Advocates of single-payer have long pointed to VA hospitals as examples of how a single-payer, government-run health care system can work in America. But this NYT story on a whistleblower’s letter complaining about a “pattern of problems” at one Mississippi VA hospital paints a much less appealing portrait of these institutions: The problems over the last […]

Fifty-eight percent of lower and middle class women now give birth to their first child outside of wedlock, according to a new report from the National Marriage Project. As the report notes, this statistic largely follows from the trend toward delayed marriage: Americans…are postponing marriage to their late twenties and thirties for two main reasons, one […]

The world’s top-selling producer of solar panels has defaulted on a $541 million bond payment. The Chinese firm Suntech hasn’t posted a profit since the first quarter of 2011 and has been relying on the government of Wuxi, the city where it is headquartered, to stay solvent. But as more bills come due, this renewable […]

How well do massively open online courses (MOOCs) actually work? We’ve come at this question from the perspective of students and researchers. What do the professors who actually teach these classes think?The Chronicle of Higher Education sent a short questionnaire to 184 professors who have taught a MOOC, asking them about the experience of teaching online, the differences between online classes […]

It looks like Cyprus is not going to march to the EU’s orders without putting up some kind of fight. A draft bill has been handed down to the Cypriot parliament which would exempt the smallest depositors from the proposed savings taxes. Brussels was blindsided, says the WSJ: European officials in Brussels were surprised by […]

It’s no longer enough for Hungary’s conservative government to associate with anti-Semites and minority-hating bigots. Now it’s in the business of bestowing awards on them. Deutsche Welle reports that the government has given its highest honor to a handful of people well-known for their racism and anti-Semitism: In the past, the journalist, Ferenc Szaniszlo, is […]

Are we witnessing some sort of policy convergence coming out of Beijing? First, Reuters is reporting that some more dovish generals are gaining prominence under new President Xi Jinping: General Liu Yuan, a senior People’s Liberation Army (PLA) officer close to the new leader, warned of the danger of war with Japan in a series of conciliatory commentaries and public […]

Heavy snow is burying British businesses. New research has found that about three in five companies disrupted by winter weather suffered financially as a result, with the average cost soaring above £52,000. The FT reports: It showed that extreme weather was increasingly hampering organisations: a decade ago, it interfered with just 15 per cent of businesses over […]

According to a recent study by the Urban Institute, the young Americans of generations X and Y have accumulated less wealth than their parents did when they were in their twenties and thirties, and they’ll continue to lag behind the baby boomers as they get older.But the Atlantic’s Jordan Weissman disputes this report, and the NYT‘s take on it, […]

Guess who’s not happy with the fact that the EU has imposed a hefty tax on wealthy depositors in Cyprus?The FT is on it : Mr Putin, at a meeting with economic advisers on Monday, was among several Russian leaders to criticise the bailout, which came without consultation with Moscow and could cost Russian depositors up […]