Fascists are good for stocks

Investors are looking forward to the inauguration of the terrifying fascist Jair Bolsonaro as president of Brazil on January 1. And they look to dreading the inauguration of the moderate social democrat Andrés Manuel López Obrador (aka AMLO) as president of Mexico on December 1. Graphed below are indexes representing the two countries’ stock markets—or, more specifically, shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange designed to mimic those indexes. (The history of the Mexico index is here; of Brazil, here.) The top graph is a long-term view. It shows that the two… Read More

Bitcoin, a commentary

When this commentary was broadcast at the beginning of my radio show at noon, Pacific time, December 21, bitcoin was trading at about $15,600. It had a bad Friday, losing almost a quarter of its value, bottoming out at $11,858, before recovering to $14,267 as I’m posting this. I am not claiming cause and effect. I’m going to indulge in a rare bit of holding forth on my own—on the topic of bitcoin. I thought of having a guest do that, but since I wrote a piece on the topic for The… Read More

Is Bitcoin the future of money?

This originally appeared in The Nation, April 30, 2014, issue. With Bitcoin now having migrated from obscurity to headlines (though I said “all over the headlines” then, it’s really broken into the bigtime now), I thought I’d repost it here, since it’s behind a paywall. My BTC 0.05 would be worth $862.50 as I’m posting this, but I sold it, alas. Is Bitcoin the future of money Doug Henwood What’s being touted in some circles as the future of money looks hardly more peaceful than its past. Bitcoin, a formerly obscure cyber-currency, is… Read More