Current Events

  If you’re new to high finance, then the concept of “shorting” is bizarre and convoluted. People actually make money from stocks falling? How is this possible? Why is it legal? Does this contribute anything to society? Am I missing out? Here’s how shorting works. Let’s say you have a neighbor who is a cat lady that collects Beanie Babies. She has one prized beanie called Roary the Lion, worth $5000 (according to the intellectual darkweb, where these things are traded). Unfortunately, she’s got some bills coming due this month and she doesn’t want to be forced to sell Roary. So you offer to borrow Roary from her for 3 months in exchange for $200. She’s happy, because she’ll get her doll back in a few months and she now has enough money to cover her bills. The second you walk home with the beanie, you go online and sell it to the highest bidder. You manage to get the asking price, $5000. Now fast forward 3 months. Suddenly Beanie Babies aren’t worth as much as they u...

The Wolf of r/WallStreetBets - Ha, ha, ha!  

In the week since the inauguration of Joe Biden as president of the United States, Jacobin magazine, associated with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), has produced dozens of articles pleading with the incoming Biden administration to “do the right thing.” One such article, emblematic of the broader political perspective of Jacobin and its co-thinkers in the DSA, is headlined “There’s Really No Need to Compromise, Joe” and written by David Sirota. Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden peeks out of the roof of an SUV as he leaves a fundraiser on Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2019, in Manhattan Beach, Calif. The article argues that the Biden administration is capable of making “a psychological shift” to the left, with enough pressure from below. Sirota pleads with youth and workers to not “lose hope” in the Democrats, despite their ever-further shift to the right. Sirota begins his article by noting that just four weeks after Biden promised voter...

  "We have met the enemy and he is us," said Walt Kelly's cartoon character Pogo , half a century ago, about what we Americans were doing to our environment . Rereading President Joe Biden's inaugural address, Pogo's remark comes to mind. Biden began on a lofty, hopeful and familiar note: "This is a great nation. We are a good people." He ended in the same vein: "So, with purpose and resolve, we turn to those tasks of our time. Sustained by faith. Driven by conviction. And, devoted to one another and the country we love with all our hearts." Within the address itself, however, Biden recited what he believes to be the historic crimes of the nation and the sins of the soul that torment a considerable portion of our population. Among the afflictions from which America suffers, said Biden, are "political extremism, white supremacy" and " domestic terrorism." How do we overcome these evils? Said Biden, "Unity is ...

  Don’t talk your way into a conviction. That, in a nutshell, is the advice that Southern California attorneys Marc and Craig Wasserman have been enthusiastically sharing with the cannabis community for more than two decades. They began specializing in cannabis law after Craig’s son decided he wanted to get into the medical marijuana business in California’s largely unregulated market, prior to full legalization under 2016’s Prop. 64. Back then, medical marijuana was legal under state law, but many law enforcement agencies still went after patients and collectives. If a patient or provider was busted, they had to prove that their actions, be they growing, possessing or selling marijuana, were for the benefit of legitimate patients. That left people like Craig’s son in jeopardy of arrest and prosecution. "When he showed the interest, we decided we better go to bat, we better do our research and learn the laws as they existed then,” says Craig in a telephone interv...

  A painting discovered by chance last month is a Gustav Klimt original that was stolen nearly 23 years ago, Italian authorities have confirmed. The painting, Portrait of a Lady, was taken from a gallery in the northern city of Piacenza in 1997. It was thought to have disappeared for good until gardeners clearing away ivy found it concealed in an external wall at the same gallery. The Klimt has an estimated value of at least €60m ($66m; £51m). Why the painting was left in the wall at the Ricci Oddi Gallery of Modern Art is still a mystery. "It is with no small emotion that I can tell you the work is authentic," said Prosecutor Ornella Chicca. She said further tests would clarify whether the painting had been inside the wall space ever since it was stolen, or if it was placed there later. After those tests were complete the artwork would go back on display, Ms Chicca added. To determine its authenticity, experts studied the painting under infrared and ultraviolet ligh...

  Michael Hudson and Pepe Escobar last month took a hard look at rent and rent-seeking at the Henry George School of Social Science. Michael Hudson: Well, I’m honored to be here on the same show with Pepe and discuss our mutual concern. And I think you have to frame the whole issue that China is thriving, and the West has reached the end of the whole 75-year expansion it had since 1945. So, there was an illusion that America is de-industrializing because of competition from China. And the reality is there is no way that America can re-industrialize and regain its export markets with the way that it’s organized today, financialized and privatized and if China didn’t exist. You’d still have the Rust Belt rusting out. You’d still have American industry not being able to compete abroad simply because the cost structure is so high in the United States. The wealth is no longer made here by industrializing. It’s made financially, mainly by making capital gains. Rising p...