Tom Holland:

Anyone who fears that Washington’s “pivot” towards the Pacific increases the risk of conflict between the United States and China is behind the times.

America and China are already at war. Only the battle ground isn’t the East China Sea. It’s money.

In his latest book Paper Promises author and Economist columnist Philip Coggan describes economic history as an endless struggle between borrowers and lenders over the irreconcilable difference in their interests.

Today that difference pitches the US, as the world’s largest debtor, into conflict with China, the planet’s biggest creditor.

Coggan explains that creditors are always trying to defend the soundness of money as a store of value, in order to ensure they get paid what they are owed.

Debtors, on the other hand, have a powerful incentive to debase the value of money, which effectively lets them off the repayment hook.

Michael Powell & Danny Hakim:

“Sandy’s right; government created a banking oligopoly with no accountability,” said Peter Solomon, a friend of Mr. Lewis’s who runs an investment banking firm.

Arthur Aeder, a retired accounting executive, was twice fired by Mr. Lewis. “Not many antagonize Goldman just for the hell of it,” Mr. Aeder said. “Most people think, ‘I have a family to feed.’ ”

Mr. Lewis is no less harsh on himself. After a visit, he handed us laptops containing every furious e-mail he had sent and received over 10 years.

“The Wall Street ethic broke decades ago,” he said by way of goodbye. “The stink is terrible.”