Why the Chinese shadow banking system is a possible source of systemic risk: a outstanding worry that has not gotten any better.
Thursday, August 7, 2025
Best Buy’s Bait and Switch Returns Policy Reveals Yet More Creepy Consumer Monitoring
Creepy algos implement what sure looks like consumer fraud at Best Buy.
Thousands of Students Protest Gun Violence
Yves here. We’ve generally relegated the political fight over guns to Links, but we thought we’d make an exception, since this post provides some on-the-ground observations. However, notice that the author mentions in passing that he was briefly in jail for protesting the Vietnam War. As readers well know, one of the big impediments to […]
LEAKED: Trump Threatens to Launch Trade War v. Rattled China Over IP Theft
Trump’s trade threats against China make steel and aluminum tariffs look like a game.
2:00PM Water Cooler 3/13/2018
Today’s Water Cooler: Tariffs, Sanders on billionaires, House Intelligence Committee report, legitimacy crisis, consumer prices, small business optimism, robot warehouses, soil, Oklahoma teachers, resistance to cold
Hiding from the Tax Man, International Wealthy Style
Tax avoidance is an ever-evolving game. Some fresh information on which countries are willing to offer a helping hand to the rich.
A Battered Doctor, A Slain Patient And A Family’s Quest For Answers
A case study in how a patient was a threat to a doctor….and how the reverse has too often become true.
Silicon Valley’s Gilded Cage
Silicon Valley glitters but at least some of its workers want more.
Gaius Publius: The Racial Dimension of Student Debt
Why student debt hits blacks particularly hard.
A History of the European Core and Its Periphery: How an Optimal Currency Area Forms
This column documents the formation and evolution of a core and periphery in EMU, unearthing an increasingly integrated core, an entrenched periphery, and a third set of countries marked by in-and-out movements
2:00PM Water Cooler 3/12/2018
Today’s Water Cooler: Trump tariffs, PA-18, Schumer, conservatism, shipping containers, YouTube, Roscoe Conklin, the man who lied in his diary.
U.S. Steel and Aluminium Tariffs: How Should the EU Respond?
Trump’s measure raises four issues for the EU: the effect on European industry; how to deter Trump’s broader protectionist thrust; how to use the WTO Dispute System; and, how to prepare for a post-WTO world.
Cryptocurrencies as Prosecution Futures: Judge Rules Manipulators Can Go to Jail
The Wild West of cryptocurrencies just got a little less fun.
