What passes for good news about healthcare costs came in recently: they grew by “only” 4 percent between February 2011 and February 2012, significantly faster than the overall rate of inflation, but less quickly than they’ve grown in the past. Health care now accounts for 18 percent of total US GDP and costs are rising […]

Alex Kicillof, a young Marxist economist and talented orator, has been the main advisor to Argentinian president Cristina Fernandez. According to sources quoted in the Financial Times, Kicillof “is the economic brains—the first economist she has listened to since Néstor Kirchner died” and is “on the left of the left.”This week Fernandez moved to nationalize the […]

China is going through serious political turmoil the likes of which haven’t been experienced in decades, and despite the government’s best efforts, the struggle over Bo Xilai offers an opportunity for outsiders to see how China really works.This piece (h/t to fellow TAI blogger and Twitter maestro Frank Fukuyama) offers an illuminating view of what’s […]

As someone who teaches humanities in an expensive private liberal arts college, I like to keep abreast of the trends in the job market for my students. This useful chart from the Chronicle of Higher Education takes US Census data and breaks out the median income for graduates depending on their major.As you might expect, […]

The wheels of justice grind notoriously slowly in France, but accumulating evidence suggests that one reason President Sarkozy is running so hard to stay in the Elysee Palace is because the alternative to re-election might just be jail.Via Meadia contributor Jacob Albert lays out the rich and dark web of high level French corruption, money […]

Boko Haram is getting bolder and expanding its scope of terrorist attacks in Nigeria. The US Embassy in Abuja has warned that the group could target hotels and other targets in Nigeria’s capital that are popular among westerners.So far, Boko Haram has focused its attacks on churches, schools, and symbols of the national government like […]

When Hamas booted Fatah out of Gaza in 2006, many Gazans cheered because they expected Hamas to clean up Fatah’s corrupt and inefficient government, and were swayed by Hamas’s tough stance against Israel. After years in power in the small Mediterranean strip, Hamas is failing on both fronts.Israel’s blockade and commercial restrictions on life in […]

Reuters reports that a growing number of U.S. cities, from Rhode Island to California, are now facing municipal defaults. Up to now, the crisis has primarily affected localities that  made particularly poor decisions on expensive public works projects, but last year the number of municipal defaults in America doubled from 6 to 13, and that […]

We are scrambling today to keep the site fresh and active. The first round of the Metropolitan Opera performance of Wagner’s Ring cycle features Siegfried today, and the matinee performance stretches from 11 AM until late in the afternoon. (The fat lady takes her sweet time about singing in this one — though in this […]

One of the jobs of the future that Via Meadia predicts will soon arrive is the on-demand stylist. Armies of stylists already attend to the super-rich, of course, but what about the rest of us? Plenty of average people would benefit from some sartorial advice, particularly from a professional.Enter Style for Hire, a start-up that connects […]