Anybody here want to audit the Fed?" Paul asked from the stage. "Anybody feel that the Fed's out to get us?" … "They'd be bankrupt, they'd be insolvent," he said. "...Read More

Why Legal Cannabis Is 2015's Best Startup Opportunity … Every entrepreneur dreams of discovering an untapped market where they could start with a low investment and build a huge business. If that's you, consider the developing legal marijuana industry. This sector is growing faster than ganja under grow lights. The best part is, it's early days for this – cough – budd...Read More

'Free trade' isn't what Trans-Pacific Partnership would deliver … Think the Trans-Pacific Partnership is a free trade agreement? Think again. In principle, almost everyone's in favor of free trade. It promotes international harmony, raises wages, helps economies grow. It's an article of historical faith that the enactment of harsh protective U.S. tariffs in 1930 contribut...Read More

Organic food sales have gone through the roof. It's no wonder. It's widely believed that organic foods are more nutritious and safer than non-organic — they're even said to fight cancer — even though the evidence is far from clear …The premium prices may not be buying everything that's promised. – BloombergDominant Social Theme: Who needs natural food?Free-M...Read More

Central Banks Move to Drive Down Currencies, Yielding Domino Effect … The central-bank stimulus spree of 2015 has the look of a global currency war. In quick succession, countries representing about a third of the world's economic output—from the eurozone to China, Australia and Canada—have taken steps that have driven down the value of their currencies. – Wall Street J...Read More

TSA to Arrest Anyone Charged with any Crime trying to Come or Leave – including taxes … The border is closing rapidly. First it was FATCA hunting Americans with any assets overseas whatsoever. Now just two days after taking charge of the committee chairing the House Homeland Security subcommittee hearing, U.S. Rep. John Katko introduced two bills. He is looking to effectively close the...Read More

Greece pleads with Berlin for time and money to re-write debt deal … Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis evokes fears of Nazism in Greece in a bid to end his country's "ritual humiliation" at the hands of its creditors. – UK TelegraphDominant Social Theme: Negotiations with Greece are necessary but perilous.Free-Market Analysis: Is this a dance between the EU and Greece, de...Read More

Will the Next Recession Destroy Europe? … The initial hardline posturing on both sides of the Greek debt stand-off is already moderating. This latest European crisis can be resolved and, as I recently explained, most likely will be. Yet don't be overly optimistic about the euro area's longer-term chances of survival. The hash that the European Union has made of this latest Greek emer...Read More

S&P settles suits over crisis-era mortgage ratings … Credit-rating firm Standard & Poor's will pay $1.5 billion to resolve a collection of lawsuits over its ratings on mortgage securities that soured in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis, concluding one of the U.S. government's most ambitious cases tied to the housing collapse. The settlement comes after more than two...Read More

Pot Is Making Colorado So Much Money They Literally Have To Give Some Back To Residents … The state constitution limits how much tax money the state can take in before it has to give some back. That means Coloradans may each get their own cut of the $50 million in recreational pot taxes collected in the first year of legal weed. It's a situation so bizarre that it's gotten Republican...Read More

Economy grows, incomes shrink … Americans continue to lose money while corporate profits soar … The first data on 2013 incomes show continuing bad news for Americans, my analysis of a new Internal Revenue Service report shows. … This is the latest sign of a disturbing trend. An ever-shrinking share of national income flows to individuals while corporate profits expand. – Al...Read More

Greek debt: growing acknowledgment that it is simply unsustainable and some accommodation will be necessary … Approach has much to commend it and deserves a hearing in EU capitals … The whistlestop tour of European capitals by Greece's new leaders is finding doors if not wide open, at least ajar. The mood music is still that Greece must honour its debts, that forgiveness is out, bu...Read More

Republicans gutting Dodd-Frank as Wall St. goes subprime again … It is not mortgages but subprime car loans that U.S. banks are repackaging now for foreign investors … Teams of bank lobbyists [are] rewriting laws up on Capitol Hill these days … Little by little, these influence-buyers are gutting and filleting the Dodd-Frank Act, the package of bank regulations that was among the...Read More

Jeb Bush is a hypocrite about marijuana, Rand Paul says … Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, accused Jeb Bush of "hypocrisy" Friday after a report in the Boston Globe chronicled Bush's marijuana use during high school. Bush, a former Florida governor and potential 2016 presidential candidate, opposes the use of marijuana for medical or recreational purposes. "This is a guy who no...Read More

Europe's creditors play with 'political fire' in pushing Greece to the brink. "The creation of the euro was a terrible mistake but breaking it up would be an even bigger mistake. Anything could happen," warns former IMF bail-out chief … The North European power structure has issued stern and inflexible warnings to Greece. Syriza's triumphant radicals must pay the co...Read More

John McCain doesn't regret calling anti-war protesters "low-life scum" … Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, offered no apologies on Sunday for his scolding of anti-war protesters during a Senate hearing this week, calling the demonstrators "terrible people" who deserved what they got. The protesters disrupted a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Thurs...Read More

The case for liberal optimism … John Micklethwait, who has edited this newspaper since 2006, leaves today. These are his parting thoughts … THIS newspaper churlishly deprives its editors of the egocentric adornments of our trade. Tragically, these pages include no weekly "editor's letter" to readers, underneath a beaming, air-brushed picture. Online, there is a weekly e-m...Read More