Authored by Andrey Schevchenko via CoinTelegraph.com, Tether is now supporting a gold-backed stablecoin, Tether Gold (XAU₮), according to a Jan. 23 press release. One token represents ownership of one troy fine ounce of physical gold, currently worth approximately $1,550. image courtesy of CoinTelegraph The new product is available as an ERC-20 token on the Ethereum blockchain, […]

A caravan of Central American migrants was stopped in its tracks last week by the Mexican National Guard, which arrested migrants as they crossed the river at the border town of Tecun Uman and hauled them off to a detention center in the nearby city of Tapachula. “I can see that these caravans are no […]

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) defended her plan to pay off college loans after being confronted by a father in Iowa in an exchange that went viral. Senator Elizabeth Warren is confronted by a father who worked double shifts to pay for his daughters education and wants to […]

Over the weekend, there were numerous media reports published in hopes of easing fears that the coronavirus spread was uncontained, and informing the general public just how seriously China takes its quarantine of no less than 17 cities and roughly 60 million people. Take this report from AFP, according to which Police at a roadblock […]

Italians in Emiglia Romagna and Calabria are heading to the polls on Sunday to vote in critical local elections that could dramatically shift the balance of power in the Italian government, and possibly trigger the collapse of a fragile ruling coalition already showing signs of strain. The candidate of the League-led center-right coalition is expected […]

Authored by Richard Mills via SafeHaven.com, Owning gold is a way to get out of this “debt trap”, but governments don’t want you to own gold, especially in Germany Germans, like Indians and Chinese, love their gold – although their reasons for buying and keeping bullion are somewhat different.  In China and India, gold jewelry […]

What are the best things to read to estimate what’s going to happen from here? In particular, what is the best way to think about how to make inferences, or not, from extrapolating current trends about case and death numbers? What is “what happens from here” going to be most sensitive to in terms of […]

By Jerri-Lynn Scofield, who has worked as a securities lawyer and a derivatives trader. She is currently writing a book about textile artisans. Recent years have not been kind to the island of Puerto Rico, nor to her people. First, Puerto Rico’s public finances were ravaged by vulture funds, leading to the imposition of extreme […]

Nancy Packes Inc., an online real estate data services covering the five boroughs of New York City and all residential transactions, reports that nearly half of all new condo units built after 2015 in Manhattan, or about 3,695 of 7,727 apartments, remain unsold. Despite trillions of dollars printed by global central banks and hundreds of […]

Summary: Over 2000 cases, 56 Official deaths Incubation is asymptomatic, contagious, and can be as long as 14 days 5M may have left Wuhan for Lunar New Year 1st case was Dec 1 NOT Dec 31 so infect pop may be much bigger US, Russia, Thailand begin plans for evacuation *  *  * Update (0950ET): […]

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk, The alleged masterful Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, failed his primary mission. Yet he’s still the EU’s negotiator. Barnier Flashback Revealing words from Michel Barnier in 2016, quoted in @LePoint. “I would have succeeded in my task if, in the end, the deal is so hard on the British that […]

Update (11:54 am EST.): Yesterday it was the U.S. and Russia arranging charter flights to evacuate their citizens from the epidemic-stricken Chinese city of Wuhan.  Now Thailand has four Lockheed C-130 Hercules transport planes on standby to airlift its citizens from the city as the coronavirus outbreak spreads uncontrollably, reported the Bangkok Post.   Royal Thai Air Force Chief […]

Today is the 70th anniversary of the Indian Republic. Happy Republic Day! It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! The Midair Collisions Menacing Air Travel Wired The Troubling Decline of International Law Craig Murray Why America’s Urban Dreams Went Wrong American Conservative. James Howard Kunstler’s review of a book by Alex Krieger on America’s cities. You […]

I enjoyed the Dracula mini-series on Netflix–it’s smart, stylish and a fresh take. Also, at just three episodes, it’s satisfying without requiring a huge time investment. Dracula has some pointed commentary on contemporary mores, including economics. After sleeping for a hundred years he finds himself in an ordinary home and speaks to the owner, Kathleen: […]

You’re always worried about going too far. Athlete, musician, writer, performer…you strive to be in the zone. When you’re not even thinking about the work, you’re just riding the wave of inspiration and then… It’s over. It’s not like working for the man. It’s not like business. The first rule of business is “get along.” […]

By Justin Mikulka, a freelance writer, audio and video producer living in Trumansburg, NY. Originally published at DeSmogBlog. On February 15, 2018, a fracked natural gas well owned by ExxonMobil’s XTO Energy and located in southeast Ohio experienced a well blowout, causing it to gush the potent greenhouse gas methane for nearly three weeks. The obscure accident ultimately resulted in one of the […]

