A single trader is accused of manipulating markets with rapid computerized trading which allegedly caused a 1000-point stock market crash in 2010.

The US is considering spending billions to make energy systems cope with the damage from global heating.

We really should be investing billions in reducing global heating. Even better, reduce global heating by eliminating the tax breaks for fossil fuels. That would save the treasury money.

Vietnam has gone from oppressive communism to corrupt capitalism.

A Vietnamese novel by Duong Thu Hong, that I read in French, presents junior party leaders as corrupt and cynical already in 1975. What is certain is that the Vietnamese state established an oppressive system of labor camps after capturing Saigon. But it appears, from this article, that it tried to protect workers — until it surrendered to US economic warfare.

I visited Vietnam in 2004 when it was about to join the WTO. I told the people I knew, "You fought to kick out France, then the US. Now you are going to invite in the WTO, which is the empire that rules France and the US. What foolishness!"

Later, at a meeting in Cambodia in 2005, a representative of the Vietnamese government compared the WTO's rules to the rules of soccer. My response made everyone laugh at him, since the rules of soccer are designed to be fair, whereas the rules of the WTO are designed to be unfair. Alas, that minor embarrassment didn't alter the trajectory of the Vietnamese state.

A killer thug in Chicago was acquitted of manslaughter because the judge said the killing was more like murder. But the prosecutor was unwilling to charge the thug with murder.

Overfishing threatens the ecosystem of the Great Barrier Reef.