Even though the government promised it would pay a good price for his rice, Mana Nutchyoo hasn’t seen half the money. “It’s in the system,” he said hopefully, held up by the turmoil sparked by opposition protests in Bangkok, 90 minutes to the south. But even if the political crisis eases, Nutchyoo may never see the rest of the money: the government is having serious trouble funding its rice-buying scheme and other pro-poor subsidies. If the fiscal crisis worsens the “Red Shirts” could end up turning on their government patrons.

There are many similarities between our period and the pre-WWI system: widespread belief in the peaceful powers of globalization mixed with ineffective leaders; geopolitical grappling; rising nationalism; and instability in smaller countries that are “clients” of larger powers. Geopolitics is back, and we need to re-learn how to think strategically about engaging whole nations in a global power struggle.

Gallup Polls and Purdue University will be spending the next five years surveying hundreds of thousands of college graduates to paint a more accurate picture of where students from various colleges end up and what sort of impact their degree has on their life. This measurement will go far beyond more recent attempts to put a value of a degree by simply looking at post-college earnings, and looks like the best attempt yet to put a true value on college degrees.

The EPA invalidated 33.5 million renewable fuel credits (RINs, for shorthand) on Wednesday for the simple reason that the company that sold the credits didn’t actually produce the fuel. It’s the fourth case of fraud for America’s biofuels boondoggle, but the RFS itself is an even bigger fraud than cons taking place within it.

The eurozone’s most important economy could be in for a rude awakening. In the wake of Standard & Poor’s recent downgrade of the Netherlands, Germany’s coveted triple-A credit rating may be at risk. Germany is one of only two Eurozone countries left with the top rating, but with its slowing output, aging population, expensive pledges to save the euro, and a new, untested governing coalition, the problems that brought down the Netherlands down may eventually afflict the economy holding Europe together.

The ASA’s misguided alliance with the BDS movement is just the tip of the iceberg. Academe’s intellectual and moral rot runs deep.

In response to alleged mistreatment of an Indian diplomat by American law enforcement officials, Indian authorities have taken a series of unprecedented steps to show their displeasure, including the removal of security barriers around the American embassy in New Delhi. Indian outrage over alleged mistreatment abroad is not new, but during election season, opportunistic politicians are especially eager to stoke anti-American sentiment.

Detroit’s charter schools have the second-highest market share of any city in America, but the abundance of schools is also creating a somewhat chaotic marketplace as a large number of schools compete for a declining student base. The confusion is hard on students and parents, but it may be necessary to fix one of the worst school systems in the country.

Oil began flowing from fields in Iraqi Kurdistan to Turkey over the weekend. The recently completed pipeline connects fields in Northern Iraq with Turkey’s pipeline network for the first time, and is being welcomed by both Ibril and Ankara alike, which are both happy to see less oil transported by costlier trucks. But while Turkey and the KRG both stand to benefit from an increasingly robust pipeline network, Baghdad is understandably alarmed by the development.

A recent paper found that people with insurance use health care more than people without, but aren’t significantly healthier. This study echoes another done earlier this year on the Oregon Medicaid population. Taken together, they suggest that insurance can have an inflationary effect on medical spending without producing proportionately better health outcomes.That doesn’t mean that we should give up on the goal of expanding access to at least some basic forms of insurance to the whole population, but it does point out the costs of the way we currently fund health care.