ECB warns of danger from Federal Reserve's policy shift US decision to scale back stimulus is a potential threat to euro zone economy, says European Central Bank … The ECB said the risks to the eurozone's financial system from outside the currency bloc had grown since May. – The Irish TimesDominant Social Theme: Central banks are not aligned. Chaos rises. A beast stalks Bethleh...Read More

Public-private partners at UN pledge to seek funding for sustainable energy for all … The United Nations and the World Bank today announced a concerted effort by governments, international agencies, civil society and the private sector to scale up efforts to provide sustainable energy to all, with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon calling for massive new investments in the face of a rising "...Read More

Richard Duncan: Fed Targeting 20,000 on the Dow … Richard Duncan—author, former specialist at the World Bank and consultant to the IMF—says the Federal Reserve plans to stimulate the stock market by 10-15% each year for the next two years. "My opinion is that credit growth will remain insufficient to drive economic growth and, therefore, the Fed is going to have to continue...Read More

NSA collected porn visits data to discredit Muslim 'radicalizers' … The National Security Agency has been collecting a mountain of dirt on the online sexual activity of individuals, all of them Muslims, whom the agency seeks to discredit due to their 'radicalizing' efforts. The expression 'all's fair in love and war' just took on a whole new meaning in the ongoing...Read More

Public-private partners at UN pledge to seek funding for sustainable energy for all … The United Nations and the World Bank today announced a concerted effort by governments, international agencies, civil society and the private sector to scale up efforts to provide sustainable energy to all, with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon calling for massive new investments in the face of a rising "...Read More

Bank of England ratesetters hit back at critics of forward guidance … Mark Carney and Spencer Dale defend flagship policy, and say the economic recovery would be at risk if the Bank had not indicated how long it would keep interest rates low … In a robust defence of forward guidance – which pledges not to consider raising rates from their record low of 0.5pc until the jobless rat...Read More

China-Japan rearmament is Keynesian stimulus, if it doesn't go horribly wrong … Asia is on the cusp of a full-blown arms race. The escalating clash between China and almost all its neighbours in the Pacific has reached a threshold. All other economic issues at this point are becoming secondary. Beijing's implicit threat to shoot down any aircraft that fails to adhere to its new air c...Read More

Stocks End Mixed; Nasdaq Misses 4000 … Stocks pared most of their intraday gains to end mixed, while the Nasdaq Composite Index breached 4000 for the first time in 13 years, but failed to sustain that level. The Dow Jones Industrial Average edged up 8 points, less than 0.1%, to 16073, a fresh record for blue chips. The stock index has closed at a record high 42 times this year. The S&P...Read More

Aborted EU Deal: Massive Protests Rock Ukraine After Pull-Back … In the wake of Ukraine's withdrawal from EU trade deal discussions, Kiev was rocked by the biggest protests since the Orange Revolution while the daughter of imprisoned former Ukrainian leader Yulia Tymoshenko pled for Germany's help. On Sunday, tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Kiev to protest the Ukra...Read More

Antitrust enforcement goes global … As one of the world's top cops on the antitrust beat, the U.S. has long led the fight to curtail price-fixing, collusion, and other anticompetitive behavior in global commerce. And the Justice Department's antitrust division has wielded an especially big club of late. In each of the past two years, criminal penalties in antitrust cases have exceede...Read More

Cord Cutters And The Death Of TV … The TV business is having its worst year ever. Audience ratings have collapsed: Aside from a brief respite during the Olympics, there has been only negative ratings growth on broadcast and cable TV since September 2011, according to Citi Research. Media stock analysts Craig Moffett and Michael Nathanson recently noted, "The pay-TV industry has reported...Read More

The strange convergence of Bernanke, Hayek and Bitcoin … Every time Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke opens his mouth, the markets move. But few could have guessed that in an offhand remark he would add legitimacy to the Bitcoin, the virtual currency that competes with the American dollar as a reserve currency and an international trading medium. Yet that is what he did when he held out...Read More

UN climate talks fall apart as 132 countries storm out … Poor countries pulled out of the United Nations climate talks during a fight over transferring wealth from richer countries to fight global warming. The G77 and China bloc led 132 poor countries in a walk out during talks about "loss and damage" compensation for the consequences of global warming that countries cannot adapt t...Read More

Fed Taper Likely in 'Coming Months' on Better Data … U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke speaks about Fed policy and the outlook for the federal funds rate. Bernanke, who spoke to economists yesterday in Washington, also discussed Fed policy communication. (Source: Bloomberg) Policy makers "generally expected that the data would prove consistent with the Committee'...Read More

Census 'faked' 2012 election jobs report … In the home stretch of the 2012 presidential campaign, from August to September, the unemployment rate fell sharply — raising eyebrows from Wall Street to Washington. The decline – from 8.1 percent in August to 7.8 percent in September – might not have been all it seemed. The numbers, according to a reliable source, were ma...Read More

Fed Ponders How to Temper Tapering Without Rate Increase … One of Janet Yellen's first challenges as Federal Reserve chairman will be figuring out how to cushion against a lurch in interest rates when she pares the pace of the central bank's bond buying. – BloombergDominant Social Theme: The Fed struggles with problems. Nonetheless, these are wise individuals, indeed.Free-Marke...Read More

David Cameron says evidence is 'growing' for climate change link to storms after Typhoon Haiyan … Evidence was growing that climate change was responsible for extreme weather disasters such as typhoon Haiyan, the Prime Minister said today … The Philippines government has blamed "climate madness" for the devastating super-storm that has killed more than 3,600 people an...Read More

Mr. Geithner will join the private equity firm Warburg Pincus. Geithner, who played a major role in the federal government's rescue of the financial system, has spent most of his career in the public sector. He'll serve as president and managing director of the company in his new job. "When they approached me, they clearly wanted me to play a substantive role in helping them manage th...Read More

Reding in Washington: EU Sends Tough Commissioner for NSA … EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding says data protection in Europe is 'non-negotiable.' … The EU is remaining firm with Washington over US spying, with officials in Brussels demanding better protection for Europeans. Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding is heading to Washington on Monday with a number of demands. Whe...Read More

S&P 500 Will Be at 2,000 Sooner Than You Think … Craig Johnson of Piper Jaffray has some bad news for the bears. The S&P 500 (,GSPC) is going to hit his long-time target of 2,000 and it's going to happen sooner than most people think. Johnson is well aware of the fact that a lot of the "smart money" is going to take the other side of his call. Five years into the bull...Read More