Maybe There's No Such Thing as a Business Cycle … Is the U.S. economy's current expansion past its sell-by date? Will we soon go back to the employment levels we had before 2008, or did the recession do lasting damage? Macroeconomists wrestle with these questions, but usually without much success. To understand why it's so hard to predict business cycles, you need to realize that...Read More

Frothy.com … A new tech bubble seems to be inflating. But when it pops, it should cause less damage than the dotcom crash of 2000 … In December, 15 years ago the dotcom crash was a few weeks away. Veterans of that fiasco may notice some familiar warning signs this festive season … Janet Yellen, the head of the Federal Reserve, has warned that social-media firms are overvalued&mda...Read More

Deflation Stalks the Globe … Crude oil trading at less than $60 a barrel for the first time in five years means lower gasoline prices and more money in consumer's pockets, right? And the knock-on effect of driving down consumer prices is great for everyone, correct? And the global economy needs all the help it can get as it drags itself out of recession, so what's not to love about l...Read More

Russia's Problems Are Everyone's Problems … "Cyprus with nukes." That's how someone, maybe me, referred to Russia in an IM conversation this morning. It's not really a fair comparison; Russia is a vast country loaded with natural resources, not a tiny island banking haven. But it does express a very real fear: that the world is about to experience a major financial...Read More

EXCLUSIVE: New York Mag's Boy Genius Investor Made It All Up … In an exclusive Observer interview, Mohammed Islam, said to have investment returns of $72 million as a hs senior, admits he invented the whole story … It's been a tough month for fact-checking. After the Rolling Stone campus rape story unraveled, readers of all publications can be forgiven for questioning the proce...Read More

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: Why Paul Krugman is wrong … Central banks can always create inflation if they try hard enough … He is wrong that you cannot create inflation when interest rates are at the zero bound, says Ambrose Evans-Pritchard … Professor Paul Krugman is the world's most influential commentator on economic issues by a wide margin. – UK TelegraphDominant Socia...Read More

Waters Warm, and Cod Catch Ebbs in Maine … In the vast gulf that arcs from Massachusetts's shores to Canada's Bay of Fundy, cod was once king. It paid for fishermen's boats, fed their families and put their children through college. In one halcyon year in the mid-1980s, the codfish catch reached 25,000 tons. Today, the cod population has collapsed. Last month, regulators effectiv...Read More

There Is No Retirement Crisis … You're probably going to be hearing a lot about a "retirement crisis" over the next few years. And Democrats think they know just what to do about it. Some academics are convinced that Americans aren't saving enough, or being provided enough by the government, to sustain themselves in old age. Many Democrats think their party hasn't adequ...Read More

Olympia rally draws defiant gun owners to protest new edict … A crowd of gun rights activists, many armed, estimated at 1,000 by the Washington State Patrol and at up to 3,000 per a photo gallery caption accompanying The Seattle Times' report, gathered at the State Capitol in Olympia Saturday to collectively declare "I will not comply" with the recently passed Initiative 594. T...Read More

Corporate transparency … The openness revolution … As multinationals are forced to reveal more about themselves, where should the limits of transparency lie? … Howard Schulz, the head of Starbucks, said last year that "the currency of leadership is transparency." If so, bosses should be feeling ever more qualified to command their troops. Business is being forced to ope...Read More

Sadly, as a result of a new Spanish law, we'll shortly have to close Google News in Spain. Let me explain why. This new legislation requires every Spanish publication to charge services like Google News for showing even the smallest snippet from their publications, whether they want to or not. As Google News itself makes no money (we do not show any advertising on the site) this new approach i...Read More

Congressional leaders hammer out deal to allow pension plans to cut retiree benefits … The measure would alter 40 years of federal law and could affect millions of workers. A measure that would for the first time allow the benefits of current retirees to be severely cut is set to be attached to a massive spending bill, part of an effort to save some of the nation's most distressed pensio...Read More

Congress will block marijuana legalization in Washington, DC … Congress's massive appropriations bill will likely block a voter-approved marijuana legalization initiative in Washington, DC. The bill "prohibits both federal and local funds from being used to implement a referendum legalizing recreational marijuana use in the District," according to a summary from the House Appro...Read More

Greek turmoil and China worries spark market sell-off …The FTSE 100 suffered its second-heaviest fall this year, wiping £36bn off the value of the index … Political turmoil in Greece and worries about a violent swing in the Chinese stock market combined to spark a global sell-off in equities … In Greece, the ASE index tumbled 12.8pc, a plunge that was its worst one-day fall...Read More

To deter U.S. from torturing again, those involved should be prosecuted … The publication of the long-awaited summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA's torture provides a useful moment to consider the lessons learned from this sorry chapter in American history and the steps that might be taken to avoid its recurrence. With the truth now told about this blatantly il...Read More

The status of economists … The power of self-belief … A new paper looks at how economists became so influential … "If economists could manage to get themselves thought of as humble, competent people, on a level with dentists, that would be splendid!" said John Maynard Keynes, a British economist. Despite their collective failure to predict the financial crisis, let alon...Read More

Pew: 75% 'better informed' because of Internet news sites, don't feel 'overloaded' … The Internet is revolutionizing news consumption, with more than seven in 10 telling Pew Research Center that they are better informed than they were five years ago because of the news websites they visit daily. In Pew's latest survey of Internet use, 75 percent said they are "be...Read More

Is Europe Too Rigid to Survive? … The European Union is suffering from a democracy problem: Too many Europeans feel that integration is being forced upon them. What's worse, they may be right … New research from a group of economists – Luigi Guiso, Paola Sapienza and Luigi Zingales – paints a grim picture of the European project from the perspective of its participants....Read More

Arkansas governor pardons own son for a pot offense. He should pardon a lot more people … Mike Beebe, the Arkansas Democrat whose term as governor is expiring early next year, has formally announced that he plans to pardon his own son for a 2003 marijuana conviction. The plan was first reported last month by local media. It's perfectly reasonable to believe that dealing marijuana –...Read More

Draghi says will not allow dissenters to block possible ECB action … European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi addresses an ECB news conference December 4, 2014, for the first time in the ECB's new 1.3 billion euro headquarters in Frankfurt … The European Central Bank will decide early next year whether to take further action to revive the euro zone's economy, its pres...Read More