Here's the big news from Tuesday's election: Faced with gridlock in Washington, more and more voters are turning to states and municipalities to do the work that the nation's capital seems increasingly unable to do. – Michael Bloomberg/Bloomberg editorialDominant Social Theme: This election shows us how deeply the American people are involved in their political system. More than...Read More

The day after: Obama, GOP in new political dynamic … A weakened President Barack Obama and emboldened Republican leaders in Congress began adjusting to a new political dynamic Wednesday after voters coast to coast used the midterm elections to sharpen the dividing lines in an already divided government … The election results were resounding: The GOP won control of the Senate and streng...Read More

Fed's Fisher Tells Congress Don't Mess With Central Bank … Senate Republicans should resist the temptation to erode Federal Reserve independence after victory in mid-term elections, Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher said. "Think about this: Here's a Congress that can't even get its own budget together. Do you want them running the central bank?" Fisher, a former d...Read More

GOP Senate Takeover Would Put Fed Under Microscope … A Republican takeover of the U.S. Senate on Election Day would promise increased political turbulence for the Federal Reserve. Financial executives say a GOP-led Senate would ratchet up congressional scrutiny of the central bank's interest- rate policies as well as its regulatory duties as overseer of the nation's largest financial...Read More

Judge Could Smash Marijuana Law… A judge in California is examining the legality of America's marijuana laws; she may be on the verge of throwing the entire system into chaos … Three states, one district, and two cities will vote on various aspects of the nation's drug laws on Tuesday but the most crucial marijuana decision being weighed in the coming days will be made by just...Read More

History will surely see QE as a major mistake … QE has boosted equity prices, while hammering ordinary savers and pensioners while handing a massive wealth transfer to bailed-out banks. The world's most important central bank has fired $3,700bn from its monetary bazooka … "The final word on quantitative easing will have to wait for historians," wrote Ambrose Evans-Pritcha...Read More

Capitalism through the ages … A grand tour … Experts look back at the economic system that dominates the Western world … The editors define capitalist systems as having secure contracts, property rights and markets with flexible prices, and surviving long enough to make big investments worthwhile. The story of such systems begins early. Through most of pre-industrial history Malt...Read More

Half a Century of Evidence to Fear the Fed … The hottest game in financial markets is trying to guess when the Federal Reserve will finally raise its benchmark interest rate. Fed officials have said that their main concern is over how much slack, or spare capacity, exists in the economy, because workers will become emboldened to ask for higher wages – and employers will come under pres...Read More

Probe of FBI agent leads to release of convicted drug dealers from prison … An investigation into possible misconduct by an FBI agent has forced authorities to quietly release at least a dozen convicts serving prison sentences for distributing drugs in the District and its suburbs, according to law enforcement officials, court documents and defense attorneys. – Washington PostDominant...Read More

China Is Very, Very, Very, Very Big … Larry Summers and Lant Pritchett have written a paper predicting a Chinese growth slowdown. In 2013, Barry Eichengreen, Donghyun Park, and Kwanho Shin wrote a paper with much the same message, which accurately predicted the recent Chinese slowdown from about 10 percent annual growth to about7.5 percent. In fact, the most basic model of economic growth, t...Read More

Gold Sharply Lower in Aftermath of Hawkish FOMC, Rallying Greenback; Silver Sinks to 4-Year Low … Gold prices ended the U.S. day session sharply lower and hit a three-week low Thursday. Precious metals have been hit hard by a stronger U.S. dollar and a surprisingly hawkish Federal Reserve. Silver prices slumped to a four-year low Thursday. December Comex gold was last down $25.50 at $1,199.4...Read More

The Fed's $4 Trillion Bet … The U.S. Federal Reserve announced … that it will halt the bond-buying program known as quantitative easing — one of the biggest experiments in economic policy ever attempted. The policy was a gamble, and it's too soon to be sure of the results. Nonetheless, the Fed was right to take the risk. – BloombergDominant Social Theme: Another bol...Read More

Enough! Mexico Is Ready to Explode … Mexico has been profoundly shaken by atrocities and high-level corruption in Guerrero. The earthquake's epicenter is Iguala, the state's third largest city. Fifty thousand marchers thronged Mexico City's main avenues last Wednesday, and demonstrations took place all over the country. More than 80 delegates to the Inter-University Assembly have...Read More

Facebook third-quarter revenue rises 59 percent, shares down slightly … Facebook Inc's mobile ads powered the social network past Wall Street revenue targets in the third quarter, even as the company revealed deep losses in its recently acquired WhatsApp business. Shares of Facebook, which are roughly up 47 percent this year, were down less than one percent at $80.20 in extended trading...Read More

The NRA Comes Out in Support of Warrior Cops … The current issue of the National Rifle Association's American Warrior magazine just hit, and in it, the gun lobby comes out squarely in favor of warrior cops. An article titled, "If You Were a Cop, What Would You Drive?" opens with a photo of an armored personnel carrier-style vehicle juxtaposed with a Volkswagen van. Rick Stewart...Read More

The Fed has its critics, of course, and its unique constitutional dispensation is challenged from time to time, but its political independence is mostly seen as a good thing. Yet the idea of replicating that idea, and creating other permanent, semi-independent policy-making agencies, almost never comes up. There's a reason for that. It's hard to imagine that an independent fiscal agency, f...Read More

U.S.D.A. to Start Program to Support Local and Organic Farming … The organic food business in the United States reached $35 billion last year. The United States Department of Agriculture … will spend $52 million to support local and regional food systems like farmers' markets and food hubs and to spur research on organic farming. The local food movement has been one of the fastest...Read More

Europe's economic and political future will be determined in the next few days … Europe is at a make or break moment. Two very different events on Sunday, occurring at opposite ends of Europe, will largely determine the entire continent's direction for years ahead: the parliamentary election in Ukraine and the bank "stress tests" and Asset Quality Review conducted by the Eu...Read More

The marijuana industry could be bigger than the NFL by 2020 … A report out from Greenwave Advisors, a "comprehensive research and financial analysis for the emerging legalized marijuana industry," projects that legal cannabis could be an industry with revenues of $35 billion by 2020 if marijuana is legalized at the federal level. They note that this is a floor representing revenues...Read More

The Rise of Bitcoin Is It Real Money If It Doesn't Come From the Mint? … Bitcoins introduced a lot of people to the idea of computerized money. Now the digital currency, which set off a minor frenzy when it broke into public consciousness in 2013, is trying to grow up and turn into something useful. – BloombergDominant Social Theme: Bitcoin could be money, maybe … Anyway, it&...Read More