Recent Posts

Europe can’t afford a leaderless Germany

More than three months after its federal election, Germany still has no new government. Oddly enough, this may be less of a problem for Germany, which continues to enjoy a strong economic run, than it is for the European Union. The euro zone needs reform, and that won’t happen without German leadership. Angela Merkel promised in a speech on New ...

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Big data works only for those who hype it

Margrethe Vestager, the European Union’s competition commissioner challenging tech giants on several fronts, has opened another: “big data.” In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, she singles out data as an important competitive advantage that should be more seriously considered in antitrust reviews and investigations. Buying the mostly groundless big data hype is, unfortunately, often the flip side of ...

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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 ...

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