That is the title of the paper, by Corrado Giuletti, Mirco Tonin, and Michael Vlassopoulos, the subtitle is “Stock market returns and fatal car accidents,” here is the abstract: This paper provides evidence that daily fluctuations in the stock market have important–and hitherto neglected–spillover effects on fatal car accidents. Using the universe of fatal car […]

Preferences for conflict and cooperation are systematically different for men and women. At each stage of the escalatory ladder, women prefer more peaceful options. They are less apt to approve of the use of force and the striking of hard bargains internationally, and more apt to approve of substantial concessions to preserve peace. They impose […]

Authored by Eric Margolis, Plagues from the east are nothing new… The Black Death and other epidemics arrived in Europe from China during the 1300’s, killing a large percentage of its population. Much of this pestilence came from rats that stowed away on merchant ships coming from the east. At the end of World War […]

About a decade ago, a powerful earthquake triggered a 15-meter tsunami that disabled the power supply and cooling of three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.  The accident led to nuclear cores of three reactors to meltdown, causing widespread radiation release, along with the evacuation of thousands of people within a 30-kilometer radius.  Tokyo Electric […]

Submitted by Great Game India Last year a mysterious shipment was caught smuggling Coronavirus from Canada. It was traced to Chinese agents working at a Canadian lab. Subsequent investigation by GreatGameIndia linked the agents to Chinese Biological Warfare Program from where the virus is suspected to have leaked causing the Wuhan Coronavirus outbreak. Coronavirus Bioweapon – […]

Credit-card lenders are calling it the ‘Golden Age of Plastic’. But that’s mostly because they’re the ones hoarding all the gold. Gloom-and-doom economists who have portended the imminent collapse of the American consumer (we don’t want to name names) might have a reason to put off their calls for a downturn of epic proportions just […]

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News, The Chinese government forced the host of a TV show which popularized eating bats to apologize in the aftermath of the coronavirus outbreak, which scientists have linked to the consumption of wild animals. Bat soup is a delicacy in some areas of China and was known to be […]

As the world’s cortisol and stomach acid levels rise every hour in parallel with the number of officially reported Coronavirus infections (and deaths), which as of Saturday morning was roughly 1,400… Source: Johns Hopkins GIS and Data. … the world has an unpleasant flashback to 2003 when for weeks Beijing would lie and hide the […]

The Associated Press reports a staggering surge of US troops into the Middle East since last Spring: “Over the past eight months, the United States has poured more than 20,000 additional troops into the Middle East to counter the escalating threat from Iran that peaked with the recent missile attack on American forces in Iraq.” This despite President Trump’s […]

Via PeakProsperity.com, OK, there’s a LOT of uncertainty and confusing/conflicting information currently circulating right now about the new coronavirus outbreak that has suddenly erupted out of Wuhan, China. What’s really going on? What exactly is the ‘coronavirus’? And most important: How worried do we need to be? Given the poor communication so far by government health […]

A story and “justification” so absurd and absolutely bonkers that we sincerely wish this was The Onion and not from the oldest college daily newspaper in the United States and at one of the nation’s most elite Ivy League schools:  Yale will stop teaching a storied introductory survey course in art history, citing the impossibility of […]

Authored by Daniel Lazare via AntiWar.com, All the usual suspects are praising Adam Schiff’s marathon two-and-a-half-hour Senate speech on Wednesday to the skies. Neocon columnist Jennifer Rubin calls it “a grand slam” in the Washington Post. Legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin describes it as “dazzling” on CNN.  Hillary Clinton: “Every American should watch this” John Legend: “This is brilliantly argued […]

A week to go until the Iowa caucuses, and a new Times-Siena poll published Saturaday shows Bernie Sanders opening up a sizeable lead, with Biden dropping to third under Buttigieg. Sanders is now 7-points ahead of the closest Democrat contender in Iowa, which marks an impressive 6-point jump since the last Times-Siena College survey of likely caucusgoers done in […]

Authored by David Stockman via LewRockwell.com, There were a reported 119 billionaires attending the Davos confab this year – plus the Donald, who took a day off from Impeachment to address this august gathering of the world’s movers and shakers. There was also 1500 private jets crowding the surrounding airports – plus the notable train-traveling […]

After being held captive for three days while House Democrats litigated their impeachment case against President Trump, House Impeachment Manager Adam Schiff (D-CA) enraged Senate Republicans last night during his closing remarks when he referred to an anonymously sourced media report that they would face retribution from the White House if they voted to convict […]

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog, Don’t be too sure that the coronavirus will blow over and have no effect on global growth. If there is anything that characterizes this moment in history, it’s complacency: everyone’s so sure that current trend lines will continue, onward and upward, and risk has been tamed for the […]

As we move into Saturday evening on the ground in Wuhan, it’s becoming increasingly obvious to the broader global community that China’s authoritarian government has failed to contain this viral outbreak. Chinese authorities expanded the travel restrictions on Saturday to cover 56 million Chinese, Al Jazeera reports. At least 18 cities in central Hubei are […]

