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The Supreme Court — a politically appointed gang of black-robed lawyers — is soon going to decide on one of the most contentious issues in medical science: Can human genes be patented, and to what technologies can those patents be extended to cover? The particular issue concerns one company, Myriad Genetics, and its claim to …
Last Friday, I participated in a short debate on BBC Radio 4’s Today program on the future direction of gold. Tom Kendall, global head of precious metals research at Credit Suisse, argued that gold was in trouble. I argued that it wasn’t. So yours truly is on record on national radio the morning of gold’s …
Change is inevitable. Conditions are never frozen in time. As the clock and calendar move forward, people and organizations must adapt to different circumstances. Human thought and creativity is constantly exploring ways to make our lives better. The fruits of technology change our expectations and our demands. The market is spectacular at adapting to people’s …
The least of the problems with the income tax is that it takes your money. The really big problem is that the income tax takes your life. It gives the government direct access to the things you own and sets up the political/bureaucratic sector to be the final arbiter of what you can and cannot …
So the jobs report came out last week and rattled the market a bit. But there is a different perspective to this whole thing that I think is far more important. It also fingers a much more sinister trend afoot. First, the conventional view: The unemployment rate fell to a new four-year low of 7.6%. …
Emblazoned across the lucre-basted exterior of the Internal Revenue Service Building in Washington, D.C., is one of the most intellectually polluted quotes any free mind is ever likely to encounter: “Taxes are what we pay for a civilized society.” Its effortlessly officious author, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., …
“Thanks to Bitcoin, I am now living debt-free, just today managed to pay off all of my credit card debt!” — so reports a poster on Reddit, and the statement was echoed by many others. A currency that not only discourages debt, but earns enough money to pay off previous debt, plus encourages saving? It …
Stop the presses! Japan will make a bold attempt to stop falling prices. Making the yen worthless at a 2%-per-year clip is the promised land, according to the new Bank of Japan (BOJ) governor Haruhiko Kuroda. “This is monetary easing in an entirely new dimension,” Mr. Kuroda said following the bank’s decision. The Nikkei 225 …
I have always been fascinated by what motivates people. What motivates Tiger Woods to pursue the goal of being the world’s greatest golfer? What’s the motivation driving Warren Buffett to continue purchasing companies instead of retiring in Tahiti? Or how about the motivation behind the trucks allegedly packed with euros parked in front of the …
In March, I was at a conference in New Hampshire when a few Bitcoin businessmen sat me down to lunch. It seems like the last thing one wants, a long lunch at which one is hammered by unrelenting geek-speak about the glories of some crazy software thing. It turned out very differently. A developer suggested …