Germany wants to end its virtual moratorium on fracking, Der Spiegel reports. “Parliamentarians from Angela Merkel’s governing center-right coalition of the conservative Christian Democratic Union, their Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union, and the pro-business Free...

Cool chart here from Nomura, which examines export from Asia’s “Big 4″ (China, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore). It shows the year-over-year change by end export destination. The real story, they note, is how fast the Rest Of Asia...

Japan’s stock market just opened, and the Nikkei rose above 10,000 for the first time since April 4. Before the markets opened in Asia, we learned that Japan’s exports fell 4.1 percent in November. However, this was...

The NY Fed’s Liberty Street Economics’ blog has been running a series on the evolution of banks.  The latest post takes a look at recent changes in bank structure. What’s particularly striking is the enormous growth in...

Everyone’s raving about the American shale gas revolution, which could make the country the next Saudi Arabia of energy. Indeed, the growth rate in shale gas production has gone geometric. However, things are showing signs of slowing...

We’ve posted a few highlights from Michael Casey’s The Unfair Trade, including why Chinese sweatshops can’t lose and the smart way to default on a loan. This passage describes how the mining boom in Australia has distorted...