Realistically, a 5% tax rise should prompt a 5% spending cut, with the earning power lost to inflation adding more belt tightening. You can't squeeze blood from a stone. Workers have no money.

Commodity prices do not move in lockstep with each other. In the olden days, people used the price of copper to forecast economic growth.

Britain and the US seem to be riding high but there are major political risks what with Russia and Israel. London is full of Russki oligarchs upon which its economy depends. The US needs to unhook its politics from Israeli excess, if only so both countries can hold their heads up.

Today we have results from two of our companies, an update on one of my fund recommendations, and news from around the globe: Britain, Holland, Canada, Jordan, Colombia, Panama, Finland, Brazil, Portugal, Mexico, Ireland, and African countries.

The US is a piker on penalties for banking wrongs.. UBS had to post bail at euros 1.1 bn ($1.5 bn) before the Swiss bank's trial for aiding money laundering and tax fraud in France.

The statistical odds against two fatal plane crashes at one smallish airline killing hundreds of innocent passengers in a matter of 3 months must be infinitesimal. Yet that has happened to Malaysian Airlines. Both crashes appear to have resulted from reckless human behavior and were not accidents.