Illinois has now officially blown its third chance in one year at fixing the worst state pension system in the country. After failing to pass pension reform bills in August and again in January, Illinois is now 0-for-3, having failed as expected on Friday to pass a bill before the legislature adjourned. The state may now have to […]

What happened to America’s nerve? The US has long prided itself on its gumption, its pluck, its dynamism. But risk-taking is out, the Wall Street Journal reports, and that doesn’t bode well for our economy: Three long-running trends suggest the U.S. economy has turned soft on risk: Companies add jobs more slowly, even in good times. Investors […]

Europe is mulling import tariffs on cheap Chinese solar panels to protect its own manufacturers; it could learn something from America’s attempt to do the same last year. Hint: it didn’t work.China heavily subsidized its own solar industry, which led to a rapid expansion in the supply of solar panels. Demand didn’t keep up with […]

News out of Asia was grim this week: a massacre and the slowest growth in a decade in India; Chinese hacking; and the battle lines between friends and rivals coming into sharper focus in Asia’s Game of Thrones.Europe didn’t fare much better. A horrific slashing in London put the UK in crisis mode over the possibility that radical extremism […]

Hannah Arendt’s book Eichmann in Jerusalem sparked a storm of controversy when it was published in 1963. Roger Berkowitz, a scholar of politics and philosophy and a colleague of WRM’s at Bard, writes that in the years since, it “has remained something to condemn or defend rather than a book to be read and understood.” A new […]

Wars are won and lost. Empires rise and fall. Kings and queens come and go. But England will never die.A British scientist and math expert has apparently solved the all-important debate dating back to the 11th century of how to build the perfect “cream tea,” the famous English treat of a scone with butter and jam. […]

At long last, the NYT begins to observe that the Middle East is in flames and the chief cause is the war in Syria. “The Syrian civil war is setting off a contagious sectarian conflict beyond the country’s borders, reigniting long-simmering tensions between Sunnis and Shiites, and, experts fear, shaking the foundations of countries cobbled together […]

The Lone Star State keeps shining brighter and brighter these days. And the college educated and blue collars millennials are taking note, moving to cities like San Antonio and Houston where young people can still build a life.Those who spend their media time wrapped comfortably in the soothing Blue Cocoon think news like this is […]

The White House has done its best (and sometimes its worst) to crack down on leaks in order to control the Washington information flow. So it’s all the more interesting that West Wing insiders now seem to be whispering that Attorney General Holder is a liability who needs to go.It’s a little bit like Kremlinology […]

Blue model fans have been popping the champagne corks as the economic recovery boosts state revenues across the country. “What crisis?” seems to be the familiar refrain, as Democratic politicos in cahoots with public unions are already thinking up new social programs, new wage increases, and new pension promises.But look a little closer and there’s […]