If You Give a State A Federal Reserve Bank (or two…)
What are the chances that both bank presidents—one as hawk, the other as d0ve—will...
Detroit: D is for Disaster
Those in Washington and elsewhere have little interest in drawing attention to the...
Congress Should Grow a Pair
I was thinking of the NSA scandal while jogging through Rome’s Park of the Aqueducts this morning. I guess it was that setting that made me think of our new computer-geek overlords as a virtual Praetorian Guard. Augustus...
Everything the IMF Wanted to Know About Financial Regulation
Does anybody have a clear vision of the desirable financial system of the future? This column has one. It gives simple answers to 12 simple questions panellists at a recent IMF conference failed to answer. I was honoured...
Where Exactly Do Central Banks Exit? And How?
Central banks on both sides of the Atlantic are pondering ways of unwinding their bloated balance sheets and easing out of extraordinary post-crisis monetary policy interventions. This column discusses the recent Geneva Conference...
Meet your New Landlord – Wall Street
At the risk of shooting fish in a barrel, I’m going to offer some thoughts on investment in single-family real estate, particularly the recent rush into the sector by Wall Street. I’ve spent some time consulting for companies...
Youtube Mobile vs. Youtube on your TV
In an interview with GigaOm a Youtube spokesperson said that 40pct of Youtube videos are coming from Mobile devices. That is incredibly interesting to me. Why? Because it means that Youtube has done a great job of training...
Could There (Finally) Be a Backlash Against Domestic Surveillance?
There has been a lot of conversation about Glenn Greenwald’s story showing that National Security Agency is regularly collecting information about millions of phone calls from Verizon (NYSE:VZ). Marc Ambinder provides...
China-EU Solar Panel Trade Dispute: Rhetoric Versus Reality
This week, the European Commission will almost certainly impose substantial interim tariffs on solar panels that it believes Chinese firms are dumping in the EU. This column explores the recent history of this case, including...
Is the Euro a Foreign Currency to Member States?
Spain and Britain have similar debt problems. So why does Spain face far higher sovereign-interest rates? Is this because Eurozone membership makes national economies vulnerable to self-fulfilling debt crises? This column...







