I have, to put it mildly, been somewhat astonished at the heated reaction that my blog post “Do Institutions Matter?” has provoked, culminating in a letter from the Hungarian State Secretary for Communication, Zoltán Kovács, to The American Interest complaining about my piece and contesting various points in it. I’m now one of the few […]

If Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov were an American college president, he’d be fighting for his life right now.  Said Sergei, according to Reuters: “Some of the voices heard in the West with evaluations of the results of the vote in the U.N. Security Council on the Syria resolution sound, I would say, improper, somewhere […]

New debt figures from Europe are encouraging, for a change. Greek debt is up, and so are debt levels in Portugal, Ireland and Spain.But in Italy, as in the eurozone as a whole, debt edged down in the third quarter of last year.If this trend continues, and Italy continues to widen the distance between itself […]

China has passed a law banning Chinese airlines from complying with an EU directive to buy carbon permits to offset CO2 generated on passenger and cargo flights to and from EU destinations.  It’s the strongest step yet in global resistance to the EU requirement, which India, the US and most other countries around the world […]

In Moscow this Saturday thousands of people marched against fraudulent elections and the Putin regime’s general abuse of power. This was the third such mass protest since the December 4 parliamentary elections, in which Vladimir Putin’s previously dominant United Russia party failed to get more than 50 percent of the vote despite widespread fraud in […]

The quest for a new social model has to start with economics. America could survive without growing prosperity and rising standards of living, but it would not flourish — and it would not be living up to its potential to create a better life not only for Americans but for people all over the world.  […]

This week, we published parts one and two of the “Beyond Blue” series.In America, segregation is at an historic low. Claremont McKenna College in California was caught repeatedly lying about its students SAT scores. In New York, the average price for private school tuition is approaching $40,000 each year. Camilla Williams passed away.Two Canadian teens sent […]

The French genocide law controversy did not fade from Turkey’s domestic news this week, with several newspapers endorsing Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu’s characterization of the episode as an attempt to “Nazify” Turks. Newpapers also cited reported comments by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that the law is incompatible with press freedom, and reported actions taken […]

Why did Russia veto the UN Security Council resolution over Syria? Vladimir Isachenkov has an AP piece that offers some background; with that piece and the vast database and computer resources here at Team Mead’s GHQ in glamorous Queens, it’s possible to explain why Russia did what it did. First point: domestic politics.  Putin is […]

India told the UK last year that it could keep the foreign aid money Britain sends each year to its former imperial possession.  According to the Telegraph, Pranab Mukherjee, India’s finance minister and the head of the powerful lower house of its parliament told the Brits bearing gifts: “It is a peanut in our total […]