Raymond J. March | Friday March 26, 2021 at 11:13 AM PDT
After a sluggish and error-prone beginning to a country-wide effort to vaccinate Americans against Covid-19, it seems things are quickly improving. According to the Centers for Disease Control, as of March 18th, nearly 113 million Americans have received at least Covid-19 vaccination (two of the three available vaccines require two separate injections). The agency...
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Alvaro Vargas Llosa | Monday December 23, 2019 at 11:41 AM PST
Mario Draghi is not a household name outside of a few European countries, and yet what he did or didn’t do had the potential to wreak havoc worldwide. The MIT-educated Italian economist, who headed the European Central Bank (ECB) for eight years until October 31, left his post after announcing measures that could damage...
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Alvaro Vargas Llosa | Tuesday July 16, 2019 at 11:08 AM PDT
Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Greece’s new prime minister promises free-market reforms and is challenging Europe and the IMF on the issue of taxes.
Alvaro Vargas Llosa | Wednesday June 29, 2016 at 4:24 PM PDT
Spain, the Eurozone’s fourth largest economy, has been without a real government since October, when the campaign for a general election kicked off. After an inconclusive result, the country was left in political limbo. That status will change soon due to last week’s elections, which produced a clearer outcome. Without an effective government, Spain...
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Alvaro Vargas Llosa | Tuesday May 24, 2016 at 3:41 PM PDT
Austria’s far right candidate, Norbert Hofer, has lost the second round of the election for the presidency by a mere thirty thousand votes to Alexander Van der Bellen, a former Green Party leader. Europe has breathed a sigh of relief, but the stunning success of the nationalists, who won the first round and caused...
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Mary L. G. Theroux | Wednesday June 10, 2015 at 12:46 PM PDT
Our global political masters met in Germany this week: see how green they are? They’re walking ... in a field: can’t get any greener than that! And, as usual, they are coming up with the definitive solutions to the greatest threats of today: the end of the use of fossil fuels—in 85 years. No...
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William F. Shughart II | Wednesday April 15, 2015 at 12:35 PM PDT
News reports on Tax Day suggest that the European Commission wants to nail Google Inc.’s scalp to the wall as punishment for committing alleged antitrust (competition) law violations. At issue is the way in which the company assigns priorities to the links consumers see when they “google” generic search terms like “booksellers”, “cameras”, and...
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David J. Theroux | Saturday April 11, 2015 at 9:28 PM PDT
As the culture wars intensify in America, let’s consider some of the roots of these contentious conflicts. With the “Age of Enlightenment” of the 17th and 18th centuries, a “modern” narrative was invented to explain the history of the West, the wider world, and humankind’s place in the universe. This narrative claimed that liberty,...
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Randall G. Holcombe | Monday January 12, 2015 at 12:52 PM PST
One by-product of the Paris terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo was an outpouring of support for freedom of speech. While there was general agreement that the magazine’s content has been, beyond a doubt, offensive to some (and not only Muslims), almost everyone agreed that freedom of speech is a fundamental right that should be...
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Randall G. Holcombe | Wednesday January 7, 2015 at 1:24 PM PST
... is that you know who your enemies and opponents are. They will speak out against your ideas, your actions, or maybe just you on a personal level. One reason we value these freedoms is that they help make those in power accountable. Those who disagree with particular policies or actions can say so...
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