Three trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income … The digitization of our economy will bring with it a new generation of radical economic ideologies, of which Bitcoin is arguably the ?rst. For those with assets, technological savvy, and a sense of adventure, the state is the enemy and a cryptographic currency is the solution. But for those more focused on the decline o...Read More

This is What Budget Cuts Have Done to Detroit … And It's Freaking Awesome … Leaving aside the details on whether the U.S. budget is actually shrinking, one needs to look no further than the city of Detroit to find the spontaneous order, civic cooperation, and peaceful market forces that take over when government simply isn't around. – policymix.comDominant Social Theme: A...Read More

Fed mulls adjusting its tune to quell jittery markets … Federal Reserve officials are considering moving the goal posts on U.S. monetary policy with a promise to keep interest rates low for longer in the hopes of heading off a troubling rise in markets borrowing costs. Top Fed officials, who have pulled out all the stops to boost the U.S. recovery from recession, have worried for months that...Read More

The wheels are coming off the whole of southern Europe … Europe's debt-crisis strategy is near collapse. The long-awaited recovery has failed to take wing. Debt ratios across southern Europe are rising at an accelerating extreme austerity is breaking down in almost every EMU crisis state. And now the US Federal Reserve has inflicted a full-blown credit shock for good measure. A leaked re...Read More

Edward Snowden and the disaster of privatization … In May, computer analyst Edward Snowden flew to China, handed over volumes of National Security Agency surveillance data to a reporter, and launched a heated national conversation about our nation's surveillance state. Underscoring that conversation was the fact that Snowden was a private contractor, given access to a vast store of infor...Read More

Hedge Funds Are for Suckers … At the height of the financial crisis in 2008, a group of famous hedge fund managers was made to stand before Congress like thieves in a stockade and defend their existence to an angry public. The gilded five included George Soros, co-founder of the Quantum Fund; James Simons of Renaissance Technologies; John Paulson of Paulson & Co.; Philip Falcone of Harb...Read More

Elizabeth Warren Introduces 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act … At today's Senate Banking Committee hearing, Elizabeth Warren introduced the 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act of 2013, co-sponsored by Senators McCain, Cantwell, and King. This new bill mirrors the original 1933 Glass-Steagall Act, which separated traditional banking activity (like checking and lending) from the riskier activit...Read More

The Derp and Fall of Inflation Fearmongers … Eventually even charlatans, cranks, and economists notice when the world isn't cooperating with their grand pronouncements. Eventually reality wins. And after four years of making relentlessly wrong predictions about the second coming of Weimar, that eventually has come now for the inflation chicken littles. At least a little. Back in March 20...Read More

IMF cuts world growth forecast again … The International Monetary Fund cut its forecast for world economic growth for a third time this year due to slowing emerging markets and a prolonged recession in the eurozone. In an update to its World Economic Outlook, the IMF said Tuesday that it now expects world output to expand by just 3.1% in 2013, down from 3.3% in April. In January, it was fore...Read More

Technology and the American Summer Insurrection of 2013 Sanford, FL—Okay I said it. I just don't see this any other way. I really hope I'm somehow wrong. Unfortunately, history supports all of my fears. What's past is prologue, always. Our nation has never been so racially divided or hypersensitive. The George Zimmerman prosecution has not been able to deliver to the jury the ven...Read More

Historically, Egypt's revolution is more of the same … The history of revolutions tells us one sad fact: Egypt is in for a long period of violence, chaos and upheaval before it even begins to enter into the Promised Land of democracy. Many Western politicians and commentators expressed surprise and even alarm over Egypt's revolution, as the military ousted President Mohamed Mursi fro...Read More

A new era of central banking and the next crisis … The new Bank of England governor Mark Carney has probably just about settled into his office in his first week at the helm of the Bank of England. He's taking over at a time when there is a big change in the Bank's remit to control credit as well as consumer prices. It's the end of targeting just inflation for central banks. But,...Read More

Consumer debt is soaring. That's good news (for now). …This particular data series is jumpy, and there are broader and more reliable measures of consumer debt (particularly those that include mortgages), such as these quarterly numbers prepared by the New York Fed. But even if the May consumer credit numbers overstate the pace at which Americans are escalating their borrowing, it fits wi...Read More

Lots of Conservative Party members prefer Ukip's policies … A study into who might change allegiance – and why – makes uncomfortable reading for the Conservative leader David Cameron. Nigel Farage represents something of a fatal attraction for a significant number of traditionally Tory voters. Polls conducted in the run-up to Ukip's local election surge suggested that som...Read More

Mad Latvia defies its own people to join the euro … EU finance ministers have just given the go-ahead for Latvia to join the euro in January 2014. No matter that the latest SKDS poll shows that only 22pc of Latvians support this foolish step, and 53pc are opposed. This is a very odd situation. The elites are pushing ahead with a decision of profound implications, knowing that the nation is n...Read More

China and America's related, but inverse, dilemmas… As protests sweep the developing world and Europe struggles through an austerity hangover, China and the U.S., relative to their peers, look like the best in class. They are both comfortable with their modest growth rates (compared to their norms of the past decade), and insulated from the kind of social unrest we are seeing in Egypt, T...Read More

Gold set to shine again in recovery from worst quarterly drop in 113 years … Could there be a ray of light in sight for the goldbugs? Those with a bullish view on the metal have certainly had that faith challenged in recent months. Gold posted its worst quarterly performance in more than a century for the three months to the end of July, analysts at Macquarie calculate. Specifically, the met...Read More

Winds of change blowing through UK energy as world's biggest offshore wind farm opens. After the world's largest wind farm was opened in the Thames Estuary, its developer tells Emily Gosden why the naysayers are wrong. Benj Sykes is none too familiar with the red-throated diver. "I wouldn't know one if it sat on my head," he confesses. "I'm not a twitcher, I'm af...Read More

The new enemy of the planet … are humble tea bags really doing untold damage? … As the new Bank of England chief's wife attacks them, are humble tea bags really doing untold damage? Mark Carney's wife has criticised teabags as a waste of paper The UK is the second-largest tea market in the world, and Ireland is the first … Diana Carney, Mark Carney's wife, says teabag...Read More

'A Toxic System': Why Austerity Still Isn't Working in Greece … Despite drastic austerity measures, a new Greek debt haircut looks unavoidable. The old system has proven resistant to reform and billions in emergency aid hasn't been enough to turn things around. After making a lot of money manufacturing swimming pools, Stelios Stavridis has redirected his entrepreneurial talen...Read More