Tony Blair has gained enormous prestige and goodwill in the United States by his staunch support of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and by British troops’ substantial and superbly executed participation in it. But admirers of the Anglo-American alliance should beware: Economically, the weasels are taking over, and their political takeover cannot be far behind.

When baseball immortal Babe Ruth was asked after the 1931 season why his $80,000 salary exceeded President Herbert Hoover’s $75,000, the lifelong Democrat responded: “I had a better year than he did.”

Once Saddam Hussein is defeated, the U.S.-led coalition that has defeated him will have its most difficult economic decision: what to do with Iraq’s oil revenues, to ensure that they benefit the Iraqi people as a whole, rather than simply fueling a destructive and greedy government machine.

In 1979-80, at the time of the Chrysler bailout, I and many other commentators predicted that saving Chrysler would simply result in bankrupting Ford. Now, 24 years later, this prediction may finally be on the brink of realization.

Friday’s unemployment numbers were truly dreadful — 308,000 job losses — yet the U.S. stock market, ignoring one of the most important monthly economic releases, was up on the day. According to accepted theory, this shouldn’t happen — new information should immediately be reflected in prices. What’s really going on?

Next Monday, March 10, is three years from the peak in the U.S. stock market, March 10, 2000, when the Nasdaq composite index closed at 5,048.62. In bear market terms, this is a very long time. Three years from the September 1929 peak, the stock market had already touched its nadir, in June 1932 (at […]

The worst performances in the recent Washington snowstorm were by the local school systems and the Metro subway — both heavily unionized. Both institutions delayed resumption of full service far beyond what was reasonable, and both failed to perform simple civic duties such as sweeping sidewalks, even in cases where pedestrians were not merely inconvenienced […]

The Chinese “bubble” may or may not burst, but China’s status as an “Asian Tiger” of sustained rapid economic growth seems increasingly perilous. From current indications, I will appall Sinophiles and go so far as to claim that there is some danger of it acquiring parts of the Latin American disease, and turning into that […]

The “Axis of Weasels” of France, Germany and now Belgium, satirically attributed to Donald Rumsfeld by the Web site “Scrappleface,” is an idea whose time may have come. It refocuses one’s perception, and provides an explanation for the alarming non-disappearance of socialism, supposedly dead since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, but in […]

The “Axis of Weasels” of France, Germany and now Belgium, satirically attributed to Donald Rumsfeld by the Web site “Scrappleface,” is an idea whose time may have come. It refocuses one’s perception, and provides an explanation for the alarming non-disappearance of socialism, supposedly dead since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, but in […]