New Snowden Doc Reveals How GCHQ/NSA Use The Internet To 'Manipulate, Deceive And Destroy Reputations' … A few weeks ago, Glenn Greenwald, while working with NBC News, revealed some details of a GCHQ presentation concerning how the surveillance organization had a "dirty tricks" group known as JTRIG – the Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group. Now, over at The Inter...Read More

US stocks end off session highs; S&P 500 just below record close … U.S. stocks rallied on Monday, lifting the S&P 500 to a intraday record and briefly clearing its 2014 loss, as investors embraced activity on the M&A front and continued to disregard lackluster economic data as largely due to winter weather. Mergers and acquisitions came into play, with RF Micro Devices agreein...Read More

Profit From Global Warming or Get Left Behind … Still think human activity isn't changing the climate? Last month, I wrote about global warming in the context of investment opportunities. As part of that discussion, I mentioned McKenzie Funk's new book, "Windfall: The Booming Business of Global Warming." I thought framing the financial opportunities of this might bypass the...Read More

Why North America is stronger than its parts … Twenty years ago NAFTA, the most ambitious free trade agreement negotiation of its time, gave birth to a profound transformation of the economies and the regional value chains of Mexico, the United States and Canada. Trade dramatically changed the relationship between the three countries, though asymmetries of power and economic vitality persist...Read More

Al Gore brings climate change message to Kansas City … Former vice president Al Gore spoke about climate change Saturday during the Folk Alliance International conference at the Westin Crown Center hotel. But the former vice president, speaking Saturday in Kansas City, cited many more recent examples how heavy use of fossil fuels is contributing to extreme weather events and trends, in his v...Read More

How to make the world $600 billion poorer … Barack Obama's unwillingness to fight for free trade is an expensive mistake … In July 2008, Barack Obama, then a candidate for the presidency, declared before an adoring crowd in Berlin that "true partnership and true progress [require] constant work and sustained sacrifice." So it is with free trade. If not championed by leade...Read More

Liberals get help from pro-pot group … Following the lead of successful campaigns in several U.S. states, a new Canadian lobby group has a $7 million budget and a two-year plan to elect Members of Parliament who support the legalization of marijuana in Canada. Voters in Colorado and Washington State passed ballot initiatives that led to those states legalizing and regulating the recreational...Read More

I recently had the opportunity to meet with Jim Pattison, one of Canada's most powerful and influential business people. While sitting in his office overlooking Burrard Inlet and the mountains of Vancouver, Mr. Pattison asked me a most timely and intriguing question. "President Fox, I have read recently that you are in favour of the legalization of marijuana. Is that true? … With Ju...Read More

What exactly is an entrepreneur? … Entrepreneurs are everybody's favourite heroes. … In a new paper Magnus Henrekson and Tino Sanandaji argue that the number of self-made billionaires a country produces provides a much better measure of its entrepreneurial vigour than the number of small businesses. The authors studied Forbes's annual list of billionaires over the past 20 years...Read More

What America's leftward shift means for elections … With each new poll, it's becoming clear that the United States is shifting to the left. A majority of Americans now supports same-sex marriage. And legalization of marijuana. And normalization of relations with Cuba. Gallup reports that, in 2013, the percentage of Americans identifying themselves as liberals reached its highest leve...Read More

Obama Heads to Mexico … Amigos Meeting Strained by Keystone … Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's frustration with U.S. President Barack Obama's failure to approve the Keystone XL pipeline may make this installment of the North America summit, known as the "Three Amigos," the frostiest since the annual meetings began almost a decade ago. At the one-day meeting to...Read More

Despite stimulus, middle class still struggles … Five years ago Monday, President Barack Obama signed the signature economic proposal of his presidency, saying that the passage of the $787 billion economic stimulus package heralded the "the beginning of the end" of the Great Recession. The president told a Denver audience that he was "keeping the American Dream alive in our ti...Read More

EU Leaders Said to Delay Decision on 2030 Carbon Target … EU carbon prices rose as much as 3 percent to a 13-month high of 6.88 euros on the ICE Futures Europe exchange in London today, buoyed by the commission's plan to start temporary curbs on supply as soon as next month … Most governments in the 28-nation bloc need more time to reconcile differences over a proposal by the EU...Read More

Yellen looks toward a Keynesian approach … This has been a banner week for the world economy, inspired largely by events in the United States. In Washington, the first congressional testimony from Janet Yellen in her position as new Federal Reserve Board chairwoman reassured and impressed two notoriously petulant audiences: Tea Party congressmen, who had assembled a posse of hostile witnesse...Read More

Gold price signals China credit bubble bursting as investors seek safety … Uncertainty is growing over China's ability to sustain the rapid rates of economic growth it has seen over the past decade as investors urgently stock up on the precious metal as a form of financial protection against a sharp correction in the world's second largest economy. This is the main reason why gold pr...Read More

Please Hold Your Bernanke Applause … The plutocrats are heralding Ben S. Bernanke's eight years as Federal Reserve chairman. And with good reason. After all, Bernanke's two signature achievements – bailing out the bankrupt financial system and serving as the architect of the cheap-money policy known as quantitative easing – have done the very things the wealthy hoped they...Read More

The eurozone crisis is just getting started. The project to impose political union is bringing economic ruin, making the legitimacy of the EU project ever more vulnerable … In countries more obviously affected by the euro's financial crisis, disillusionment with the European project and its institutions is already extreme. Traditional centrist parties are finding it ever harder to hold t...Read More

Bank of England Inflation Report: no rate hike while recovery remains 'unsustainable and unbalanced' … Bank severs link between unemployment rate and an interest rate hike, and caveats bullish growth assessment with concerns that the recovery is currently unsustainable. Interest rates are unlikely to rise before 2015, the Bank of England signalled on Wednesday, as it warned the recov...Read More

More Americans should work abroad … On Thursday, House Speaker John Boehner told members of the press that though immigration is "an important issue in our country" (thanks for that, John), it will be difficult to move immigration legislation this year. According to Boehner, the chief stumbling block is that Republican lawmakers simply don't trust the Obama administration to im...Read More

Economy U.S. stocks rose, giving benchmark indexes the biggest four-day rally in more than a year, as comments by Federal Reserve Chairman Janet Yellen fueled bets the economy is strong enough to weather further stimulus cuts … "The market likes consistency and what we've heard this morning has been consistent with what we've heard for months," Steven Rees, head of U.S. equ...Read More