Surprise, surprise: talks between Iran and the P5+1 (the US, Russia, China, France, UK, and Germany) broke down over the weekend with no agreement and no plan to meet again. The NY Times reports: Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, who led the talks for the six powers, said that after two days of […]

In the face of ongoing instability in the Eurozone, people are hoarding dollars. No, not interest-bearing Treasury bills, but good old fashioned greenbacks. According to the San Francisco Fed’s President John Williams, the amount of cash in circulation has risen by 42 percent in the past five years. Here’s the key paragraph from this morning’s Financial […]

Last week, Lara Jakes reported for the AP that President Obama’s reluctance to intervene in Syria is because he wants to persuade Iran to give up its nuclear weapons ambitions. We’re reluctant to jump to conclusions based on this one press report, aware that we might not be seeing the full story. But it is […]

Does your commute drive you crazy? Maybe more than you think. A new study says that daily stress—like being stuck in traffic—can lead to mental disorders years down the road. IOL reports: Everyday irritations like waiting in traffic can build up over time and cause mental problems later in life, psychologists found. […]Using data from two […]

A former Chinese finance minister suggested Friday that local governments across China may be disguising how much debt they are sitting on. Bloomberg reports: [Former Finance Minister] Xiang [Huaicheng]’s estimate for provincial and city government borrowings is almost double the 10.7 trillion-yuan figure that the National Audit Office gave for such debt in a 2011 […]

The UK could have enough shale gas to heat its homes for the next millenium, as the British Geological Survey (BGS) plans to report this month. The Telegraph has the story on what is expected to be a hefty windfall: Industry insiders say the BGS could report between 1,200 trillion and 1,800 trillion cubic feet of gas […]

The first rule of the meritocratic elite is: you don’t talk about the meritocratic elite.In a recent letter in the daily Princeton, Susan Patton, a Princeton mother, argued that women should use their time on campus to find a husband. For various reasons, the piece angered or annoyed many pundits across the blogosphere (we discussed it here). […]

The Huffington Post conducted an online poll of a varied group of Americans to see how many people in our country want to establish an official religion at the national level or in their state. There are a couple things you should keep in mind as you check out the results.Established religion does not mean a […]

Related to our earlier post on the bifurcated job market, here are two Saturday reads for you to ponder:1) Megan McArdle, writing in the Daily Beast last week, suggested that a kind of fundamental shift is underway in our society: “Skilled workers with higher degrees are increasingly ending up in lower-skilled jobs that don’t really require […]

A recent Gallup Poll shows that 55 percent of American adults think the US should defend South Korea with US military forces if it’s attacked by North Korea, while only 34 percent said we shouldn’t. What’s more, only 28 percent of those polled think it’s likely that North Korea will directly attack the US in […]