Last week the Nicaraguan congress approved a $40 billion project for a Chinese company to build an Isthmian canal parallel to Panama’s. For those of us prone to peering anxiously into the future, this gave a disquieting advance picture of the new world of Chinese hegemony into which we are probably entering, whether we like […]

A recent study by the website Bankrate.com shows that it can take decades in some professions to pay off college debt. Conversely the leaker Edward Snowden according to reports failed to graduate high-school and yet was holding down a six-figure job in one of the most bureaucratized of sectors. Those and other signals strongly suggest […]

Much commentary this year has been devoted to the dramatically negative effect which the “sequester” spending cuts would have on U.S. Gross Domestic Product. In Japan, one leg of prime minister Shinzo Abe’s three-part plan to revive the economy is additional state spending, predicted to increase GDP in spite of its damaging effects on Japan’s […]

The stock markets of the world spiral up to infinity with only an occasional hiccup and the U.S. housing market is well into bubble mode again, pumped up by cheap money. Only gold and silver languish, hard assets that have gone out of fashion because of the lack of inflation. At some time this bubble […]