Here they go again.  Despite the Republicans’ control of the presidency and both houses of Congress, their internal divisions keep on frustrating their plans to accomplish anything of consequence. So, the most polarizing GOP president since Abraham Lincoln has come up with a startling work-around:  Cut deals with the Democrats on selected major matters, including funding the government, raising the debt limit and, perhaps soon, legalizing the Dreamers.

During the last week in August, Noah’s Ark found a new home in Houston. Unfortunately, it didn’t deliver medical supplies. Between August 25th and 29th, Hurricane Harvey dropped an almost biblical 52 inches of rain on beleaguered Houston, flooding vast swaths of the metropolitan area. GPS data indicates the weight of that 33 trillion gallons of water depressed the surface of the affected region by 2 centimeters.[1]

As a follow up to last week's newsletter, Breached, the Equifax breach likely will have regulatory effects on FinTech that go beyond the credit-scoring business itself. In an ironic but not unsurprising development, legacy institutions questioned new technologies in relationship to legacy problems.

I am sharing my recent testimony on the role of Russia and China in Venezuela, to the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere. The testimony is available at the website of the Subcommittee for the Western Hemisphere at http://docs.house.gov/meetings/FA/FA07/20170913/106398/HHRG-115-FA07-Wst....

I am sharing a newly published study on the work of the Guatemalan military, in support of the national police and other authorities in that country, in combatting narcotrafficking, gangs, and other transnational organized crime threats. 

Here is my essay on the Foreign Affairs website on how Trump was forced to back down on his plan to withdraw from KORUS—at least for now.

The first in a series on lessons of the global financial crisis.

The financial crisis showed up the defects of monetary models. These in turn reflected a flawed idea of money. That is why central banks failed to anticipate the crisis and could not deal with it effectively when it arrived. That is the message of The Money Trap.

Trump administration officials and GOP leaders in Congress are still putting together their tax plan. Nevertheless, the early signs point to decisions that could sink the project or produce changes that would jeopardize economic growth.

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS), often described as the central bank for central banks, recently published its take on FinTech. The BIS's Basel Committee on Banking Supervision's report, "Implications of fintech developments for banks and bank supervisors," handily summarizes the changing face of banking: