One of the most talked-about items in Obama’s new jobs proposal is also one of the most questionable: job training programs for minors and the unemployed. On the surface, this seems like a smart idea — providing American workers with the skills needed to navigate an economy that has changed dramatically over the past twenty […]

We noted earlier that Venezuela’s feisty President Hugo Chavez was repatriating his country’s gold hoard from London, apparently fearing international sanctions or seizures by angry foreign creditors.  Now he seems to be deepening the country’s defenses against foreign claimants by preparing to withdraw from a major global forum for the settlement of investor disputes. From […]

The growth of India and China may be the wonder of the world, but it depends on a lot of little things going right: institutions, workforce, transportation, logistics, energy, and the like.These days, energy threatens to be a roadblock in India’s path.  Oil and gas involve deals with countries like Iran; domestically India’s biggest resource […]

The chattering class has spent the past week dissecting the new memoir from much-reviled former VP Dick Cheney. The reaction has been mostly negative and will do little to revive his tarnished reputation. The Washington Post criticizes Cheney for failing to learn from the Iraq experience: Yet in his new memoir, “In My Time,” Cheney […]

As the FT reports: European governments are attempting to revive a stalled effort to beat Russia’s effort to bring central Asia’s vast natural gas reserves to Europe.A move to give Brussels the power to negotiate a pipeline deal with Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan is expected to be agreed…The unprecedented ceding of power is the latest sign […]

As a story in the Wall Street Journal recently noted, homeschooling is adapting to new environments: The San Francisco Schoolhouse…started classes Tuesday in the Richmond district with an initial enrollment of four first-graders…Unlike most homeschooling, in which a child is primarily taught by his or her own parents, students in co-ops often share teachers and sometimes […]

Last week Germany’s constitutional court ruled in favor of the European financial adjustment facility. As the FT’s Wolfgang Munchau writes, at first glance many observers saw the decision as a victory for those who want a collective European response to the crisis, but on closer inspection it turns out to place sharp limits on what Germany can […]

When it comes to the war in Afghanistan – or any war, really – wanting it to be over does not help end it. Thankfully, Ambassador Ryan Crocker knows this, even if many pundits do not. As the Washington Post reports: …Crocker has two simple points to make. First: Wanting the war against al-Qaeda to […]

The decline of the USPS – one of America’s oldest and best-known institutions – is one of the most visible examples of the fall of the Blue Social Model. The financial collapse of the Postal Service has been one of the main stories of the past few weeks, generating a number of proposals to fix […]

Time has often seemed to stand still in the Middle East.  The Israeli-Palestinian conflict ground on at a glacial pace.  Kemalist Turkey, Mubarak’s Egypt, Assad’s Syria: little changed from year to year.This was a survival of the Cold War political system.  Since the French Revolution, world politics has been a combination of a roller coaster […]