A fatal train crash near Buenos Aires has killed 50 people and injured more than 700, drawing attention to the disastrous conditions of some of Argentina’s train lines, which benefit from generous concessions from the government.Public largesse, which amounts to some 4 percent of GDP in subsidies to Argentine services, transport and utility companies, has produced […]

The Peterson Institute for International Economics has just released a report that many Americans (and doubtless many Chinese as well) will find shocking: Estimates of Chinese GDP by Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) have been revised upward, and China may have already surpassed the United States.While this is news, it may not be particularly meaningful from […]

Huey Long once said to a crowd of Louisianans, so the story goes, “If you aren’t getting something for nothing, you aren’t getting your fair share.”More and more Americans seem to be buying into that logic. According to this piece in the New York Times (with accompanying interactive map), the share of government benefits in personal […]

A quick survey of some recent stories reveals a perplexing pattern: Israel signs $1.6 b arms deal with Turkish ally Azerbaijan Turks and Azeris rally against Armenian massacre of Azeris Turkey restricts use of its air space by Israeli cargo flights Turks thank Israelis for relief flights after earthquake Iran accuses Azerbaijan of cooperating with […]

This week’s horrible news out of Afghanistan—NATO personnel shot inside the Interior Ministry, bombs going off and riots all over the country following reports of Korans being burned by US soldiers—brings doubts about President Obama’s carefully chosen Afghan strategy to a head. The murders in the Interior Ministry were a shocking display of incapacity and […]

Thank goodness those evil Republicans were defeated in 2008; otherwise White House funded snoops would be keeping innocent Muslims under surveillance.Oh wait — what’s this?  “White House Helps Pay For NYPD Muslim Surveillance:” It turns out the Obama administration has been forking over chunks of money to the NYPD that did exactly that — almost […]

A World Bank report prepared with lots of input from Chinese researchers and blessed with high level Chinese government support is calling for fundamental changes in the country’s growth model, reports the AP.In particular the report calls for a shift away from large state owned enterprises to private firms if the economy is to continue […]

During my five years as Hungarian Ambassador in Washington, DC, we used public communications extensively—both traditional tools and “outside the box” ones. Every day my staff and I were on the lookout for new outlets to portray our country in a positive light.In that vein, my two appearances on the Colbert Report were, without doubt, […]

We received the following letter from the State Secretary for Government Communication, Dr. Zoltán Kovács, on February 10, responding to Francis Fukuyama’s February 6 post, “What’s Wrong with Hungary?“The text of the letter follows: Budapest, 10 February, 2012 Dear Professor Fukuyama, Thank you for your response; your admission of the factual mistakes in your original post […]

The BBC ran a somewhat rambling and anecdotal article which nevertheless illustrates that linguistically at least, China’s hegemony in East Asia is not a done deal. Though many of the people interviewed in the article acknowledge that speaking Mandarin proficiently is crucial for taking advantage of the ever-expanding opportunities to do business in China, parents […]