Could online lending cause the next financial crisis? While the odds seem overwhelmingly against it, the recent turmoil at LendingClub — a leading online lender — makes it hard not to ask the question. There are some disquieting parallels with subprime mortgages, which seemed beneficial until sloppy and fraudulent lending practices triggered a wider collapse of confidence. Are we about ...

  Campaign for a ‘stay’ or ‘leave’ the European Union (EU) is taking an ugly turn as both sides warn of dire consequences should the UK remain or exit the EU. In fact, both sides blend the scaremongering with facts to canvass votes of the groping voters who may decide the result of referendum. Boris Johnson, the leading ‘leave’ campaign ...

Narayana Kocherlakota I see four different schools of thought about how the economies of the U.S. and much of the developed world should be managed. The challenge for the Federal Reserve and other central bankers is that it’s hard to know who’s right. Let’s call the first group of economists the neutralists. They would say that as long as inflation ...