What Bitcoin Reveals About Financial Markets

The spectacular increase and recent plunge in the price of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have raised concerns that the bursting of the Bitcoin bubble will cause financial markets to crash. They probably won’t, but the Bitcoin bubble should finally destroy our faith in the efficiency of markets. Since the …

Congress now appears likely to reach a budget deal to keep the government functioning without treating as bargaining chips hundreds of thousands of young undocumented immigrants brought to the United States when they were children. It also appears, though, that President Trump will consider …

By Liz Mair , Opinion Contributor | Feb. 9, 2018, at 6:00 a.m.. Last week, a now infamous memo authored by Rep. Devin Nunes, probably President Trump’s closest congressional ally when it comes to trying to taint efforts to scrutinize alleged links between Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia, was released, drawing …

As part of the discussion about Donald Trump’s lack of fitness for the presidency, some have argued that his linguistic capacities have worsened, suggesting significant cognitive decline. In interviews in the 1980s and 1990s, Mr. Trump speaks in complete sentences, using mature vocabulary and …

Julian Zelizer is a history and public affairs professor at Princeton University and the editor of “The Presidency of Barack Obama: A First Historical Assessment,” a new book that Princeton University Press plans to publish this March. He’s also the co-host of the “Politics & Polls” podcast. The opinions …

The first article of impeachment against Richard Nixon argued that he had “prevented, obstructed and impeded the administration of justice.” One of the two impeachment articles that the House passed against Bill Clinton used that identical phrase. In both cases, the article then laid out the evidence with a …

This week, Attorney General Jeff Sessions paused a discussion of the opioid epidemic to, once again, go after marijuana. He suggested that addictive pain medication wasn’t the only problem and that many heroin addicts start out “with marijuana and other drugs.” There is a relationship between cannabis …

In a full majority opinion released Wednesday, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court found that the state’s congressional district map deprives voters’ of their right to “free and equal” elections as protected by the Pennsylvania Constitution. “An election corrupted by extensive, sophisticated gerrymandering and …

All of Wall Street seems to be saying the same thing: the economy is fine, so keep buying stocks. But following that advice — reiterated over and over as stocks have gyrated this week — would be to ignore the way information has historically flowed between markets and the real world. Besides the near …

There is an old saying that there are only two ways out of politics – death or failure. Since Jacob Zuma is apparently still alive and kicking, his highly developed political instincts will be telling him that he is on the verge of an ignominious end to his inglorious reign as president of South Africa. He will go soon …