Everything is rigged. Stock markets, forex, interest rates, gold, oil, aluminum…. After battling that rigged world all day, you finally get to take that first big gulp of beer to heal the wounds, knowing that it’s the one thing left in this wor…
Today it was Hotel Okura Co., which operates landmark hotels across Japan. It confessed its restaurants had misrepresented 235 menu items. That followed confessions by leading department store chains, other high-end hotel chains, traditional ryokan hot…
The Oktoberfest in Munich, one of the biggest beer binge events in the world, attracts people from around the globe and is closely watched for economic trends. This year was the second year in a row when, despite Teutonic organizational ingenuity and m…
The “March Against Monsanto” in 52 countries, an unapproved strain of its genetically modified wheat growing profusely in Oregon, cancelled wheat export orders…. A rough week for Monsanto. Now it threw in the towel in Europe where its deep pockets and mastery of lobbying had failed: “It’s counterproductive to fight against windmills,” it explained.
Like so many debacles in the EU, it started with the unelected European Commission. It’s immune to voters, but not to lobbyists and corporations. Under the guise of “consumer protection” or some other harmless moniker, it generates za…
Amidst all the things in the US economy that aren’t going in the right direction, the debacles, fiascos, and nightmares, is an industry of scrappy…
We’ve had an endless series of products whose ingredients have been cheapened in order to maintain the price. Consumers won’t be able to taste the difference, the theory goes. So, as the horse-meat lasagna scandal in Europe is spiraling bea…
The story from WSJ is that a number of large life insurance companies are using trickery to underreserve their policy obligations. Here’s the only blurb I’ll quote: “This is a very controversial issue, and there is a lot of emotion behind it,” said Ma…
Here’s our old friend Merryn Somerset-Webb, editor of MoneyWeek, on the subject:
Why you should hold cash
A long-term property bear told me this week that he was going to buy a flat. Why? He can’t bring himself to keep his money in cash when …