Fed policymakers cut growth forecast … The Federal Reserve sharply reduced its forecast for U.S. economic growth Wednesday but also predicted that the unemployment rate by year's end will be lower than it previously estimated. This year's growth forecast is now just above 2% — in line with the pace so far in the five-year-old recovery. Yet the falling jobless rate, combined wit...Read More

Why The World's Dumbest Idea Is (Finally) Dying … Bad ideas don't die just because they are bad. They hang around until a consensus forms around another idea that is better. This is what's happening now with a stupid idea has dominated American business for the last four decades: that the purpose of a firm is to maximize shareholder value. The massive problems that this notion ha...Read More

"Cluster Of Central Banks" Have Secretly Invested $29 Trillion In The Market … Another conspiracy "theory" becomes conspiracy "fact" as The FT reports "a cluster of central banking investors has become major players on world equity markets." The report, to be published this week by the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum (OMFIF), confirm...Read More

In an ongoing effort to bridge the gap between the GOP and minority voters, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) deviated from traditional party lines during a speech at the Iowa State Republican Party Convention Saturday, criticizing racist drug policies in the United States and calling for the restoration of voting rights for ex-convicts. – Huffington PostDominant Social Theme: Lock 'em up and throw...Read More

Investing: The Message of a $549,000 Watch … I have been hearing a lot about the spending habits of the 0.01 percent lately. Perhaps, a little bit too much. Don't worry, this isn't going to be a class-warfare rant or a treatise on living the simpler, less materialistic life. Rather, it is a suggestion to some folks that perhaps they might want to make some of their conspicuous consum...Read More

Has the Dept. of Homeland Security become America's standing army … If the United States is a police state, then the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is its national police force, with all the brutality, ineptitude and corruption such a role implies. In fact, although the DHS' governmental bureaucracy may at times appear to be inept and bungling, it is ruthlessly efficient when...Read More

IRS lost emails by official in tea party probe … The Internal Revenue Service said Friday it has lost a trove of emails to and from a central figure in the agency's tea party controversy, sparking outrage from congressional investigators who have been probing the agency for more than a year. The IRS told Congress Friday it cannot locate many of Lois Lerner's emails prior to 2011 beca...Read More

EU Eco Chief Threatens British Press Over Opposition to EU Energy Directives … The EU's energy commissioner has threatened politicians and journalists who campaign against his eco-policies, accusing them of stirring "anti-EU sentiment" and warning them that their opposition to his EU energy-savings directives will "not be taken lightly." Günther Oettinger, a Germ...Read More

The New Nihilism Threatens GOP's Growth …Cantor's defeat signals deep problems for a party being pushed further to the right by the antigovernment wing. Before nonagenarian Rep. Ralph Hall lost his seat in a Republican primary in Texas, no incumbent had been defeated in primaries this year, leading to the dominant press and pundit narrative: The Republican Empire Strikes Back. Oops....Read More

DEA obstructs research into medical marijuana: report … Study says agency should not be in charge of scheduling drugs or giving access to drugs for medical research … The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has maintained marijuana's classification as a harmful drug with no medical benefits despite scientific evidence to the contrary, a new report said, adding that the agency has...Read More

Japan to keep printing money for years to come, so learn to enjoy it … The Bank of Japan will have to mop up the entire issuance of public debt for years to come, covering the budget deficit with printed money … The Bank of Japan is still showering the economy with money, buying $75bn of bonds each month … There are no one-way bets in global finance, but Japan's stock market...Read More

What Does Cantor's Defeat Mean? Nobody Knows … Every political pundit in the country is, right now, writing about what House majority leader Eric Cantor's defeat in today's Republican primary means. But how sure can we be that we know what it means? Essentially none of the pundits, including me, had any inkling that he was going to lose — let alone lose, as he did, by a lar...Read More

The French are right: tear up public debt – most of it is illegitimate anyway … As history has shown, France is capable of the best and the worst, and often in short periods of time. On the day following Marine Le Pen's Front National victory in the European elections, however, France made a decisive contribution to the reinvention of a radical politics for the 21st century. On tha...Read More

Rising markets eating into demand for gold in India … Indian stock markets shine bright, gold's glitter fades in 2013 … Even though gold has gradually lost appeal among global investors since 2013 – amid a compounding consensus view that a decade-long bull run in the yellow metal may be over – a weaker rupee and restrictive import policies have ensured that, in India, t...Read More

Report: IRS Sent Database Containing Confidential Taxpayer Information to FBI … The Internal Revenue Service may have been caught violating federal tax law: In October 2010, the agency sent a database on 501(c)(4) social-welfare groups containing confidential taxpayer information to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to documents obtained by a House panel. The information was tra...Read More

World stock markets up near record high; low yields help Reuters … Global equity markets edged higher on Monday, boosting a gauge of world stock performance to near an all-time high, as low interest rates bolstered sentiment even as U.S. Treasury yields rose. Wall Street's Dow industrials and benchmark S&P 500 closed at all-time peaks, with the latter rising to its seventh record cl...Read More

'Do I have to go on my knees?': grovelling apology from IMF head for incorrect warnings on UK economy … Head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, accepts her organisation's low growth forecasts for the UK economy were wrong … Christine Lagarde has asked whether she needs to grovel on her knees before George Osborne over the IMF's incorrect warnings on...Read More

Why Should We Support the Idea of an Unconditional Basic Income? An answer to a growing question of the 21st century … What would you do? So what exactly would you do, if you were guaranteed $1,000 per month for the rest of your life? And yes, that's around what the amount would most likely be here in the United States, at least at first. So think about that amount for a moment, and don&...Read More

Record rise for stocks before employment report … U.S. stocks closed at record highs on Thursday, with both the Dow and the S&P 500 advancing further into uncharted territory, after the European Central Bank moved to combat disinflation and investors looked to Friday's employment report. "With the service sector quite strong, I think the jobs will surprise," said Peter Car...Read More

'Don't ask for privacy, Take it back': Anti-NSA #ResetTheNet campaign kicks off … Internet activists and rights groups have launched a massive online campaign against mass government surveillance, urging users and websites to use encryption. The campaign's inspiration – NSA whistleblower Snowden – has called to join ResetTheNet. … A year to the day since the...Read More