Rouhani Blames the West for Rise of Islamic State, Demands Apology … Iranian president Hassan Rouhani, whom the Obama administration has considered enlisting in the fight against the Islamic State, blamed the growing threat of the jihadist group on the West's involvement in the Middle East. – National ReviewDominant Social Theme: Those crazy Iranians are at it again. Who believes t...Read More

Japan's Debt Trap … Japan's government has a lot of debt. Not as much as people think — since much of that debt is owed by one branch of the government to another, net debt held by the public is only 134 percent of gross domestic product, not the widely quoted figure of 240 percent. But 134 percent is still a lot. About 15.6 percent of Japanese tax revenue goes to pay interest...Read More

Cannabis Cash: How Much Money Could Your State Make From Marijuana Legalization? … On Nov. 4, citizens in Alaska, Florida, Oregon and Washington, D.C., will cast their ballots on marijuana initiatives, and other states are also likely to consider legalization in upcoming elections. Colorado, the first state to allow the sale of recreational marijuana, is expected to take in $60 million to $7...Read More

Germany's energy policy is expensive, harmful and short-sighted … Berlin is failing the poor while protecting neither security nor the climate. – Financial TimesDominant Social Theme: This global warming is a problem and only Green solutions can cure it.Free-Market Analysis: There are two parts to this analysis. In the first part, we'll take a look at what's going on in Ger...Read More

SEC Announces Largest Reward Ever … An anonymous tipster living abroad will be receiving $30 million, in the largest whistleblower award ever doled out by U.S. securities regulators as part of a program that aims to incentivize insiders to report wrongdoing. – ReutersDominant Social Theme: In taking criminals off the street, almost any tactic is justified and even righteous.Free-Market...Read More

Nikkei Crash a Risk Seen by Posen If Abe Blinks on Tax … [Economist Adam Posen] warns that the foreign love affair with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's economic program may be in jeopardy. Posen's fear, outlined in an interview in his office last week, is that Abe reneges on a plan to raise Japan's consumption tax to 10 percent, from the 8 percent level it was boosted to in April. If...Read More

Stoners get high on love with marijuana dating sites … Dinner and a movie make for a typical date night but dinner followed by a joint could raise some eyebrows or be a turn-off despite increasing acceptance of marijuana use across the United States. So now, tuned-in stoners and users of medical pot are turning on to dating websites that cater exclusively to tokers or, at the very least, the...Read More

Global deal on growth as G20 agrees to add 1.8pc to economic output … A GLOBAL deal on growth appears on track to create millions of jobs after the world's most powerful finance ministers announced plans to add at least 1.8 per cent to their combined economic output. The G20 finance summit has ended in Cairns with a renewed commitment to a growth target that is meant to add $2 trillion t...Read More

Suspicions Run Deep in Iraq That C.I.A. and the Islamic State Are United … The United States has conducted an escalating campaign of deadly airstrikes against the extremists of the Islamic State for more than a month. But that appears to have done little to tamp down the conspiracy theories still circulating from the streets of Baghdad to the highest levels of Iraqi government that the C.I.A...Read More

Fed and TWTR Overvaluation, Evidence of Looming Market Crash … The Federal Reserve Wednesday reassured investors that it will hold interest rates near zero for a "considerable time" after it ends the bond-buying program known as quantitative easing in October. In response, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (,DJI) closed at a new record high. Former Director of the Office of Manageme...Read More

Kim Dotcom, Online Renegade, Shakes Up New Zealand Election … It was not an ordinary political rally, but it has been anything but an ordinary election. The hundreds of people who packed Auckland Town Hall on a recent evening were regaled by speeches by Glenn Greenwald, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist; Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder; and Edward J. Snowden, the former National Secu...Read More

Federal Reserve Catch of the Day: Obama's Damaging Neglect of the Fed …The Catch goes to Matt Yglesias, who writes today about "the biggest mistake of Obama's presidency: the systematic neglect of the Federal Reserve and of his ability to influence its course of action." Yglesias notes that two Fed seats remain vacant and without nominees. He gives the sorry history of disr...Read More

Alone, Scotland will go back to being a failed state … Yes supporters are hoping Scotland will become a Scandinavian paradise. But with its history of bitter internal divisions, it is likely to go the opposite way. The Union was a success partly because it sublimated the bitter Scottish divisions in a larger United Kingdom. – UK TelegraphDominant Social Theme: What a disaster. The worl...Read More

Competition Is for Losers … If you want to create and capture lasting value, look to build a monopoly, writes Peter Thiel … Only one thing can allow a business to transcend the daily brute struggle for survival: monopoly profits. What valuable company is nobody building? This question is harder than it looks, because your company could create a lot of value without becoming very valuab...Read More

The US is now involved in 134 wars or none, depending on your definition of war …The White House spent much of last week trying to figure out if the word "war" was the right one to describe its military actions against the Islamic State. US Secretary of State John Kerry was at first reluctant: "We're engaged in a major counterterrorism operation," he told CBS News on...Read More

It was the time of unraveling. Long afterward, in the ruins, people asked: How could it happen? It was a time of beheadings. With a left-handed sawing motion, against a desert backdrop, in bright sunlight, a Muslim with a British accent cut off the heads of two American journalists and a British aid worker. The jihadi seemed comfortable in his work, unhurried. His victims were broken. Terror is th...Read More

Only a monetary 'nuclear bomb' can save Italy now, says Mediobanca …The OECD has drastically cut its growth forecast for Italy. The depression will drag on though most of 2015. The economy will contract by 0.4pc this year. It will remain stuck in the doldrums next year with growth of just 0.1pc. If so, Italy's public debt will spiral to dangerous levels next year, ever further be...Read More

Europe's Weak Because It's Uncompetitive … In the long-running debate over Europe's feeble economic recovery, monetary policy has taken center stage as if printing money to spur demand can solve Europe's troubles. According to two newly released competitiveness reports, the real problem lies elsewhere: labor costs, which have been growing faster than productivity, and underin...Read More

Warren Buffett's company subsidiary is marketing pot-growing spaces … Talk about savvy marketing. Cubic Designs Inc., a subsidiary of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc., has sent hundreds of fliers to weed dispensaries in Colorado, Washington, and California. "Double your growing space," one flier reads in capital letters, while another page adds, "Grow your prof...Read More

Fragmentation fashion across Europe means German hegemony, if we're lucky … The German people so far remain a bastion of rationalism, holding together as others tear themselves apart. Europe is disintegrating. Two large and ancient kingdoms are near the point of rupture as Spain follows Britain into constitutional crisis, joined like Siamese twins. – TelegraphDominant Social Theme:...Read More