The great cricket sham and other news and views

• Bitter Cup – Cricket’s marquee tournament is a sham – “Over time, the one-day international has gradually shed any pretense of contest—in cricketing terms, a duel between batsmen and bowlers—and recast itself as a glorified showcase of the bat-manufacturer’s craft, where second-rung players routinely found lacking in Test conditions can get away with edges and mishits. Any ball a batsman—even at his most arthritic—cannot hit with ease has been systematically outlawed (one bouncer per over by strict ration; nothing pitching outside leg stump; nothing wider than a foot of off stump, and so on).”
• Negative rates to shake up financial system, say experts – “It has a huge impact on a lot of simple things like pension funds and insurance companies, and how their whole model works,” said Henry Cooke, executive director at Gryphon Capital Investments. “It is putting them under a lot of pressure . . . and when people are put under a lot of pressure, they take a lot more risk.”
• Corporate bonds: Emerging bubble – Signs of distress are appearing in companies’ debt

• The Austerity Con by Simon Wren-Lewis – “Of course it is also the case that large sections of the print media have a political agenda. Unfortunately the remaining part, too, often seeks expertise among City economists who have a set of views and interests that do not reflect the profession as a whole. This can lead to a disconnect between macroeconomics as portrayed in the media and the macroeconomics taught in universities. In the case of UK austerity, it has allowed the media to portray the reduction of the government’s budget deficit as the overriding macroeconomic priority, when in reality that policy has done and may continue to do considerable harm.”
• The War Next Door: Can Merkel’s Diplomacy Save Europe?
• The World of Our Grandchildren – Noam Chomsky discusses ISIS, Israel, climate change, and the kind of world future generations may inherit.
• Jailing People Has Little Effect on Crime Levels – At some point, the data indicates, more people in prison doesn’t translate to fewer crimes