From e-commerce firms and payment processors to governments, everyone with half a server and an algorithm wants our data. So it’s a pleasant surprise to see at least one central bank expressly rejecting the idea of sweeping up personal information in designing its electronic cash. The European Central Bank (ECB) “has no interest in monetising or even collecting users’ payment ...

Up to now, President Joe Biden has resisted calls from the left of his party to cancel up to $50,000 of student loans for most borrowers. But the pressure from leading progressives such as Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, and more recently from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, isn’t letting up. The president might be tempted to waver. He ...

Uncertainty about federal economic policy is greater than any time in the last 40 years. On one hand we have senior policy makers calling for increasing already massive budget deficits, locking in the loosest imaginable monetary policy for the foreseeable future, and boosting taxes on businesses, Wall Street and the rich if inflation rates spike higher. On the other hand ...