China to Ignore Trump’s Blockade: The Strait Remains Open to Us

Brussels Eyes Wealth Taxes As Europe’s Fiscal Crisis Spirals Submitted by Thomas Kolbe A fatal fiscal dynamic has become entrenched across the European Union. In nearly every member state, public spending is accelerating at all levels — from municipalities and social insurance systems all the way up to the European Commission — while the private economy at best stagnates and its industrial core sectors visibly erode. This dangerous economic imbalance, in which a shrinking private sector is forced to finance a continuously expanding state apparatus, is already producing fiscal consequences visible in...

Alexander Salter and Joshua Hendrickson argue that the Fed's actual institutional role is to backstop U.S. dollar hegemony.

Global Coal Demand Surges As Middle East Energy Crisis Deepens Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via Oilprice.com, Global coal shipments and imports surged in March and April as buyers scrambled for fuel amid massively disrupted oil and gas supply from the Middle East. The trend has been accelerating in recent weeks, and global coal imports are on track to reach their third-highest monthly level on record, according to estimates by analytics platform Kpler cited by the Financial Times. In the wake of the worst oil and gas supply disruption in history, coal is back in...