Greek expulsion from the euro would demolish EMU's contagion firewall … Should EMU leaders choose to cut off liquidity support for the Greek banking system they might find that their contagion defences are a fiction. – UK TelegraphDominant Social Theme: Greece is now irrelevant to the financial health of the euro and the EU. EU defenses, as painfully placed as the Maginot Line, wil...Read More

Our Predictions … Gold and Silver Markets – 2015 Astrological Trends … Gold and Silver markets are relatively stable, owing to which both these metals are seen as good investments. Ganesha takes the advent of 2015 as an opportunity to look at the 2015 Horoscope and planets to predict the way ahead for these markets … Gold and Silver markets are relatively stable, owing to w...Read More

There Is a Constitutional Crisis, but Not the One Many People Think … It's the Bush-Obama record of surveillance and lack of accountability—and not executive action on immigration—that ought to concern citizens. – The AtlanticDominant Social Theme: Lawlessness is the problem, not specific laws or regulations.Free-Market Analysis: The idea of this Atlantic article is tha...Read More

Op-Ed America needs to study the enemy within … U.S. politicians are unwilling to compromise, and restraints on voting rights are eroding democracy … The only real threat to American democracy comes from Americans themselves. – LA TimesDominant Social Theme: Libertarians may precipitate a US fascist dictatorship.Free-Market Analysis: This article presents the idea that people are...Read More

Will the Real Angela Merkel Please Stand Up? … If anything is certain about the new year, it is that much of the world's stability and economic health will depend on what is done, or not done, in Europe. And what happens in Europe will depend, in large part, on German Chancellor Angela Merkel. – BloombergDominant Social Theme: What's going on with Angela Merkel? She changes her...Read More

The Year of Piketty … Last month the Financial Times chose Thomas Piketty's "Capital in the TwentyFirst Century," a study of the underlying dynamics of inequality, as its Business Book of the Year. The honor rather understates the book's impact. Forget "business book." "Capital" was the nonfiction publishing sensation of the year, and maybe of the decade...Read More

New Aerial Photos Suggest Big Organic Farmers May Be Lying to Us … Consumers of organic eggs and milk like knowing that the cows and chickens on organic farms are treated decently. Many people count on the fact that these animals are required to get a certain amount of time in the great outdoors. They're not supposed to be kept indoors round the clock in classic factory farm fashion. Unf...Read More

Fed at Odds With BIS on Supervisory Approach … Federal Reserve officials have been clear they would like to use regulatory policy as a first line of defense when dealing with excess risk-taking in financial markets, with interest rates to be employed only in extreme cases when other tools have been exhausted – WSJDominant Social Theme: Either raise rates or regulate borrowing – b...Read More

Deflation Isn't What's Holding Europe Back … As the European Central Bank gets ready for quantitative easing, overriding German arguments that buying government debt creates moral hazard in debt-laden countries, it is reacting to the threat of deflation. Yet slow-growing prices aren't at the heart of what ails the euro area, and QE won't fix the deeper problems that are. &nda...Read More

Obama Urges Congress To Renew Push For "CISPA-style" Internet Laws After Sony Hack … This week, Obama announced a renewed push for tighter internet regulations in congress, citing the need for additional cyber-security in light of the recent hack on Sony. The White House has been taking this opportunity to initiate strategies that had already been planned for years. … During...Read More

Uncle Sam stoked to hash out marijuana in 2015 … It's high time for Uncle Sam to hash out America's marijuana situation. Now that four states and the District of Columbia have legalized recreational cannabis better regulation is warranted for commerce and safety reasons alone. Without the federal government tweaking laws to consent to the will of the states, the fledgling industry wi...Read More

Nearly 1 in 10 U.S. Families Don't Exchange Holiday Gifts … Forty-four-year old Michelle Morton's Christmas celebration probably doesn't look like yours — but you might wish it did. That's because, for the past few years, the Raleigh, N.C., resident and her sisters and husband have instituted a no-gift policy for the holidays. "It was stressful and expensive gettin...Read More

The Government Problem … Some believe the central political issue of our era is the size of the government. They're wrong. The central issue is whom the government is for. Consider the new spending bill Congress and the President agreed to a few weeks ago. It's not especially large by historic standards. Under the $1.1 trillion measure, government spending doesn't rise as a perce...Read More

U.S. Stocks Rise; Dow Ends Above 18000 … Strong U.S. GDP Data Fuel Stock-Market Gains The DJIA hits a milestone following strong GDP data …The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 18000 for the first time Tuesday after data showed the U.S. economy posted its strongest growth in more than a decade. The blue-chip index climbed 64.73 points, or 0.4%, to 18024.17, marking its 36th rec...Read More

OPEC will not cut output even at $20 a barrel … OPEC will not cut oil production even if the price drops to $20 a barrel and it is unfair to expect the cartel to reduce output if non-members do not, Saudi Arabia said. "Whether it goes down to $20 a barrel, $40, $50, $60, it is irrelevant," the kingdom's Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said in an interview with the Middle East Economi...Read More

Central Bankers Weren't Meant to Be Heroes … The U.S. recovery is starting to look halfway respectable. Europe's economies, meanwhile, face the risk of a third recession in seven years. There's a lesson in that contrast: Good economic policy means never having to ask your central bank to be a hero … Sadly … heroic central bankers are all too likely to remain in demand...Read More

Prosecute Torturers and Their Bosses … Since the day President Obama took office, he has failed to bring to justice anyone responsible for the torture of terrorism suspects — an official government program conceived and carried out in the years after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He did allow his Justice Department to investigate the C.I.A.'s destruction of videotapes of torture s...Read More

Investigators Said to Seek No Penalty for C.I.A.'s Computer Search … A panel investigating the Central Intelligence Agency's search of a computer network used by staff members of the Senate Intelligence Committee who were looking into the C.I.A.'s use of torture will recommend against punishing anyone involved in the episode, according to current and former government officials....Read More

Colombia Is One Of Latin America's Most Promising New Tech Hubs … Ten years ago, the idea that Colombia would become a burgeoning hub for any dynamic industry beyond its notorious drug trade would have struck most observers as far-fetched. As recently as the turn of the century, conventional wisdom had it that the tropical, Andean nation was on the verge of becoming a failed state. Fast...Read More

US stocks leap after Fed signals patience on rates … U.S. stocks surged on Thursday, extending Wall Street's best day of the year, after the Federal Reserve said it would be patient in increasing interest rates. Equities came off session highs, however, as oil turned lower. – CNBCDominant Social Theme: Things are looking really good for the dollar and US stocks. Who expected this,...Read More