Fitch says China credit bubble unprecedented in modern world history … China's shadow banking system is out of control and under mounting stress as borrowers struggle to roll over short-term debts, Fitch Ratings has warned. Fitch warned that wealth products worth $2 trillion of lending are in reality a "hidden second balance sheet" for banks, allowing them to circumvent loan cu...Read More

China's Great Uprooting – Moving 250 Million Into Cities … Moving 250 Million Into Cities … China's government-driven effort to push the population to towns and cities is reshaping a nation that for millenniums has been defined by its rural life … China is pushing ahead with a sweeping plan to move 250 million rural residents into newly constructed towns and cities...Read More

NEW TIME POLL: Americans Believe Country Heading In Wrong Direction … A majority of Americans believe the country is heading in the wrong direction, according to a new TIME poll, with President Barack Obama's approval and disapproval ratings essentially tied. Fifty-eight percent of those surveyed said the United States is on the wrong track, with only 33 percent saying it is heading in t...Read More

My creeping concern that the NSA leaker is not who he purports to be … I hate to do this but I feel obligated to share, as the story unfolds, my creeping concern that the NSA leaker is not who he purports to be, and that the motivations involved in the story may be more complex than they appear to be. This is in no way to detract from the great courage of Glenn Greenwald in reporting the sto...Read More

GALLUP: AMERICANS' CONFIDENCE IN CONGRESS AT LOWEST LEVEL EVER … Nine in 10 Americans say they have no confidence in Congress, ranking it last on a list of 16 institutions for the fourth straight year, Gallup said Thursday. The 10 percent confidence level is the lowest level registered for any institution since Gallup began this poll in 1973, Gallup said. – UPIDominant Social Theme...Read More

U.S. Agencies Said to Swap Data With Thousands of Firms … U.S. Intel Swapping Info to Thousands of Companies Thousands of technology, finance and manufacturing companies are working closely with U.S. national security agencies, providing sensitive information and in return receiving benefits that include access to classified intelligence, four people familiar with the process said. – B...Read More

This crisis has proved that capitalism works … The G8 protesters have little support – there's no public appetite to blame the free market … The bull market may be having a breather, but economies have proved remarkably resilient to the financial crisis … Demos are not what they used to be. Perhaps I shouldn't speak too soon, but so far the anti-G8 "Carnival ag...Read More

Shining the Light on a Culture of Tax Evasion … Tax evasion, particularly among the professional classes, has been an open secret in Greece for years. Such a foregone conclusion, in fact, that banks loaning to individuals find it necessary to estimate their clients' "true" incomes when determining how much money to lend them. Last year, in the midst of the country's financi...Read More

At 75, is Superman over the hill? … In 1938's first issue of "Action Comics," the world got its first glimpse of a superhero, and it was never the same again. Superman soon became an icon – not "just of truth, justice and the American way" – but a symbol of good for billions of people, through their childhood and beyond. Super-fans told CNN their stories o...Read More

Can you imagine life without the BBC? There's no escape from the BBC's influence – or the complacency that accompanies it … John Humphrys, the Today presenter, said life without the BBC would be 'unimaginable' … John Humphrys has invited Radio 4 listeners to imagine life without the BBC. They are to picture themselves sitting down to watch Countryfile or Holby Cit...Read More

Give Edward Snowden what he deserves … I depart America for two blissful weeks in Italy and return to find that my country has been transformed, rather rudely, into a totalitarian state on the order of Iran, possibly even North Korea. My telephone is directly plugged into something called PRISM. Big Brother hounds my email, even when I am only viewing the weather. Soon I shall be wearing a M...Read More

Markets suffer too much central bank attention … That restatement of Goodhart's Law is almost perfectly appropriate to today's financial markets. Bonds, stocks, currencies and commodities have all become treacherous terrain for investors. Charles Goodhart, a British economist, developed his law in 1975. He was worried about the central bank orthodoxy of the day, the belief that monet...Read More

The fact is markets had gone up too far and too fast … A number of different factors have combined to create the impression of a co-ordinated slide, but the causes of the various market wobbles are subtly different. The proximate trigger for the market slide was Ben Bernanke's appearance before a Congressional committee at which he hinted that the Fed's monetary largesse will not go...Read More

Italian showdown with Germany over euro looms closer … Italy's simmering revolt against Germany, austerity and its own ultra-European elites is coming to a head again, in a reminder that the deep clash of interests between the euro's north and south remains as bitter as ever … Silvio Berlusconi called for a showdown, or 'Braccio di Ferro', with northern powers before It...Read More

Is Edward Snowden's story unravelling? Why the Guardian's scoop is looking a bit dodgy … Questions are being raised about Snowden's background and motivations Now that the dust has settled after the Edward Snowden affair, it's time to ask some tough questions about The Guardian's scoop of the week. Snowden's story is that he dropped a $200,000 a year job and a (very a...Read More

Last week, media reports emerged that the US government is requiring vast amounts of data from Internet and phone companies via top secret surveillance programs. The revelations, which confirm many of our worst fears, raise serious questions about individual privacy protections, checks on government power and court orders impacting some of the most popular Web services. Today Mozilla is launching...Read More

NSA director to get a public grilling in the Senate … General Keith Alexander, commander of the U.S. Cyber Command, testifies before the House Armed Services Committee on September 23, 2010 on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. … As pressure mounts for the intelligence community to curb its surveillance activities or at least make them more transparent, a key National Security Agency off...Read More

Saving for retirement? We wish we hadn't bothered, say one in 10 … More than 10pc of people who are saving for retirement wish they hadn't bothered and one in five fears that it's a waste of money, research suggests. The past five years of economic and financial turmoil have left almost three quarters of retirement savers less confident in the ability of stock market investing to...Read More

The surveillance state is even bigger, and scarier, than we thought. And, as a result, it's time that we broke up the failed national security experiment known as the Department of Homeland Security. Returning to dozens of independent agencies will return internal checks-and-balances to within the Executive branch, and actually make us both safer and less likely to be the victims of government...Read More

David Cameron: We can't run away from Europe … Britain's "bloated welfare state" and "under-performing education system" are the key areas of national weakness – but the nation's membership of the European Union should be seen as a strength, the Prime Minister will say today. David Cameron will warn that the country faces a battle for its economic future...Read More