Following on from my post last week on Apple's bond issue, click here to read Mark Roe's piece at Project Syndicate where he discusses why it might be a good long-term strategy for Apple to return a large chuck of its $137bn cash pile to shareholders. Roe believes that Apple may be at a point in its corporate and innovation life-cycle where the cash could be wasted by its management in pursuit of the next big thing - the iThingamajig. Consequently, he argues that the cash is better in the hands of investors.
According to Robert Shiller , speaking at Davos, Bitcoin is a perfect example of a bubble - story here . Shiller sees Bitcoin as a backwards step in the evolution of money. George Selgin , a free banker, takes an opposing view - click here . Although he doesn't believe that Bitcoin is money, he sees its development as a fascinating turn in the evolution of money. In particular, he lauds the fact that Bitcoin production is constrained and cannot be infinite. There is a short video below where Bitcoin explain how it works.