MoneyWeek staff picks - June 2012

MoneyWeek staff pick some of the best articles from around the web.

29 June

World solar power goes parabolic

It's starting from a low base, but solar power usage is soaring - Gregor

The lipstick effect

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Why bad times call for good lipstick - Scientific American

What Libor-fixing could cost the banks

The FSA isn't the only thing banks need to worry about - FT Alphaville

Singles deserve work-life balance, too

It's not just parents who need flexibility - The Atlantic

28 June

Towards a 'Brixit'

The chances of Britain leaving the EU are rising - FT Alphaville

Oil: the balance of power is changing

Unconventional oil is changing the geopolitical balance - Reuters

The Shard as metaphor for London

Inequality isn't all bad - Reuters

27 June

The war against the young

The government is picking on the young to protect the old - The Spectator

Europe: now about Germany, not up to Germany

Germany is in bigger trouble than anyone imagines - Prudent Bear

The forebearance crippling our banks

Undermining the trust in our financial system - Robert Peston

26 June

Stabilising prices is immoral

Monetary policy has moral implications - Interfluidity

Time to get rid of Britain's small change

Should George Osborne get rid of 1p and 2p pieces? - Bond Vigilantes

Generational decline: reality bites

America's first generation to fare worse than its parents - The Economist

Economic history of the last 2,000 years

The world from 1AD to now - The Atlantic

Europe still doesn't get it

The real problem is the euro itself - City Journal

Eurozone will create a giant Mezzogiorno

Unification ruined southern Italy, and will do the same for Europe - Daily Telegraph

25 June

Greece's lawyer speaks

Lawyer who represented Greece predicts another bail-out and capital controls - Barry Ritholz

Unification ruined the south of Italy

The eurozone will create a giant Mezzogiorno - The Telegraph

This isn't the first time that GPs have been the bad guys of the NHS

A historical look at the odd status of GPs within the NHS - The Week

Not quite Greek, but still weak

Why can't California get its act together? - The Economist

Factual free market fairness

If you think the government protects the poor, you're not paying attention - Bleeding Heart Libertarians

Economic possibilities of our grandchildren

Keynes predicts the future

22 June

Ten reasons countries fail

Ten reasons why countries turn into failed states - Foreign Policy

The macroeconomics of Chinese kleptocracy

The Chinese economy - run by the politicians, for the politicians - Bronte Capital

The right way to bribe kids

How to use economics to get good grades - Atlantic

If football were the markets

Ten likely outcomes of the Germany v Greece match - Forbes

Cable 'gets' market monetarism

Business Secretary emphasises tight budgets and loose money - The Money Illusion

How effective has the Fed been?

Graphic of Fed stimulus and its effect on yields - Wall Street Journal

21 June

In praise of leisure

Why are we all still working so hard? - Chronicle of Higher Education

Clarity about austerity

Michael Spence on 'a fairly serious misunderstanding' - Project Syndicate

A year in the life of a city bike

What a parked bike reveals about human nature - Dan Ariely

20 June

Sovereign ratings don't matter

Credit ratings have no effect on a country's borrowing costs - Reuters

The party indicator

How extravagant parties can flag up bubbles - The Reformed Broker

India's engine flameout

Despite India's high-tech reputation, it has a terrible defence industry - The Diplomat

Consequences of a Greek exit

The likely consequences of Greece leaving the eurozone - Financial Times

The cost of kids in America

Cost of raising a child in the US is up by 23% since 1960 - The Atlantic

18 June

The end of the world as we know it

If you think MoneyWeek is bearish, wait till you read this - Project Syndicate

Who would you lend to Italy or Peston?

Robert Peston is less creditworthy than Italy - but only just - BBC

What Germans own

Graphic detailing at the kind of assets Germans own - The Big Picture

15 June

Why economic history matters

History teaches useful lessons politicians would do well to heed - The Browser

China's hard landing in action

The city hardest-hit by China's slowdown - Bloomberg

Restaurant economics

Why restaurants are making you queue - The Age

14 June

Oil tests its price floor

Assumptions about a minimum oil price could be wrong - Reuters

The creepy economics of happiness

How economics is trying to measure and explain pleasure - New Republic

What we can learn from fish

How to control the behaviour of crowds - Spiegel Online

13 June

Viscount d'Abernon's frustrations

Thoughts on the gold standard from a frustrated 1930s financier - The Money Illusion

Will Greece leave the euro?

Credit Suisse's head of global research on Greece leaving the eurozone - The Financialist

Eight of the best from Milton Friedman

Pithy sayings from the Nobel-Prize winning economist - The Conversable Economist

12 June

The world in depression

What we can learn from the 1930s - Vox EU

Italy isn't Spain - it's Japan

Despite the panic in the markets, Italy is very different to Spain - FT Alphaville

US wealth in one chart

The shocking drop in median net worth - US Federal Reserve

Bear in a China shop

The optimistic view on China - Brookings

Crime pays - till the fourth job

Crime does pay for bank robbers, but not for long - Daily Telegraph

The little nation that could

If you enjoy a good underdog story, you'll love Cambodia - StockTwits

11 June

What about a Leveson inquiry for banks?

Forget the media, bankers deserve a lot more scrutiny - PoliticalBetting

Buy-to-let doesn't add up

An amateur landlord's miserable experience with buy-to-let - Lovemoney

Bitcoin: the net's Wild West

Bitcoin is finding uses at the fringes of decent society - Ars Technica

The 'Tips' curve has become inverted

The market sees 0% inflation this year - Sober Look

What could possibly go wrong?

The prospectus for Silicon Valley's next hot tech IPO - McSweeney's

The non-linearity of economics

We can't understand economics by thinking in terms of cause and effect - Worthwhile Canadian Initiative

8 June

Odds of more QE over 50%

Morgan Stanley's top economist expects the US Federal Reserve to act - Business Insider

Advertising's future is mobile

Consumers are turning to smartphones, but advertisers are still stuck in print - The Atlantic

25 ways to make a trillion dollars

How to get rich and stay that way - The Altucher Confidential

Save us, Ben Bernanke, you're our only hope!

Star Wars tells you all you need to know about the miserable US recovery - The Atlantic

Global finance: a big Ponzi scheme

Is there any difference between the global finance system and a Ponzi scheme? - Blooomberg

Maastricht and all that

Sceptical piece from 1992 on the treaty that led to the euro - London Review of Books

7 June

An ugly precedent for Greece

Lessons from Greece's 1930s exit from the gold standard - Bloomberg

Why Spain is under siege

Spain's politicians should stop overpromising and underdelivering - Reuters

The wine market sobers up

Has the luxury wine bubble popped? - The Atlantic

6 June

Killing the euro-patient?

Austerity may finish off the single currency - The Economist

The end of the con

For China, the days of easy growth are gone - Caixin Online

The battle to regain strength

The state of the wealth management industry - Boston Consulting Group

1 June

The paradox of libertarianism

Libertarianism's greatest achievement? Bigger government - Cato Unbound

Benefits ideology

The idea of mass benefit fraud is a myth - Stumbling & Mumbling

Breakaway or breakup?

How to stop Greece leaving the euro becoming the death of the single currency - Vox

Low house prices: what's not to like?

Why cheaper housing is good for the economy - Bloomberg

School pupil to Krugman: you're wrong

Precocious kid shows how to save the economy - The Money Illusion

Nightmare foretold for Greece

A look at just how bad 'drachmageddon' could be for Greece - Reuters

May 2012

See our picks from May 2012 here