Fearless commentary on finance, economics, politics and power

Scientific research has coaxed the owl from the shadows and restored her to Athene, the Greek goddess of wisdom.

We’re again in the Wile E Coyote phase of a financial crisis, but this time, the real economy problems are far worse than in 2008.

Private equity is buying up funeral homes, enticed by a large industry with reliable income that is still mainly populated by small businesses.

Increasing duties on tobacco is least effective amongst the least advantaged segments of the community at decreasing smoking. Over time, the effect of approaches such as this is to push an increasingly larger share of the burden for government revenue onto a smaller, and more disadvantaged and addicted section of the population.

The pharma-funded system at the FDA is becoming more prevalent and, because of the funding structure now in place, will not be easy to unpick. With such a large proportion of the drug regulation budget deriving directly from drug makers, and more input from drug makers at every stage in the process, the divide between the FDA and drug makers is rapidly shrinking.

It turns out that many of today’s billionaires are selfish, lonely men fantasizing about how they will survive the end times they have played a part in creating.

$50 billion, backstopped by IMF.

~ Today’s Water Cooler ~

By Conor Gallagher Yves wrote yesterday about what the Russian response might be to the Nord Stream attacks. I wanted to touch on a few other potential consequences I’ve come across, and as there are no doubt more, hope to see them in comments. Economic Catastophre in Europe Now Certain  There were questions in Washington […]

Conor: Germany’s swift demise reminds me of the German intelligence agent Bachmann in “A Most Wanted Man.” He’s led to believe he’s operating on an equal level with CIA and British intelligence only to realize too late he was being played the whole time. Hudson gets to the bottom of what Germany’s downfall will mean […]

The European Systemic Risk Board is essentially an offshoot of the European Central Bank. And central banks are normally the last to admit that a crisis is around the corner, if not already here.