The global debt mountain, the real Dread Pirate Roberts and the market for Picasso

The daily briefing “FirstFT” from the Financial Times.

The world is awash with more debt than before the global financial crisis and China’s debt relative to its economic size now exceeds US levels.

This interactive examines how hopes that the turmoil of the past eight years would spur widespread “deleveraging” to safer levels of indebtedness were misplaced.

In the news

ECB turns screw on Greece The eurozone’s monetary policy makers tightened Greek lenders’ access to cheap liquidity, banning the use of the country’s debt as collateral for the ECB’s cash. The ban signals the ECB’s determination to take a tough line with Athens on its attempts to secure funding from the central bank for the three months between the exit of its bailout programme and the hoped-for new agreement with eurozone leaders. (FT)

Silk Road conviction Ross Ulbricht was found guilty of being Dread Pirate Roberts , the mastermind of the $200m Silk Road online black-market bazaar. “The supposed anonymity of the dark web is not a protective shield from arrest and prosecution,” said Preet Bharara, the US attorney for Manhattan. (FT)

New UBS tax evasion probe US federal prosecutors launched a new investigation into whether the Swiss bank helped Americans evade taxes through investments banned in the US. UBS had already paid $780m in 2009 to settle a separate tax evasion probe. (WSJ$)

Health group hackedAnthem, the second-biggest US health insurance company, revealed it was the victim of what is thought to be the biggest cyber attack to hit a US financial institution. As many as 80m of its customers were potentially exposed and records of an unknown number of its former and present customers had been taken, including their social security numbers and salary details. (FT)

Paper chase Staples agreed to buy Office Depot for $6.3bn and create the largest office stationery company in the US. This is the latest victory for activist investor Starboard Value, which has been agitating for consolidation, but the deal will face intense regulatory scrutiny as it comes less than two years after Office Depot merged with smaller rival OfficeMax. (FT)

Rupert Murdoch loses a Saudi ally Prince Alwaleed bin Talal sold most of his stake in News Corp – a move that could embolden dissident shareholders to challenge Murdoch’s grip on the media company. (FT)

It’s a big day for

Nato defence ministers who meet in Brussels to discuss Russian nuclear strategy. Tension is already high over the Ukraine conflict but concern has grown over indications that Russian military planners may be lowering the threshold for using nuclear weapons. (Reuters)

Greek negotiations Yanis Varoufakis meets German finance minister Wolfgang Schauble. Schauble is expected to insist that Greece must stick to its existing EU-backed rescue programme. (FT)

Food for thought

Pablo Picasso’s granddaughter plans to sell off many of his artworks to finance her philanthropy. Her decision to sell privately has worried dealers and auctioneers, as well as fuelling speculation that she could flood the market and depress prices. (NYT$)

Cancer in the system The Guardian looks at how Ukraine’s National Cancer Institution became riddled with corruption. One doctor explains how money didn’t reach departments such as intensive care, so “it means we have to earn everything ourselves” – a euphemism for taking bribes. (Guardian)

Subtropolis An excavated mine the size of 140 American football fields below Kansas City is attracting tenants with the lure of controlled temperatures, low energy costs and cheap rents. The residents range from a cloud computing company to the US postal service. (Bloomberg)

Financial companies can use a plethora of information gathered from social media and digital data brokers to mathematically determine the creditworthiness of individuals. Critics are concerned that this could widen the gap between the rich and the poor. (FT)

Video of the day

Who buys negative yield bonds? Who willingly pays to lend money to the government? A surprisingly large number, it turns out. (FT)

This article is published in collaboration with The Financial Times. Publication does not imply endorsement of views by the World Economic Forum.

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Author: FirstFT is the Financial Times’ editors curated free daily email of the top global stories from the FT and the best of the rest of the web.

Image: A man walks past buildings at the central business district of Singapore. REUTERS/Nicky Loh.