Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan referred this week to “froth” in the U.S. housing market; others have debated whether it is a “bubble” at least on the two coasts. Whether froth or bubble, the secular rise in house prices over the last 5 years has made long term changes in American life, most of them for […]

At the time the Euro was introduced in 1999, its opponents prophesied a dark future of increasing currency strains within the euro zone, as disparate economies struggled together in a single currency. Later, in 2002-03, the fears appeared to have been ill-founded, and the euro was hailed as a stunning success. However, today it seems […]

Professor George Ayittey of American University presented his new book “Africa Unchained” at the Cato Institute last week, which demonstrates that Africa’s problems primarily result from that continent’s appalling political leadership. This view hasn’t been widely enough vented, and may provide the germ of a solution. I would however add a rider: the West is […]

“The lights are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime” famously intoned British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey in the gathering dusk of August 4 1914 (there is now a fair consensus that Grey’s alliance with France and encirclement of Germany bore much of the responsibility for […]