ysilver

I have been trying to figure this out too. Did you find anything out about their usage fees? What about Yodlee?

I highly recommend the Economist for China reporting. As much as I love the New York Times, their China articles are typically negative, alarmist and selective. For a recent example of the Economist's superior China reporting, check out their articles on the summer crash. They called the heat up well in advance, and strongly advocated against over-reacting as things unwound. They really got it right while most other media focused on the gory day-to-day details. Furthermore, the Economist never dropped the thread on how China's long-term economic liberalization is really all that matters at this point given the relatively small size of their stock market.

>> Also: When you read the word 'Ponzi' in the context of macro-economics, as opposed to criminal prosecution, you should stop reading right then an there because the author is spouting drivel.

Ponzi borrowing is actually a concept in macro-economics, first explained by the economist Hyman Minsky. From Wikipedia: The "Ponzi borrower" (named for Charles Ponzi, see also Ponzi scheme) borrows based on the belief that the appreciation of the value of the asset will be sufficient to refinance the debt but could not make sufficient payments on interest or principal with the cash flow from investments;

Ponzi borrowing could be restated in terms of borrowing when your model does not take into account the possibility of asset stagnation/depreciation. This phenomenon became a popular topic in 2008, because the housing market had began behaving as though returns on real estate never dropped below 0.

I have tried to take his work seriously. At first glance it looks like it should be thorough and center-right -- not a bad way to read history when read along-side differing accounts. However, he can't help himself from reducing his voluminous work to strangely simple political jabs. Maybe if he stuck to long-form topics from long-ago periods he could keep his credibility.

I read that comment three times and have no idea what you are trying to say.

ps. It's kind of fun to be called "right-wing"

That true. You could also make the argument that historically it hasn't been so easy to expose US government secrets to the world. So, maybe we're actually entering an era of greater (involuntary) transparency and we're actually witnessing a backlash to this as opposed to a renewed attempt at subduing dissidents.

History may show that we are digesting something akin to McCarthyism right now.

> I hate to sound like a Pro-Russia troll, but the leaders weren't replaced in the West;

Right. That was my point. When we get bad leaders that make bad decisions that lose them support, they get cycled out and the legitimacy of the institutions is restored.

> America's government systematically destroyed the careers of every person...

This is a great example of how our western institutions often lead to big mistakes but then eject the responsible people. Institutions left more or less intact. It would be foolhardy to claim that the US has a track record of consistently smart domestic policies and foreign interventions (don't get me started...). I'm just making the point that it is much easier to achieve stability with a system where information flows freely.

> This just sounds like so much Russia is bad and inherently weak...

"Weak" is the wrong word. In many ways, the Russian government is demonstrating extraordinary strength in maintaining the "unstable equilibrium" that results from relying on controlling a society's interpretation of events.

I think you're smart to try to test the validity of the converse of my claims. However, it's also important to acknowledge that there is enormous variation in the freedom of the media to operate across countries. There are highly repressive media domains where a single actor represses others and achieves a near monopoly. Could the US improve freedom of expression domestically? Yes. Do we systematically repress dissenters as is common Russia, Bangladesh, etc? No

> ...our system has become increasingly hostile to "real" investigative journalism...

The burden of proof that there has been a degradation of information quality remains on your side of the court. This "lost paradise" argument may very well be right but it's far from evident to me.

I would broadly characterize media quality as always having been low on average throughout history. We had a brief period of oligopoly after mass media (the networks) monopolized a lot of what we call news but that period was more of an exception to the rule (and it certainly had its own problems).