The current political campaign has always looked like a close contest that may remain undecided until the closing days and even hours of the race, but it’s also interesting as a window into the state of American politics. Possibly because I’m so old myself that this is the fourteenth such campaign I remember (when I […]

A reader wonders, How about the oil industry which receives vastly more subsidy through the tax system than wind energy receives. Does that industry deserve those subsidies after more than a century of operation? Perhaps the oil companies should also be billed directly for aspects of their operations like the cost of maintaining the Fifth […]

Ripples of panic should be spreading through New York City Hall and the Ivy League as staffers and students pass around photocopies of this story from the always informative FT. Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman has some thoughts about the financial industry: too many people work in the sector and they are making too much […]

You might have missed it: a revolution almost happened in Kyrgyzstan earlier this week.Attempts to topple the government in Bishkek have become an almost semi-annual event in Kyrgyzstan: in spring 2010, revolts in northwestern Kyrgyzstan metastasized into major protests that overthrew then-President Kurmanbek Bakiev and instated Roza Otunbaeva as interim President of the Central Asian republic. Since […]

A few weeks ago, we wrote about the upcoming elections in Venezuela, where incumbent Hugo Chavez is fighting off the young upstart Henrique Capriles in an election which could have profound implications not just for Venezuela, but for the region as a whole. We wondered what Capriles’ chances are, given Chavez’ tendencies to, uh, tip […]

The UK is heading for yet another bruising fight with the EU, this time over the grotesquely swollen budget that the Eurocrats have drawn up. Here’s the lede of the FT story on the coming budgetary High Noon: Brussels is bracing itself for a battle with David Cameron as fears grow that the British prime […]

A reader wonders: You wrote yesterday, “We don’t want a war and we don’t want an Iranian bomb; now is the time to redouble our efforts to bring this standoff to a peaceful and successful close.”I don’t recall reading in your blog what you think a peaceful and successful close in Iran would look like, […]

The U.S. and other countries have spent billions subsidizing electric cars, an environmentalist solution which has been met with only lukewarm enthusiasm from customers. And it turns out environmentalists are split over whether these things are in fact worse for the environment than what we’ve got. A new research paper from the Norwegian University of […]

China isn’t very good at foreign policy; that is the only way to make sense of the apparent decision by a number of large Chinese banks to boycott the annual meeting of the World Bank and the IMF scheduled for Tokyo next week.As the WSJ tells us, the decision comes as a result of the […]

In Europe these days they tell a joke about Angela Merkel landing in Paris and being questioned by a customs official as she gets off the plane.“Occupation?” asks the official.“Not this time,” she says. “Just a visit.”They will be laughing bitterly about this in Greece this week; as the WSJ reports, Chancellor Merkel is coming […]