KABUL, April 5 (Reuters) – Opium is emerging as a new gold standard in Afghanistan, where traders and farmers are hoarding the drug as a source of ready cash to hedge against the risk of a power vacuum when foreign troops leave, the country’s U.N. drugs tsar said. Fear is mounting amongst Afghans and foreign…
Category Archives: Economy
New Job Numbers Tell 1/2 the Story
There ’s good news and bad news. The new job numbers are out, and on the face of it, things look like they are getting better. Unemployment, they say, is down from 9.0 to 8.6. That’s good, right? But wait a minute. What do these numbers really mean? Let’s take a look. So, the good…
OWS Continues After Shutdowns
When two of the most high profile groups, “Occupy Wall Street” and “Occupy Oakland” encampments in New York City and Oakland, California, were shut down earlier this week by local police, the demonstrators did not go quietly, and vowed to return to mark the two month anniversary of the demonstrations. Routed from their tent city…
Commentary: Time for Tax Cuts
What do you do if you find a fat wallet in the street, apparently lost? It has identification in it, so you know whom it belongs to, but it also contains a lot of money. There are tempting alternatives. Keep the money, and throw away the wallet.
Europe’s Economy is On Life Support
Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has lost the fight for the life of his government , as Italy’s bond yields (the country’s cost of borrowing) surged over the critical 7% mark. He has promised to resign once Italian lawmakers pass the austerity legislation pledged to the European Union and the European Central Bank (ECB). As legislators…
China, Not Greece
Hardly a day goes by that we are not treated to one report or another about the Chinese economy. One day the report is about how the Chinese economy will overtake the U.S. economy as the largest in the world in the not-too-distant future. Another day it is that China has already surpassed Japan’s economy…
OWS Goes Global
The growing phenomenon of the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations that spread across the US over the last few weeks, has now gone global. New demonstrations sprang up in Rome, the Philippines, and Hong Kong. The anti-capitalism, pro-entitlement tone that the demonstrations are taking is very likely to have an impact on the direction in which…
