There was a time, just a few months ago, when David Cameron was the toast of Brussels. Those who fretted about Britain’s new Conservative prime minister, a declared Eurosceptic, were surprised by how accommodating he could be. He did not stand in the way of the euro zone’s new treaty to create a permanent…
What a difference a decade makes. Ten years ago, Colombia was the Greece of Latin America in the eyes of investors. Young people were desperate to emigrate. The well-off, afraid they’d be kidnapped, avoided traveling between Bogota and Medellin. When they did, it was best to travel the 240 kilometers that separate the two…
The Sex Addiction Epidemic It wrecks marriages, destroys careers, and saps self-worth. Yet Americans are being diagnosed as sex addicts in record numbers. Inside an epidemic. Valerie realized that sex was wrecking her life right around the time her second marriage disintegrated. At 30, and employed as a human-resources administrator…
Monoculture: How Our Era’s Dominant Story Shapes Our Lives What Galileo has to do with the economy, or how Wall Street is molding your taste in art. “The universe is made of stories, not atoms,” poet Muriel Rukeyser famously proclaimed. The stories we tell ourselves and each other are how we make sense of the…
Understanding the Occupy Wall Street movement: A primer Occupy Wall Street, the amorphous series of demonstrations that are reshaping the political debate in many major American cities and in countries around the globe, entered its second month on Monday. Here is a primer to understanding the movement that has mobilized hundreds of thousands of people…
Public officials have been caught repeatedly in usury-related scandals in the wealthy southeastern city of Wenzhou. Not only is it a betrayal of public trust, it exposes an economic system that too often relies on illegal money lending. Recently, a couple of moneylenders from Wenzhou China ran off with 1.3 billion…
Social Security A monstrous truth September 15, 2011 NO PONZI scheme in the history of the world has ever lasted 75 years. Ponzi schemes depend on garnering an ever-increasing pool of new investors to pay out returns to prior investors. When the potential pool of new investors runs dry, they collapse. This will occur when…
One decade after the 9/11 attacks, Americans continue to pay for damages. The costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, hidden costs of intelligence wars reportedly underway in Pakistan and elsewhere, and the price of increased security within American borders have now far exceeded early predictions and continue to grow as global counter terrorism…
Left behind in America: Who’s to blame for the wealth divide? Take a moment and think about how you feel wealth should, ideally, be spread among the American people. If you’re like the average respondent in a 2010 Harvard Business School/Duke University study, your response was this: The richest top 20…