Sting meets Indiana Jones in NY.

BitcoinBitcoin under pressureVirtual currency: It is mathematically elegant, increasingly popular and highly controversial. Bitcoin’s success is putting it under growing strain Nov 30th 2013 | From the print edition ALL currencies involve some measure of consensual hallucination, but Bitcoin, a virtual monetary system, involves more than most. It is a peer-to-peer currency w..

Buttonwood's notebook Previous Next Latest Buttonwood's notebook Latest from all our blogs Economics and the markets Good economy, poor returns? Nov 22nd 2013, 16:17 by Buttonwood EVER since the Federal Reserve started to talk of tapering, the equity market had had a fairly cautious attitude towards economic data. On some days, bad economic news has been good for the market on..

Click here for interactive graph Post by The Economist.

Schumpeter The mindfulness business Western capitalism is looking for inspiration in eastern mysticism Nov 16th 2013 |From the print edition IN HIS 1905 book, “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism”, Max Weber credited the Protestant ethic with giving rise to capitalism. Now it sometimes seems as if it is the Buddhist ethic that is keeping capitalism going. The..

European economy guide Taking Europe’s pulse Nov 5th 2013, 15:34 by Economist.com Our interactive overview of European GDP, debt and jobs Europe’s economies CurrencyEconomyGDP per personUnemploymentYouth unemploymentDebtPublic debtBudget balancePrimary balanceGrowthLatest GDP change2013 GDP forecast2014 GDP forecast AFTER the long freeze a slow thaw is under way for the Eu..

The euro crisis Debtors’ prison The euro zone is blighted by private debt even more than by government debt Oct 26th 2013 |From the print edition THE European Central Bank (ECB) announced this week how it will undertake a root-and-branch examination of banking assets before it takes charge of supervision in the euro area late next year (see article). One aim of the exercise ..

Daily chart The open society and its enemies Oct 28th 2013, 17:28 by K.N.C., G.S and R.J. How open-data compares against other national metrics THIS week sees a cornucopia of open-data celebrations. Britain’s Open Data Institute is announcing numerous affiliate programs around the world. The McKinsey Global Institute is publishing a much-anticipated report on open data (whic..

America's jobs reportStill sluggishOct 22nd 2013, 15:58 by G.I. | WASHINGTON, D.C. WHEN the Federal Reserve began open-ended bond buying with newly printed money last fall, it hoped to generate forward momentum in the labour market. And as recently as August it seemed to have succeeded. But the recent data suggest a frustrating reversal of that momentum, with no clear explanat..

Reforming the World BankZen and the art of poverty reductionCalm and confusion at the world’s biggest development institutionOct 19th 2013 |From the print edition Take me to your infrastructure practice THE World Bank may need a period of quiet reflection, but this was ridiculous. On September 10th 300 bankers joined Thich Nhat Hanh, an 87-year-old Vietnamese monk and founde..