Everyone knows that the finance industry has grown in America. In 1980, finance took home about five percent of all the income in America; in 2007, about eight percent. This has led many people to question whether all this activity is worth what we pay for it; in other words, how much of the increase in finance-industry GDP is actually value added, and how much is "rent" extracted from the rest of the economy?
How much value does the financial industry create? →
Darling of the West, terror to his opponents: Meet Rwanda’s new scourge - Paul Kagame →
Snowden Lied About China Contacts →
Evidence that Snowden may have been working with (for?) Chinese intelligence. Regardless of which side you're on, important info to consider.
Outrageous HSBC Settlement Proves the Drug War is a Joke →
...Despite the fact that HSBC admitted to laundering billions of dollars for Colombian and Mexican drug cartels (among others) and violating a host of important banking laws (from the Bank Secrecy Act to the Trading With the Enemy Act), Breuer and his Justice Department elected not to pursue criminal prosecutions of the bank, opting instead for a "record" financial settlement of $1.9 billion, which as one analyst noted is about five weeks of income for the bank.
Federal judge upholds the government's right to search electronics at the border →
In a ruling released on Tuesday, a judge out of the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of New York declared that the lawsuit plaintiffs didn't have grounds for their case. "There is not a substantial risk that their electronic devices will be subject to a search or seizure without reasonable suspicion," he noted. And even if the lawsuit had moved forward, the judge added that the government doesn't need reasonable suspicion to confiscate or search devices like laptops or cellphones.