[Tommy Meyerson is one of the capable interns who keeps the traffic moving on Via Meadia.  As one of WRM’s students at Yale he found the transition to working on the blog easy; we are losing him this month to the USMC.  Their gain, our loss.  From time to time interns and other Team Mead […]

Good news from the Voldemort Affair (the unpleasantness formerly known as the Global War on Terror, these days it appears to be some kind of contretemps with Those Who Must Not Be Named). President Obama’s order to kill or capture Anwar al-Awlaki, one of Al Qaeda’s chief propagandists, has finally been carried out. The NYT […]

As the Energy Department hustled to get another $4.7 billion in loan guarantees for green tech companies out the door before time ran out and the program ended last week, yet another solar panel manufacturer was wilting in the sun, and the green jobs scam was looking more threadbare than ever. Says the WSJ: Solar-power […]

Recent demonstrations around the globe are taking aim at a new target: democracy. From Israel to India to Spain to Wall Street, protests rooted in economic issues carry underlying anti-democratic elements as well. From the New York Times: Their complaints range from corruption to lack of affordable housing and joblessness, common grievances the world over. […]

The Financial Times today appears extremely concerned today about the state of the Chinese housing market, running two stories with sobering news about the industry’s prospects. Many are beginning to see warning signs that a crash in China’s “housing bubble” may be imminent — housing prices now appear to be falling after years of dramatic […]

The Small Business Lending Fund, a federal program aimed at helping small American businesses and banks, has fallen to bits. Tuesday was the last day on which banks could receive the low cost capital for lending on to small business; poor design and a cumbersome process meant that $26 billion of $30 billion earmarked to […]

As thousands of soon-to-be law students prepare for the LSATs tomorrow, here’s something they should consider: a list of the top 8 bad reasons for going to law school. Here’s one of the finest: (7) I want to help poor people/save mountaintops from being blown up in West Virginia/stop human right violations in Africa/make a […]

Pakistan likes having powerful friends; after the embarrassing May attack that killed OBL, Islamabad began looking to China to take over “sugar-daddy” status from the US. China’s response has been lukewarm, and it took another turn for the worse yesterday. As the WSJ reports: An official at China Kingho Group, one of China’s largest private coal miners, […]

Brazil might have a model for private sector education which the United States can emulate.  For years, Brazil has struggled to populate its world-class university and college system with students capable of meeting tough academic standards.  Now, private companies are succeeding where public schools have failed.  The FT reports: Investors in Brazil frequently complain about […]

1931 was the year that put the Great in the Great Depression.  A banking crash in Europe knocked a fragile recovery off course and after the US Congress turned to protectionist trade policy with the passage of the Hawley-Smoot tariff in 1930, a global trade war wrecked everyone’s exports and the bad economic times turned […]