Yet another city is suffering the consequences of hitting up the Wall Street casino to fund its pension system. Bloomberg reports that Denver’s public school system has paid a total of $215.6 million to Wall Street banks related to swaps and bond sales made since 2008—equal to two-thirds of total teaching expenses for one year.We’ve heard this […]

The victor in tomorrow’s elections in Pakistan will inherit a national economy in tatters. There are steep economic challenges ahead—so steep, in fact, that the first stop for Pakistan’s new government will probably be the offices of the IMF, where officials will go to seek a loan to keep the government afloat.Reuters has the story: The winner […]

The FCC has just taken a first step towards dramatically upgrading in-flight WiFi available to travelers. On Thursday the commission proposed auctioning newly available airwaves to improve in-flight connections via air-to-ground systems. NYT: The new format would use a more reliable system of contact between a plane and the ground, agency officials said, and should allow […]

The big news two days ago was the announcement, by Secretary Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, of plans to hold a conference on Syria sometime this month. Now, if this conference—assuming it ever happens—can stop the civil war and lead to a relatively smooth landing (“smooth” in this case is a very elastic […]

Consumer financial services company Bankrate Inc. has done a new analysis on the worst states for retirees. Using data on “state taxes, local crime rates, access to medical care and cost of living,” among others, the company compiled a list of ten places to avoid. The ten worst states to retire in, in descending order, […]

 The dust is still settling after a hectic week in the Middle East, but it’s worth taking a look at an interesting chain of events. First, John Kerry traveled to Moscow and agreed with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to hold a “Syria Conference” in order to “bring both sides to the table,” as Kerry said. […]

Enstitute, a new alternative to college, may be bringing higher education back to the Middle Ages. Rather than college degrees, Enstitute offers a two-year program that aims to give college students real-world job experience, akin to the venerable apprenticeship model. The New York Times reports: [Enstitute] teaches skills in fields like information technology, computer programming […]

Egypt received its sixth Standard & Poor’s downgrade since the fall of the Mubarak government yesterday. The drop of its short- and long-term credit rating from B to C territory is only the latest failure to befall the government of President Mohamed Morsi. His administration is now presiding over an economic and social tragedy so […]

Of the Big Five questions facing America today, the most pressing and urgent is the question of jobs. This is more than the problem of recovering from the last economic slump; it is more than the impact of globalization and automation on manufacturing jobs. The American economy is shedding jobs, especially long-term, well-paying jobs with […]

The Department of the Interior will be announcing a new set of fracking regulations in the coming weeks. Details are scarce at present, but that hasn’t stopped greens and browns from staking out their battle lines. The FT reports: The interior department’s bureau of land management is due to release new rules on the use of hydraulic […]