Singapore’s economy shrank by almost 8 percent in the second quarter of 2011, reports the FT.  That’s a bad sign; the Southeast Asian city state is a regional trade and finance center and is acutely sensitive to economic trends in the neighborhood.  Disruptions in supply chains thanks to the Japanese tsunami had a lot to […]

A group of German banking associations to EU banking officials conducting ‘stress tests’ to see how many European banks are in trouble:  “Given the tense situation which already exists in money and capital markets, we believe publishing the results with the present level of detail would exacerbate the sovereign debt crisis.”Translated into English that means, […]

South Africa is one of the countries a serious observer of world politics needs to watch.  These days the drama is getting intense; unions around the country are striking at a time when discontent with slow economic progress for the majority is burning hot.  The government is torn between populist rage and economic responsibility; frustrated […]

After 22 months of blogging, Via Meadia is getting an upgrade. This blog has primarily served as a platform for long form essays. Despite the allegedly short attention span of the web-reading public and the myriad of sources of intelligent information with whom Via Meadia shares the web, the long form essays have gathered a […]

The Zogby poll of Arab attitudes for the Arab American Institute had some bad news for the White House, but there was also some pretty good news in it.  The best?  That Arabs are more worried than enthusiastic about the Arab spring.  66 percent of Moroccans polled said that the Arab Spring had either made […]

President Obama is now less popular among Arabs in strategic Middle Eastern countries than President Bush was at the end of his term.  Those are the findings in a recent poll (Zogby) by the Arab American Institute.  Across the region, Arabs feel that the President has disappointed any hopes raised by his early outreach to […]

Once they get out of Washington, they start telling the truth. Peter Orszag, the head of the Office of Management and Budget under President Obama through 2010, now warns in his Bloomberg column that the Federal deficit over the next 10 years will be about $2.5 trillion more than the Congressional Budget Office predicts.  The […]

The pompous and self righteous pioneers of our ever expanding nanny state have discovered a new humanitarian emergency out among the great unwashed barbarians of middle America: parents are letting their kids get fat.  The plan is that in “extreme” cases, social workers and other licensed professionals will take obese kids from their homes and […]

Moody’s, the much feared bond-rating agency whose downgrades have plunged Europe into chaos, is now warning that US debt may lose its triple A rating.  The last time this happened?  1979 when You-Know-Who was in the White House.  Back in those days the US had to sell “Carter bonds” denominated in foreign currency because people […]

Human rights activists are going to hate this, but a Thai zillionaire plans to build a major port in the country formerly known as Burma to facilitate trade between India and Southeast Asia.  The economic boost will help the SLORC cling to power — but promoting Indian trade and influence helps stabilize the power balance […]