Watch Live: [embedded content] Update: Trump’s lawyers began their opening arguments Saturday by slamming Democrats for having “no evidence” to support their argument that Trump’s conduct with Ukraine warrants impeachment and removal. “They’re asking you not only to overturn the results of the last election but, as I’ve said before, they’re asking you to remove […]

When it comes to estimating the human capital and potential fallout from a highly contagious epidemic, arguably the most important variable is the R0 (“R-naught”) value of the disease, which represents the average number of secondary cases arising from an average primary case in a entirely susceptible population. That’s the technical definition, a simpler one […]

Terrorist group al Shabaab has banned single-use plastic bags. The Somali militant Islamist group, which has links to al Qaeda, has long had an interest in environmental issues. It made the official announcement on Radio Andalus, which is operated by al Shabaab. Jubaland regional leader Mohammad Abu Abdullah said the group had come to the […]

Paging all European investment bankers (or at least the ones who still have jobs): If you haven’t already, now would probably be a good time to update your resume and reach out to that old counterparty at JPM. Because Barclays is the latest European investment banking giant to slash banker bonuses for 2019, despite all […]

This week, we speak with Barbara Tversky, professor of psychology at Stanford and Columbia University, and the author of more than 200 research papers in experimental psychology. Her new book is Mind in Motion: How Action Shapes Thought. It details how the 9 Rules of Cognition affects our thought processes. Tversky’s research focuses on visual-spatial […]

Authored by Jonathan Turley, We have often discussed the struggle of women in Muslim countries in resisting religious-based requirements for coverings and limitations on their movements and interactions. Turkey was once the exception among these countries as a secular, modern nation. That was before the rise of Islamic parties under the authoritarian President Recep Tayyip […]

Every once in a while, medical researchers simply have a stroke of good luck. In this case, that “stroke of good luck” could have a profound effect on the medial community.  Researchers at Cardiff University that were in the midst of analyzing blood from a bank accidentally stumbled into an “entirely new type of T-cell”, according […]

by Calculated Risk on 1/25/2020 08:11:00 AM

Drumming duck will have you ‘quacking’ up New York Post (David L) Scientists Re-Create Voice of 3,000-Year-Old Mummy Associated Press Royal Row Harry and Meghan’s attempt to trademark Sussex Royal brand is blocked Daily Mail (Li). I am told that this is not likely to be someone saying they have an existing mark but rather […]

The weekend is here! Pour yourself a cup of crappy hotel Keurig, grab a seat at what passes for a desk, and get ready for our longer form weekend reads: • The Tesla Skeptics Who Bet Against Elon Musk (Businessweek) • What interest rates dating back to 1311 tell us about today’s global economy (Quartz) […]

Health advocates say a safe supply of opioids is critical to help prevent people from overdosing on tainted street drugs. Now, a pilot project in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside provides some high-risk users with access to an automated machine that dispenses opioids prescribed by a doctor… The machine, called MySafe, is stocked with hydromorphone tablets that are released on […]

Yves here. This post on Bellingham is a mini-case study in a community-level climate change initiative. Since local politics is where citizens typically can have the biggest impact, it’s therefore germane to a lot of readers. What it illustrates, sadly, is that even on a small scale, devising good policy is often hard. By Peter […]

Yver here. Lots of meaty topics this time at the TaxCast….like whether Brexit will usher in a buccaneer tax/finance regime, is depression just around the corner, and the looting of Angola. By Naomi Fowler. Originally published at Tax Justice Network The Taxcast kicks off the new decade with: the French strikes – tax justice and […]

It is long, do note that many topics are covered in the other half of the class, I tried to put this beneath the fold, but today WordPress software is not cooperating… Productivity American Economic Review Symposium, May 2010, starts with “Why do Firms in Developing Countries Have Low Productivity?” runs pp.620-633. Nicholas Bloom, Raffaella […]

Via The Strategic Culture Foundation, There was good reason why Polish President Andrzej Duda was prevented from addressing the Holocaust memorial event in Israel this week. The organizers anticipated he would use the event to make ugly and foolish accusations against Russia for having alleged complicity in the Nazi genocide. On being refused the opportunity […]

With an 89 percent approval rating from Republicans and 7 percent approval rating from Democrats, President Trump has set a new high for partisan divide in 2019 with an 82-point gap between Republican and Democrat approval, according to Gallup. You will find more infographics at Statista The new record in polarization beats Trump’s 2018 partisan […]

Authored by Iman Ghosh via VisualCapitalist.com, In 2018, trade accounted for 59% of global GDP, up nearly 1.5 times since 1980. Over this timeframe, international trade has transformed significantly – not just in terms of volume and composition, but also in terms of the countries that the rest of the world leans on for their most […]