Marissa Mayer’s decision to end Yahoo!’s telecommuting policies has kicked up a decent controversy, with many criticizing her for instituting a change they see as especially hostile to working mothers. Into the fray steps Anne-Marie Slaughter, whose recent article “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All” was also much discussed. Writing for The Atlantic, Slaughter defends […]

India’s Finance Minister and potential PM candidate surprised many yesterday by releasing a budget with sharp increases in government spending. Before yesterday, P. Chidambaram was a darling of foreign investors for his commitment to reforming India’s sluggish economy. But by defying expectations for an austerity budget and choosing instead to increase spending by 16 percent […]

The city of Wukan, in southeast China, burst into rebellion last year, only to see its high hopes fade away. Villagers in Wukan were furious with the local Communist Party leaders, who were selling off large parcels of communal land to developers and pocketing the proceeds. Finally fed up, in late 2011 the villagers joined together in a large protest, […]

Government regulation is stifling America’s vibrant pharmaceutical industry. A recent report by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology estimates that it costs an average of $1.2 billion to win FDA approval and bring a new drug to market. Given that biopharmaceuticals account for roughly two percent of the economy, this is no […]

Last year for the first time Cuba’s government allowed a private party to sell real estate property to another private party, and now the country’s real estate market is thriving. Prices are up, and the number of houses for sale keeps growing, according to a recent article on the New America Media site.The new properties are […]

Financial markets around the world reeled when the Italians rejected the European status quo and their own political establishment in the last election.  This should not have come as such a surprise; few political establishments anywhere in the democratic world are as spectacularly rotten as Italy’s, and the European status quo is the biggest man-made […]

Good news: The racial demography of America’s prison populations is inching slowly toward reflecting the nation’s general demography. Blacks make up 12.6 percent of the US population but represent 38 percent of America’s prisoners. This is still far too high, but the numbers are trending in the right direction, thanks in large part to revisions […]