Chicago FinTech executives and developers celebrate, examine, and help create the future of money and finance through a series of events April 24 – 30. As the week approaches, Chicago takes the fifth spot in a new list of global financial technology hubs, based on FinTech innovation research by Deloitte.

Donald Trump vowed as candidate and newly elected president to “do a number” on Dodd Frank, the sweeping 2010 financial services and consumer regulatory reforms and Dodd Frank’s sidekick, the Volcker Rule. While directives by presidential fiat to Trump’s Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin, and regulators to take initial steps, the congressional action needed to overturn Dodd Frank is far less certain. 

In doing some research on the why legal cannabis businesses cannot get bank accounts, I came across a letter on cannabis business regulation sent last week by the governors of four states to U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin. Give pot a chance, the letter essentially asks.

Co-authored with Kristin Carey.

Competitive markets drive innovations in business efficiency and strategy. Twenty-five years ago, Big Pharma companies did little outsourcing. Fortified by robust cash flows and high profit margins, they exercised near-total control over drug discovery, testing, approvals, manufacturing and distribution.

Do others agree? We should not gang up on Toshiba so much as ask the question, what are the commonalities?, - if any. "Nicholas Benes, head of the Board Director Training Institute of Japan and one of the architects of Japan’s 2015 corporate governance code that sought to make the country’s companies more investor friendly, says Toshiba’s governance failures encapsulate broader shortcomings in corporate Japan.

In the great whirl of FinTech news, with daily reports on the potential of artificial intellitence, machine learning, bots, and blockchain, the power of present practices can be forgotten.

Most small and midsize businesses pay with paper checks: 62% according to a recent Javelin Strategy and Research survey. Because it's easier.

The “Border Adjustment Tax” (BAT) endorsed recently by President Trump is his administration’s first foray into international economics. It is an inauspicious start.

Last Friday was supposed to be the shootout at the healthcare corral where Republican gunslingers were going to take the first major step toward repealing Obamacare. Instead legislators retreated to their offices with no shots fired.

Speaker Paul Ryan pulled the vote on the controversial American Health Care Act (AHCA) as moderate and conservative Republican Representatives pulled their support in droves.

I have just published a new article, "Why the U.S. Can't Ignore Latin America's Security Challenges," with my Colombian Co-author Dr. Roman Ortiz, in the journal World Politics Review.

The article examines the security challenges currently facing Latin America and the Caribbean, and finds a surprisingly large number of areas where a combination of political, criminal, and other dynamics could present significant challenges for policymakers from the U.S. and the region in the coming months.