Ray Madoff The Second EstateHow the tax code made an Americanaristocracy192pp. Chicago University Press. £19 (US$25). Vanessa S. Williamson The Price of Democracy The revolutionary power of taxation i

Issue of the week: currency gyrations The “debasement ...

“The dollar is the cornerstone of US power… it is the main weapon used by the US to maintain its power… [But] as soon as the political leadership decided to use the US dollar as a political instrument

Donald Trump has backed down from his threats of steep tariffs on European allies and the use of military force to take Greenland, saying that he has agreed the “framework of a future deal” with Nato

“Perhaps he’ll do an Elvis and have a fatal heart attack on the loo,” a friend muttered this week. Like most investors, she is having trouble getting used to the idea that the US president has become

HUMANITY HAS CHANGED AN AWFUL LOT IN THE PAST 58 YEARS. THE MOON? NOT SO MUCH. It was in 1968 that astronauts first drew near the moon, and it will be early this year, if all goes as planned, that a c