There is a rare gem in Sunday’s New York Times in the business section.  Former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, Dr. Christina Romer, has provided a balanced honest, accurate and concise summary of the arguments concerning the minimum wage. Given that a significant rise in the minimum wage was one of President Obama’s main […]

Mexico’s ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) lived up to its name on Sunday when nearly 5,000 party members unanimously voted to pave the way for key reforms to the country’s sluggish state-run energy industry. The FT reports: Institutional Revolutionary party (PRI) members convened for their national assembly agreed on Sunday to open the possibility of […]

Yesterday, Vice President Biden essentially threatened war with Iran. The US goal is “to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, period, end of discussion. Prevent, not contain, prevent!” Biden snapped to resounding applause. “The President of the United States cannot, and does not, bluff. President Barack Obama is not bluffing,” he said.Biden’s speech at the annual AIPAC conference in […]

Gideon Rachman argues in his latest column that despite tough times in Europe the continent is electing comedians, not fascists, to power. There’s something to the trend he’s identified: it isn’t the 1930s anymore, and we aren’t seeing the rise of thugs and genocidaires (except maybe in Greece). Rachman: Italy’s regional separatists, the Northern League, […]

A green activist named Chen Yuqian claims to have been beaten by a group of forty thugs for “using the internet” to publicize pollution in the Zhejiang province where he lives. We reported on a Chinese entrepreneur’s $32,000 offer to a local environmental official to swim in a polluted river; emboldened by the creativity of this […]

Employers are increasingly disappointed by the graduates available for hire, according to a survey conducted by The Chronicle and American Public Media’s Marketplace: Half of those surveyed…said they had trouble finding recent graduates qualified to fill positions at their company or organization. Nearly a third gave colleges just fair to poor marks for producing successful employees. And […]

Once a closed economy run by a military junta where only Chinese firms were comfortable doing business, the newly “transparent” and “democratic” Burma has been freed from sanctions and is now open to all comers. And boy are they coming.Attracted by Burma’s storied wealth in natural resources like gemstones, lumber, oil and gas, foreign firms […]

Tomorrow’s school board elections in Los Angeles have become the latest battleground in the national school reform effort. Outside groups have spent almost $4.4 million on the elections. Supporting the reformers’ slate of candidates are New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Students First, the national advocacy organization of education reformer extraordinaire and former DC School Chancellor […]

More than 110,000 participants are taking part in the third-annual Telework Week, an event hosted by the public-private partnership Mobile Work Exchange to improve awareness of the myriad benefits of teleworking. Participants have pledged to work from home at least one day this week, and the organization has seen a 55 percent increase in participation since last […]

Attempts to remake the GOP in the wake of 2012 have thus far been discouraging. Most recently, CPAC, a conservative confab attended by some of the biggest names in the GOP, made headlines for snubbing New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and banning a pro-gay rights group. For a movement that needs to gain support from […]