'The Mad & The Free': Can American Society Debate Its Way Out Of Psychosis?

How Relaxed COVID-Era Rules Fueled Minnesota's Biggest Scam Authored by Kristin Robbins via RealClearPolitics, In my testimony before the Senate last week as chair of the Minnesota House Fraud Prevention and Oversight Committee, I outlined the genesis of Minnesota’s massive fraud scandal, how it expanded under relaxed COVID-era rules, and what steps the federal government can take to help stop the theft of federal tax dollars throughout the country.   Minnesota’s fraud crisis didn’t happen overnight; it took years. But it exploded when COVID hit, right when oversight was thrown out the window. How did...

Google's New Quantum Research Reignites Push To Harden Bitcoin Authored by Micah Zimmerman via BitcoinMagazine.com, A new research paper from Google has intensified debate over whether Bitcoin can adapt in time to withstand advances in quantum computing, pushing developers and investors to confront a risk long treated as theoretical. Google’s quantum division said this week in a new whitepaper that future machines could break widely used encryption far more efficiently than previously estimated, including the elliptic curve cryptography that underpins Bitcoin wallets.  The research suggests attacks that once appeared decades away may arrive sooner, with some...

Musical Chairs By Molly Schwartz, cross-asset macro strategist at Rabobank Yesterday, Trump spoke with Xi in Beijing. While markets kept a watchful eye on any headlines about the war in Iran, palates were left dry as only tepid announcements dripped out, such as that China “offered help” on Iran and “pledged not to send weapons.” What they did not manage to evade was a conversation about Taiwan. During the two and a half hour conversation with Trump, Xi underscored that US intervention in Taiwan could trigger a “highly dangerous situation.” While...