The Syrian civil war is making a bigger mark on Lebanon with each passing day. Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia and political party, has tried to keep hints of its involvement in the fighting in Syria a secret, with little success. Just today, an explosion in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, close to the border with Syria, killed […]

There’s no free lunch in economics, not even for central bankers and their powerful printing presses. As central banks across the world come up with ever-more exotic plans to stimulate us out of our economic malaise, the threat of inflation is always looming in the background. Some recent data points quietly point in that direction. […]

If and when African Union forces intervene to save Mali from Islamist extremists they will probably be met by child soldiers wielding machine guns. More than a thousand kids (probably many more) have been conscripted by the various fighting groups now stalking Mali’s northern deserts. The fighters pay big money: $30 per day for the soldier, and sometimes as […]

WSJ: Several big Chinese banks say they’ve canceled participation in the high-profile annual meeting of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to be held in Tokyo next week as well as in the constellation of events taking place alongside. Some of the banks say they’ve also pulled out of another big financial-industry conference scheduled […]

Here at Via Meadia, we’re considering a new pension plan for our interns. Here’s how it works: The interns put money in the pension lockbox. The staff then takes money out of that lockbox and uses it to pay for lunches. But don’t worry: for every penny taken out of the lockbox, VM will place […]

It’s not just the wealthy who are raising a stink over François Hollande’s tax policies. Small French entrepreneurs are up in arms over his decision to tax capital gains at the same rate as earned income. Calling themselves “les pigeons,” which loosely translates to “suckers,” they’ve taken to Facebook and Twitter to organize their protests, […]

The Washington Post has some dire words of warning on China’s real estate market: As home prices have skyrocketed, many Chinese households have gone all in on real estate by pouring years of savings into buying as many homes as they can.But as the country’s economy slows to its worst pace in years, China’s dependence on real estate for growth […]

Current U.S. drug policies have produced mediocre results, at best. Pessimists say that trying to eradicate drug use by making it illegal has failed altogether. Even optimists mostly view the prohibition approach as just holding the line, which is a polite way of saying that we are mired in an ugly status quo, in which […]

In early September, AI publisher Charles Davidson spoke with Jack Blum—chairman of Tax Justice Network USA and one of the world’s premier experts on tax evasion, money laundering, banking and real estate scams, and corporate fraud—about the failure of both presidential campaigns to face up to America’s serious budget and taxation problems.  CD: Let’s turn […]

Well that was fast. Earlier today we were saying how the end of Georgian parliamentary elections was only just the beginning of the story there. This afternoon, the victorious Bidzina Ivanishvili called a press conference to demand that Mikhail Saakashvili step down immediately as president:Winning a majority in parliament and demanding your opponent completely relinquishes power: […]