"'As for the regime, I am hopeful we will find a way to separate that regime from this system,' Pompeo said. 'The North Korean people I'm sure are lovely people and would love to see him go.'" Continue reading →
"Given the power passive strategies have rapidly accrued, perpetuating blind faith could prove devastating." Continue reading →
"If one repeatedly learns that feeding a beast can briefly appease it, but predictably makes it more enormous, savage, and unstable, it is best to remember the lesson. Instead, central bankers have doomed the world to learn that lesson again." Continue reading →
"Cold War-era government bunkers across the country were built to house the President and various Washington elites — members of a so-called 'shadow government' in the worst nuclear Armageddon scenario. Since September 11, 2001, Congress has intensified their interest in and funding of top secret 'Continuity of Government' (COG) in ways not seen since the Cold War." Continue reading →
"Police could stop arresting people for drug crimes, and focus on violent and property crimes if they wanted to get by with less personnel. They could even pull some officers off speed-trap duty and actually respond to desperate calls for help. But no, the solution is to simply hire heroin addicts and crack heads. That will surely improve the tensions between the public and police. How could this go wrong, hiring even lower quality officers than before?" Continue reading →
"A computer-based interface called Deal Link has replaced informal checklists that were once tended and passed down between generations of rainmakers. It now arranges and tracks legal and compliance reviews, fills in forms and generates reports. The industry is under intense pressure to improve profitability, while contending with young workers less willing to put in 18-hour days. At Goldman Sachs, managers say they’re looking to new technology to free up junior bankers in particular, letting them focus on more satisfying work." Continue reading →
"If we’re not going to war, we’re doing a really good imitation." Continue reading →
"State lawmakers in California and New York voted this year to pass state-run single payer health care plans, despite the fact that both states would need to double their existing tax revenue to pay for the new entitlement. But even if those political hurdles are overcome, and even if the two states figure out how they are going to come up with the necessary tax revenue—about $400 billion in California's case, and somewhere between $91 billion and $225 billion in New York's—to make those systems functional, both may run into another problem: The whole thing could be against the law." Continue reading →
"A rush into haven assets that began during the financial crisis is getting a new lease on life from an upsurge in populist politics and a quickening of inflation. Two firms say they’re planning to open vaults in Europe capable of holding more than 100 million euros ($112 million) in gold, offering customers lower costs than exchange-traded products and protection from rising prices." Continue reading →
"The GOP's dreams have collided with interest-group lobbying and the tax system's reality. Politicians all profess to hate the tax code, but they don't agree on exactly what they hate. Voters gripe about complexity but are wary of losing cherished breaks that are woven into the economy." Continue reading →