Politics

It is still galling that this nation’s entrepreneurs and small businesses — our country’s job creators — don’t get any support. Our political parties rail against each other, determined not to let either side win. This is a giant roadblock toward economic security.

The leadership transition that began last year came to a close at the annual March meeting of the People’s Political Consultative Conference, the advisory body of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The new party boss, Xi Jinping, took the reins of government from President Hu Jintao, and Li Keqiang replaced Wen Jiabao as prime […]

Everyone loves a tiger. Powerful, elegant – yet tricky to manage. Ireland was the Celtic Tiger during the boom of the ‘zeros. But now, many economists are looking at the characteristics of a tortoise – slow, controlled, non-violent — as possibly more attractive. Is this the new Ireland?

Approaching the midpoint of the current four-year parliamentary term, political conditions in Thailand remain generally calm. However, the recent gubernatorial election in the capital, at which the incumbent, a member of the opposition DP, only narrowly fended off a challenge from the candidate of the governing PTP, highlights the persistence of deep political divisions. If […]

Public support for Spain's governing People’s Party (PP) has fallen significantly since the party was voted into office in 2011. This is a reflection of the generalized economic misery resulting from a combination of severe austerity, economic decline, and skyrocketing unemployment.

The possibility of Cyprus becoming the Achilles Heel of the eurozone and causing its eventual downfall has been heightened by the botched resolution to its payments crisis. This comes at a time of increased regional risk aversion as the eurozone’s plight has re-emerged on investors’ radars with Germany (and other, strong countries) seemingly more reluctant […]

There has been more buzz about the prospects for trade liberalization this year than at any time since the first term of President George W. Bush. It appears that some may be mistaking the chatter for actual accomplishment.

The claim that the U.S.-China relationship will be the 21st century’s most important has become a cliché repeated at policy gatherings in Washington and Beijing. It also happens to be the truth. For better or worse, the trajectory of that relationship will be established firmly before the next U.S. president takes the oath of office.

Although the PRI regained the presidency at elections held in July 2012, the party fell short of winning a majority in either legislative chamber. In addition, its members are far from united in their support for reforms that the new president, Enrique Peña Nieto, claims will deliver average annual real GDP growth of 6 percent.

The two-stage municipal elections held in October 2012 were closely watched as a gauge of the effect of a notorious vote-buying scandal on the popularity of the main governing PT. In that regard, the results suggest that the PT remains in a strong position to retain control of the presidency in 2014.

<p>Although I am uncertain how the majority of Americans view this Washington sequestration soap opera, many small business owners are disgusted. Sequestration is just another example of mismanagement in a long line of examples. This is no way to run a superpower. Government is not a business. It has different goals and objectives. Small business [&hellip;]</p>

Presidential candidate Mitt Romney got himself into a lot of trouble last year by making disparaging remarks about the so-called “47 percent” of Americans who rely on the government for their needs. Actually, that number is much higher, and without a lot of those government programs, you may as well move the country to Botswana [&hellip;]

In early November, Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag presented the government’s blueprint for a new constitutional order to the Parliament. It includes proposals to transfer responsibility for appointing Cabinet members from the prime minister to the president, and to eliminate the power of the Parliament to influence personnel decisions by means of votes of no-confidence [&hellip;]

The fragile three-party coalition government formed after two parliamentary elections held last year failed to produce a decisive winner. And the unwillingness of some coalition lawmakers to back various elements of a harsh austerity program dictated by the EU and the IMF has reduced the government’s majority in the 300-member Parliament from 179 seats to [&hellip;]

Libya’s first democratically elected government officially took office in early November, with the swearing-in of 20 Cabinet ministers appointed by Prime Minister Ali Zidan. The prime minister took care to include nominees favored by the main secular and Islamist blocs, the NFA and Justice and Construction, respectively, and also included figures from eastern Libya, an [&hellip;]

In late 2012, the center-left government led by President François Hollande was dealt a major blow to its economic policy credibility. The constitutional council ruled that a 75 percent income tax rate imposed on individuals earning more than $1.3 million annually was not consistent with the French ideal of equality before the law. The very [&hellip;]

As a small business owner, I knew it was coming. As a skeptic of any pronouncement by the White House relating to healthcare, I knew consumers and small businesses would get socked with higher rates. And as an employer that works with private health insurance providers, I knew they would be able to manipulate Obamacare [&hellip;]

The Honduran government appears to be headed for another political crisis that is in some respects dismayingly similar to the events that led to the forced ouster of President Manuel Zelaya in June 2009, an episode from which the country has yet to fully recover. This time, however, it is not the Congress and the [&hellip;]

As expected, Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping has been chosen to head the new group of leaders that will rule China for the next 10 years. At a CCP congress held in November, Xi was named as both party leader and chairman of the Central Military Commission, and he will replace Hu Jintao as national [&hellip;]

It has been 18 years since the last round of successful multilateral trade negotiations concluded. The so-called Uruguay Round, which produced a number of comprehensive agreements to reduce trade barriers and established the World Trade Organization (WTO) as an arbiter of trade disputes, remains the high water mark in the annals of multilateral trade accomplishments...