Recent Posts

Bitcoin’s cheap energy feast won’t last longer

To understand why China is cracking down on power use by bitcoin miners, have a look at curtailment. The practice—where producers of wind and solar power cease generation because the entire electricity system is oversupplied—has been a major problem for the country in recent years. In the northwestern provinces of Xinjiang and Gansu, as much as one-third of wind generation ...

Read More »

A new commodity boom doesn’t mean ecological doom

Demand is surging again for oil, minerals and grains — the basic goods to which Latin America’s fortunes have long been tethered. After a year of graft scandals and political whiplash, you can just about hear the sighs of collective relief. Or is that just a giant sucking sound? Since the voyages of discovery, raw materials and farm goods have ...

Read More »

Euro-area inflation slowdown undermines calls to end QE

Bloomberg European Central Bank policy makers who marked the turn of the year by pushing for an end to crisis-era stimulus measures just got a reminder that they’ll have to wait a while longer for price pressures to pick up. Despite solid economic growth, euro-area inflation slowed to 1.4 percent last month from 1.5 percent, and the underlying rate unexpectedly ...

Read More »
Send this to a friend