European policy makers just don’t get it. To hear them talk, you’d think that Europe was on the right path. Troubled countries just need more of the same, they say — more fiscal austerity, more labor market flexibility, more price stability — and the European crisis will be licked.

Have they looked at their own numbers? It has been two years since moves to austerity started, but the crisis is

The viable pathway for success for many young Americans seems to have gotten very narrow in the last decade. The opportunities for many young workers have become mired with an economy that is largely in a deep recession with limited quality positions. Many are saddled with debt and taking on employment positions that may not even utilize the very expensive college education some have taken on.

The malign political influence of the Murdochs poses a fundamental challenge to British democracy. This will not be dealt with by selling off the ownership of their papers, welcome though this might be, or the removal of their influence from BSkyB on the grounds (as I argued last year) that the Murdochs are not fit and proper people. The scandal has now clarified a far more breathtaking question:

Since 2011, reports of arsonists and gunmen amongst Syria's opposition have been included in reports regarding the unrest in Syria, albeit buried under sensational headlines of the Syrian government's "brutality." More recently, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has conceded that indeed the Syrian opposition "Free Syrian Army" is conducting widespread, systematic abuses including the kidnapping, torture,

The Taliban is stronger now than before President Barack Obama ordered a surge of US troops to Afghanistan, two senior US lawmakers said on Sunday, contradicting the administration’s assessment of the insurgency.

A north-eastern town has declared the king of Spain an unwelcome person, dealing another blow to the 74-year-old monarch who has faced scalding criticism for going on an elephant hunting trip during a severe financial crisis.

The town council of Berga, population 17,160, in Catalonia, approved a symbolic motion proposed by the pro-Catalan independence Popular Unity Candidature party declaring

Today, the signature of modern American capitalism is neither benign competition, nor class struggle, nor an inclusive middle-class utopia. Instead, predation has become the dominant feature—a system wherein the rich have come to feast on decaying systems built for the middle class. The predatory class is not the whole of the wealthy; it may be opposed by many others of similar wealth. But it is

he ABS numbers are in, and they show a 1.1% national fall over the March quarter. Sydney house prices fell 1.8% according to the ABS, whereas Australian Property Monitor alleged they rose 1.4% – the latter being the basis for Andrew Wilson’s latest piece “Confidence rises as prices bounce back” (The Sydney Morning Herald, April 28). Yeah, right.

Australian house prices have now falle

Comparisons with Watergate raise worrying prospects for News Corporation ..

Secret Service agents are one category of law enforcement whose agents typically get the glory treatment. Recent books by members of JFK’s secret service detail, almost devoid of revelations or candor, have nevertheless received lots of positive coverage. Meanwhile, legitimate questions about the service—how it works, what kinds of people it employs, how effective it is—are pushed aside.

Maybe

despite “lax” monetary policy, fairly standard levels of indebtedness and a considerable export shock, Australian demand (and so income) did not collapse. Which meant debt remained manageable. Why?

The simple answer is: because our central bank is not mad (unlike other central banks). The RBA looks like a standard inflation-targeting central bank. Except it does not have a fixed inflation targ

Paul Krugman released a new book yesterday called “End This Depression Now“. In the introduction, Krugman writes:

The best way to think about this continued slump, I’d argue, is to accept that we’re in a depression …. It’s nonetheless essentially the same kind of situation that John Maynard Keynes described in the 1930s: “a chronic condition of subnormal activity for a considerable period with

* For starters, in vowing to “preserve, protect and defend the US Constitution of the United States,” President Obama, upon taking office, had a sacred obligation to prosecute the people who had gravely wounded that document prior to his assuming office. It was clear, as I wrote in my book The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office (St. Martin’s

The eurozone is slipping into a recession that could have been avoided. Had policymakers provided fiscal support for stricken countries in the South and guarantees on their government bonds, (as the USG does for US Treasuries) then their economies could have continued to grow while the necessary reforms were put in place. But the Troika (The IMF, the ECB, and the European Commission) decided to m

Spain's unemployment rate has hit a 20-year high, with more than 5.6 million people out of work.

In the first three months of this year close to 370,000 people lost their jobs and Spain's jobless rate is now at 24.4 per cent.

The pain from the latest unemployment figures has been compounded by news of a credit ratings downgrade and there are fears Spain will be forced to accept a bailout fr