Not only are close to a quarter of a million more people on the US government payroll than a year ago, the number on that payroll is more than the folk out there making real things - not even counting
Two decades of liberalization in international agriculture have seen poor countries open up to cheap food imports and their farming infrastructure underdeveloped or turned over to growing products for export. That has left them ill-prepared for the present surge in
The Wall Street welcome to improved US labor productivity may be short-lived, with the prospects far less positive. Among other factors, capital will probably become more expensive in the years ahead, trade protectionism will intensify and more regulation will burden
The life and death of one store charts the rise and decline of the American economy, from frontier innovation to the present crisis of overconsumption. The great money creation machine of the past few years has shut down. As the
The population of India's small but prominent Parsi community is not only aging, it is dying out. Low birth rates and conservative taboos against outside marriages have fueled fears the ancient Zoroastrian community may not survive the century. The very
China for two years has let its currency steadily appreciate against the US dollar, all the time berated by the US and other leading trade partners who insist the yuan should strengthen even faster. Now a leading Chinese bank argues
South Korea's no-nonsense new president, Lee Myong-bak, has released his alternative to the Sunshine policy of his predecessor towards the North. "Vision 3000, Denuclearization, Openness" is a carrot-and-stick plan that promises a windfall of assistance should North Korea surrender its
After initially underestimating the effects of the earthquake that has claimed the lives of more than 10,000 people, Chinese authorities have appealed for help in the stricken southwestern region. With the full scale of the tragedy yet to be known,
To the Myanmar junta's top generals in their bunkers in the secluded capital Naypyidaw, far away from the devastated Irrawaddy Delta, their much-maligned aid distribution policy is one of political survival at all costs. With rice crops destroyed, bases wiped
In a busy week for Iran, key nations negotiating with it over its nuclear program will present an incentive package for the Iranians to consider. At the same time, International Atomic Energy Agency officials will thrash out the last remaining
Just about everything the George W Bush administration has tried in the Middle East over the past few years has undermined United States standing and influence in the region, even as it has enhanced Tehran's. Yet as Bush visits Saudi
As a test of strength, the Lebanese government and its Saudi Arabian backers received a bloody nose in the confrontation with Hezbollah in Beirut. The government woefully underestimated Hezbollah's reaction to having its communications - spy - system interfered with.
The US Federal Reserve is taking a whole lot of potentially dodgy assets from banks as security against Treasury bonds. So far so horrible. Now, Standard & Poor's has cut assumptions for how much will be recovered after defaults on
Do you want to buy stuff online? Of course, you want it and everyone wants it since it's very simple and you can do it from home. What's more, the prices of the online products are cheaper than buying from
I got really depressed when I went to the north of Pattaya to find a quieter beach for some relaxation. On the beach between Pattaya and Wong-Amart I found a German man living on a dirty beach with his bar
The Bank of Thailand is warning people in Thailand not to use their internet bank account on work or internet cafes. Some people have been clever enough to install keyword tracker on the computers and since the internet banks in
