To suspend aid to Egypt or not? Ever since the bloodletting across Egypt accelerated last week, an increasing number of Senators and Congressmen have been lining up to demand that President Obama halt disbursements of the $1.5 billion annual aid package to Egypt’s heavy-handed military-backed government. Various EU leaders have joined the chorus in their respective […]

In early 2010 President Obama set a stretch goal for the United States: double our exports in five years. It was the kind of seemingly fantastical five-year plan you might expect from China, which has been able to leverage its outsized population and natural resources to produce extraordinary growth (though that growth has recently tapered […]

With WRM in India this week, we cross-posted an essay from the American Interest editor Adam Garfinkle on the violent crackdown on pro-Morsi supporters by Egyptian Security Forces: [A]l-Sisi and associates believe in the “strong horse” theory of political legitimacy, and they are now in the process of applying that theory to Egyptian realities. Might doesn’t necessarily make […]

In a remarkably candid column last month, climate scientist Tamsin Edwards argued that her profession would be better served focusing exclusively on what they are qualified to comment on: climate science. Climate policy, Edwards says, is better left to the politicians. From the Guardian: I believe advocacy by climate scientists has damaged trust in the science. […]

An Egyptian man places blocks of ice on the body of a supporter of deposed Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, killed during a violent crackdown by Egyptian Security Forces on pro-Morsi sit-in demonstrations the day before, at the al-Iman Mosque in Nasr City on August 15, 2013 in Cairo, Egypt. An unknown number of pro-Morsi protesters […]

British scientists have figured out a way to “unlock” vast amounts of nitrogen in the air to reduce our reliance on conventional fertilizer. Nitrogen is the most abundant element in the air and is a key catalyst for plant growth, but most plants (legumes are an exception) are unable to “pull” it directly out of […]

One of the smarter greens out there is warning against getting carried away by the hype over renewable energy. Bjørn Lomborg puts the current state of green energy in historical context in a piece for Project Syndicate: The reality is that humanity has spent recent centuries getting away from renewables. In 1800, the world obtained 94% of its energy […]

The revelations about Romneycare this week once again underscored the importance of price signals and price transparency in our health care system. Fortunately, though hospitals have a vested interest in keeping their prices secret, there’s some neat tools out there for finding price comparisons on procedures and between hospitals.We just came across a new one […]

In a move sure to dismay the people inside and outside China who hoped Xi Jinping would begin a new era of democratic reform, China’s president has “lurched” to the left, as the WSJ reports, promoting a revitalized version of nationalist Maoism across the country. “Our red nation will never change color,” Xi said during a […]

Faced with plummeting birth rates that threaten to undermine its economy, Germany is aggressively experimenting with new policies to reverse the decline. NYT: There is perhaps nowhere better than the German countryside to see the dawning impact of Europe’s plunge in fertility rates over the decades, a problem that has frightening implications for the economy […]