When Woodrow Wilson stated that he had “unwittingly ruined” his country, he was referring to the Federal Reserve…
Commerce
George Monbiot blames the “global bullshit industry” for the commercial nature of Christmas. I’m not sure this is exactly breaking news, but it’s still fun to read Monbiot’s never-failing progressive take on…
Alyson Shontell reports in Business Insider:
There’s a tiny 12-person startup churning out of Des Moines, Iowa. Dwolla was founded by 28-year-old Ben Milne; it’s an innovative online payment system that sidesteps credit cards completely.
Milne has no finance background, yet his little operation is moving between $30 and $50 million per month; it’s on track to move more than $350 million in the next year. Unlike PayPal, Dwolla doesn’t take a percentage of the transaction. It only asks for $0.25 whether it’s moving $1 or $1,000.
We interviewed Milne about how he is building a credit card killer and Square rival from the middle of the nation where VCs and press are scarce.
Ten U.S. Senators are now proposing a “Marketplace Fairness Act,” which creates a new system letting states collect sales taxes from purchases made online. “It’s about closing a tax loophole,” said Senator…
Facebook wants to be the place where you feel most yourself, with the most control over how you are regarded. It inextricably intertwines marketing with selfhood, so that having a self becomes…
Gawker reports on your aunt’s new favorite website, if your aunt loves tar heroin: Silk Road, a digital black market that sits just below most internet users’ purview, does resemble something from…
Why are we banking on banks to a promote economic recovery? HBO’s “Too Big To Fail” should have been about banksters “too big to jail.” This week the financial crisis finally went…
New copies are still going for around a grand. Interesting story: Michael Eisen writes on it is NOT Junk: A few weeks ago a postdoc in my lab logged on to Amazon…
Whoever says money doesn’t grow on trees was right. In South Korea it grows in garlic fields. BBC reports: South Korean police have dug up a stash of 11bn won ($10m, £6.2m),…
McDonald’s is making its way to the Louvre next month. Some media sources are outraged by the move, but others wonder why not?