It didn’t take long for Cristina de Kirchner’s foreign exchange controls and phony inflation numbers to make black markets a staple of life in Argentina. The FT reports that Buenos Aires today is littered with “caves”—shady offices where dollars can be bought and sold for double the official rate: In the heart of downtown Buenos […]

For a brief week it looked like talks between the Pakistani government and the Pakistani Taliban were getting somewhere. The top military leadership blessed an initiative, led by Nawaz Sharif, to talk to the militant group that has waged a bloody war against the Pakistani government for years. But then the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility […]

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: shale gas is fracking green. A new study confirms that natural gas helps decrease greenhouse gas emissions by displacing the much dirtier and more carbon intensive coal.The study was conducted by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin, and it pokes a hole in one […]

The shakeup in Illinois’s Democratic primary may be making all the headlines, but pensions remain the biggest story in the Land of Lincoln. And Chicago has it worse than anywhere else; the situation is so dire that the New York Times is warning of a Detroit-like slide.According to Chicago’s official estimates, the total pension debt that falls […]

On Monday China announced new anti-subsidy tariffs on American-made polysilicon—a key component in solar panels. This marks the latest instance of a solar-producing country accusing another government of unfairly propping up the industry with state subsidies. China’s Commerce Ministry said America’s subsidized solar-grade polysilicon industry has caused China’s own polysilicon sector “substantial harm.” Reuters reports: China’s […]

The house call could be making a comeback. The WSJ reports on new options for bringing health care for the elderly back into the home and elder care communities: Nine out of 10 Americans say they want to grow old at home and keep living in their communities as long as possible, according to AARP. […]

In early September, American Interest publisher Charles Davidson spoke with Hermitage Capital co-founder and CEO William Browder about the origins, impact and future of the Magnitsky Act. Charles Davidson: Welcome, Bill; we appreciate you talking with us. Our timing is good, given the news out of New York two days ago. William Browder: Yes, the […]

The story of Detroit’s decline has been told and retold so many times now that you’d be forgiven for assuming there’s nothing more to say. But the Detroit Free Press has put together a new, comprehensive financial history of the city from 1950 to the present, gleaned from tens of thousands of pages of archival data on the city’s […]

Two years ago it seemed as though the Doha Round of trade talks were dead and the WTO was in critical condition. But with the organization’s biennial meeting in Bali approaching, there are new signs of life.With much of the low-hanging fruit already picked, the WTO has had trouble getting a diverse group of member states […]

Obamacare supporters have been touting California’s lower-than-expected premiums as a sign of ACA success for months now. That claim is bogus; many people are still facing premium price hikes over their current rates. Now new data suggests that the tradeoffs required to bring premiums below the expected average will be very hard to live with. LA […]