A strain of bird flu that scientists thought could not infect people has shown up in a Taiwanese woman, a nasty surprise that shows scientists must do more to spot worrisome flu strains before they ignite a global outbreak, doctors say. On a more hopeful front, two pharmaceuticals separately reported encouraging results from human tests of a possible vaccine against a different type of bird flu th...Read More

Bank of England says the UK recovery has taken hold … Mark Carney: "For the first time in a long time, you do not have to be an optimist to see the glass is half full" … Bank of England governor Mark Carney says the UK recovery has "taken hold" and unemployment will fall sooner than it had forecast. The comments came in the Bank's latest quarterly inflation repo...Read More

A Bitcoin Exchange Holding $4.1 Million For 1,000 Customers Has Simply Vanished … A Chinese Bitcoin exchange that held up to $4.1 million in users' accounts has gone offline and everyone involved with it has vanished, according to CoinDesk. – Business InsiderDominant Social Theme: Bitcoin is a suspicious kind of money.Free-Market Analysis: We've written several articles somewha...Read More

Bank of England says the UK recovery has taken hold … Mark Carney: "For the first time in a long time, you do not have to be an optimist to see the glass is half full" … Bank of England governor Mark Carney says the UK recovery has "taken hold" and unemployment will fall sooner than it had forecast. The comments came in the Bank's latest quarterly inflation repo...Read More

A Bitcoin Exchange Holding $4.1 Million For 1,000 Customers Has Simply Vanished … A Chinese Bitcoin exchange that held up to $4.1 million in users' accounts has gone offline and everyone involved with it has vanished, according to CoinDesk. – Business InsiderDominant Social Theme: Bitcoin is a suspicious kind of money.Free-Market Analysis: We've written several articles somewha...Read More

The next big financial crisis is already on its way.Read More

The silver market is tiny. About 700 million oz. of silver are mined each year worldwide. About 200 million oz. recycled. About 100 million oz. from "other" sources, like governments. That's the supply side. At $20/oz., this is a $20 billion annual market. On the demand side, most all or more of the silver that is mined each year is consumed and used up by industry. Only 100 million...Read More

The secret, dirty cost of Obama's green power push … The hills of southern Iowa bear the scars of America's push for green energy: The brown gashes where rain has washed away the soil. The polluted streams that dump fertilizer into the water supply. Even the cemetery that disappeared like an apparition into a cornfield. It wasn't supposed to be this way. With the Iowa political c...Read More

Typhoon Haiyan 'the result of climate change' … The Philippines delegate at the UN Climate Change talks that began on Monday has blamed Typhoon Haiyan on climate change, and urged sceptics to 'get off their ivory towers'. Naderev "Yeb" Sano, representative for the Philippines at the UN Climate Change talks, broke down in tears as he addressed delegates in Warsaw. Mr...Read More

The secret, dirty cost of Obama's green power push … The hills of southern Iowa bear the scars of America's push for green energy: The brown gashes where rain has washed away the soil. The polluted streams that dump fertilizer into the water supply. Even the cemetery that disappeared like an apparition into a cornfield. It wasn't supposed to be this way. With the Iowa political c...Read More

Typhoon Haiyan 'the result of climate change' … The Philippines delegate at the UN Climate Change talks that began on Monday has blamed Typhoon Haiyan on climate change, and urged sceptics to 'get off their ivory towers'. Naderev "Yeb" Sano, representative for the Philippines at the UN Climate Change talks, broke down in tears as he addressed delegates in Warsaw. Mr...Read More

Reports of the survival of the eurozone may have been greatly exaggerated … Last week's surprise interest rate cut by the European Central Bank (ECB) may have been taken as good news by the markets, but it was largely a response to the looming danger of deflation in the eurozone. And that is not good news at all. It is a severe problem of economic forecasting that if you manage to identi...Read More

The lessons from Obamacare's flawed Web launch … As the president has recognized, the failure of his administration to deliver a functioning website that Americans can use to enroll in Obamacare represents an inexcusable error. Having succeeded after more than a century of failed efforts in achieving the progressive dream goal of legislating universal health insurance in America, it is t...Read More

Reports of the survival of the eurozone may have been greatly exaggerated … Last week's surprise interest rate cut by the European Central Bank (ECB) may have been taken as good news by the markets, but it was largely a response to the looming danger of deflation in the eurozone. And that is not good news at all. It is a severe problem of economic forecasting that if you manage to identi...Read More

The lessons from Obamacare's flawed Web launch … As the president has recognized, the failure of his administration to deliver a functioning website that Americans can use to enroll in Obamacare represents an inexcusable error. Having succeeded after more than a century of failed efforts in achieving the progressive dream goal of legislating universal health insurance in America, it is t...Read More

Investor's Digest of Canada, MPL Communications Inc.133 Richmond St.W., Toronto, ON, M5H 3M8. 1-800-804-8846 - Edited from an article by Keith Richards By this time, you already know America isn't going to go over the fiscal cliff - at least not yet. Just as this paper was going to press, Congress and President Obama succeeded in bringing an end to the stand off that had threatened to shut dow...Read More

Colombia's top-coal-producer Cerrejon on Monday said its output targets for this calendar year will likely be missed.Cerrejon, a joint venture between Anglo American, BHP Billiton and Glencore Xstrata, production target for 2013 was 34 million tonnes, but a month-long strike and multiple bombings of its railway infrastructure including two in the space of ten days last month, are making that diffi...Read More

Bernanke Says Failing Bank Process Needed to Reduce Crises … Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said a process under development that would allow regulators to take down a failing bank will help ensure investors discipline weak firms and prevent them from taking risks without consequence. "As we try to make the financial system safer, we must inevitably confront the problem of mor...Read More

Paranoia Has Undermined United States Claim to Liberal Democracy … Agent Carrie Mathison is a topical figure. The main character in the American TV series "Homeland," played by the wonderful Claire Danes, shows her true relevance in the first few episodes, in which Mathison is nervously sitting at home, observing and listening in on the life of a terror suspect on a large screen. H...Read More

Bernanke Says Failing Bank Process Needed to Reduce Crises … Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said a process under development that would allow regulators to take down a failing bank will help ensure investors discipline weak firms and prevent them from taking risks without consequence. "As we try to make the financial system safer, we must inevitably confront the problem of mor...Read More