Government rationing, price controls, and seizures of private companies have made Venezuela’s economy the envy of the world, which is why no one’s concerned about the government takeover of a toilet paper factory. The Venezuelan National Guard has occupied the factory, of course, simply to keep “unscrupulous traders” from perpetuating the country’s chronic TP shortage. […]

The EPA unfurled a new rule last Friday limiting emissions at new American coal plants to just 60 percent of what they currently spout. E&E News reports: The rule would limit new coal plants to emitting 1,100 pounds of CO2 per megawatt-hour. A typical coal plant today emits 1,800 pounds of CO2 per MWh. New gas […]

Will public-sector pensions follow their private-sector counterparts into relative obscurity? Robert Lowenstein raises this question in a new piece at the Wall Street Journal, drawing parallels between the growth and decline of pensions in private companies in the mid-20th century with the pension crisis currently afflicting cities like Detroit and Stockton. The problems are best illustrated […]

Here are three facts about the Lone Star State, as reported by Policymic. Texas is creating more jobs than any other state in the country; the government sector has shrunk more than any other sector; and perhaps most impressive of all, unemployment is falling even though participation in the labor force is growing: Since August 2012, Texas’ employers […]

The New York Times has some good news and some bad news for Obamacare. The good news is that, as many had predicted, health insurance costs will indeed be lower than initially projected (although this does not mean that they will be lower than they are now). The bad news is that many insurers are achieving this […]

The French are calling President Obama Carteresque—and they don’t mean it as a compliment: Carter was a somewhat bland engineer, whereas Obama is a charismatic lawyer. Yet they seem to share a fundamental indecisiveness in their approach to world affairs. Carter had difficulty choosing between the muscular line of his national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, […]

In news this week from Asia, China unveiled two new plans to combat its pollution problem, one involving tax credits for electric vehicles, and the other a commitment to name-and-shame its worst-polluting megacities. A large part of the smog hovering over China’s countryside comes from burning coal; China has aggressively looked to diversify its energy […]

Adam Garfinkle has another excellent essay up on where the roller-coaster that is the Obama administration’s Syria policy is at right now. He wonders aloud whether the uptick in reports of back-channel dialogue between Washington and Tehran has anything to do with President Obama’s series of swift pivots on whether to punish Assad for his […]

Members of a Kurdish Peshmerga battalion show their ink-stained fingers in front of an insignia after voting in the region’s legislative elections at a polling station on September 19, 2013 in the northern Kurdish city of Arbil. Iraq’s Kurdistan, a three-province autonomous region, goes to the polls on September 21, grappling with a swathe of […]

Yet another horrific religiously-motivated massacre occurred this Sunday, this time in Pakistan. The New York Times: The attack occurred as worshipers left the All Saints Church in the old quarter of the regional capital, Peshawar, after a service on Sunday morning. Up to 600 worshipers had attended the service and were leaving to receive free food […]