U.S. broadcast TV ratings slide pressures ad rates at 'upfronts' … The increased competition will force ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC to settle for their lowest average rate hikes in three years during the "upfront" selling season, Wall Street analysts say. During the upfronts, networks preview shows for their fall schedules, trying to persuade advertisers to buy billions of dollar...Read More

Gold Gets Gutted: Here's Why … Gold's been stuck in a pretty tight range, and it's losing ground … Gold dropped three percent Friday, suffering the worst decline of any widely followed commodity as it plunged to a two-week low. Many experts blamed the weakness on the U.S. dollar. The Dollar Index, which compares the dollar to a basket of foreign currencies, has risen nearly...Read More

Thinking Utopian: How about a universal basic income? … In light of the recent Oregon Medicaid study, several people have discussed the idea of taking parts of the social insurance system and replacing them with cash benefits. This naturally brings up the debate about whether it should be a policy goal for the United States to adopt a universal basic income (UBI). These poverty-level targete...Read More

Spain is officially insolvent: get your money out while you still can … I'd not noticed this until someone drew my attention to it, but the latest IMF Fiscal Monitor, published last month, comes about as close to declaring Spain insolvent as you are ever likely to see in official analysis of this sort. Of course, it doesn't actually say this outright. The IMF is far too diplomatic fo...Read More

Gold: 3 Essential Facts For Your Future …When any market crashes, it's a shock. For a real nose dive it normally takes something unexpected and dramatic to kick it off. If people had any idea of the reason or that it was coming then the fall would start early and be more shallow. Gold is misunderstood and it is viewed as "the mad metal", so here are three things to remember whe...Read More

The United States warned Japan on Friday to stick to the rules when it came to the value 6:07am EDT of its currency, setting the stage for a potentially uncomfortable meeting of G7 finance ministers outside London. There has been concern among policymakers that Japan is engineering an export-led recovery that could hinder other regions' ability to grow. – ReutersDominant Social Theme: Th...Read More

Stock Markets Rise, but Half of Americans Don't Benefit … Dollars to doughnuts. The stock market has been doing well, reaching new nominal highs in recent weeks. Economists have been arguing that such equity gains make people feel richer, which might encourage consumers to pick up their spending despite their stagnant wages and recent tax increases. One possible problem with this hopeful...Read More

In Mexico, if you read between the lines, there is something … that gets little mention … Héctor Aguilar Camín, an expert on the bilateral relationship, says the two countries are beginning to address on their own account two issues that were deliberately left out of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) almost 20 years ago because at the time they were consider...Read More

Welcome to the contradictory-seeming economics of the nation's fast-changing marijuana laws. Eighteen states and the District of Columbia have now rebelled against the federal government to legalize marijuana, either for medical use or for fun. – WYNC NewsDominant Social Theme: Cannabis, gateway to heroin!Free-Market Analysis: Something important is stirring in the United States that cou...Read More

Kim Dotcom and two lawyers, Robert Amsterdam and Ira P. Rothken, have published a white paper defending the Internet entrepreneur against a criminal prosecution issued by the United States government. The report says the copyright case against Megaupload, the previous file sharing service run by Kim Dotcom, is based on "highly dubious legal prinicples" and that it has been manipulated by...Read More

Headlines have been trumpeting the Indian Supreme Court's decision to deny a new patent for the cancer drug Gleevec as an attack on intellectual property rights and a win for patients in need of cheap drugs. Those headlines are misleading. What the ruling actually demonstrates is that India has set a high bar for determining what is "innovative." – ReutersDominant Social Theme:...Read More

Is Europe losing faith in the EU? Happy Europe Day! … If you don't know May 9 is Europe Day, then you find yourself in good company with a majority of Europeans. Even in the most buoyant time, this holiday – marking the Schumann Declaration, presented by French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman in 1950, that launched the European Coal and Steel Community – doesn't come with...Read More

Federal Europe will be 'a reality in a few years', says Jose Manuel Barroso … A fully fledged federal Europe may seem like "political science fiction" today but will soon become reality for all European Union countries whether inside or outside the euro, Jose Manuel Barroso has said. The president of the European Commission has fanned the flames of British debate over EU me...Read More

Buffett says economy on mend, bonds 'terrible' investment … Warren Buffett said the U.S. economy is gradually improving, but low interest rates have made bonds "terrible investments" while stocks remain "reasonably priced." Speaking on CNBC television on Monday, the chairman and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. said the economy is benefiting from an uptu...Read More

Italy came to brink before being saved by "King George" … Since an election in February that left no group with enough support to govern alone, one political disaster had followed another like a motorway pile-up, culminating in the failure of 1007 "grand electors" from parliament and the regions to elect a new president after four attempts. The political drama had implica...Read More

Global shares near 5-year high as central bank rally rolls … World shares hit their strongest in almost five years and Germany's Dax reached an all-time high on Tuesday …Global shares near 5-year high as central bank rally rolls on … ECB President Mario) Draghi that he'll do whatever it takes to push the euro zone economy forwards. Draghi's comments that the ECB could...Read More

Foul Weather Friends … The financial repression thesis (FRT) imagines a state of nature in which the market exists, but the state does not. This view implies that the market is natural and the state artificial. But if this is the case, any action by the state in the financial markets falls under the expansive definition of financial repression. – JacobinDominant Social Theme: There are...Read More

Following Europe's lead on the basic income for all … Folks in Europe are currently campaigning for a basic income, which would provide a livable income directly to everyone as a human right, paid for by taxing the rich, financial transactions, carbon pollution etc. and eliminating old fashioned, expensive welfare programs … – Daily KosDominant Social Theme: Major Douglas'...Read More

The Oil and Gold Booms Are Over …The wreckage caused by China's great, juddering slowdown continues to spread far beyond the country's shores. Although most commodities enjoyed a bounce on May 3, after better-than-expected U.S. employment data, the plunge in their prices over the past few months suggests the past decade's rally is truly broken. For those of us not in the mining i...Read More

German euro founder calls for 'catastrophic' currency to be broken up … Oskar Lafontaine, the German finance minister who launched the euro, has called for a break-up of the single currency to let southern Europe recover, warning that the current course is "leading to disaster". Mr Lafontaine said on the parliamentary website of Germany's Left Party that Chancellor Ange...Read More