Photo by Jim Wilson / New York Times
Across the nation, the ultimate symbol of suburban success has become one more reminder of the economic meltdown, with builders going under, pools going to seed and skaters finding a surplus of deserted pools in which to perfect their acrobatic aerials.
In these boom times for skaters, Mr. Peacock [...]

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“I have never been considered a part of the religious right, because I don’t believe politics is the most effective way to change the world,” he says now. “Although public service can be a noble profession, and I believe it is our responsibility to vote, I don’t have much faith in government solutions, given the [...]

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Another possibility is that most Americans recognize that, while gas is expensive and our grocery money doesn’t go as far as it did last year, we are still an enormously prosperous and fortunate nation.
In some countries, a depressed economic climate means mass unemployment, political instability and large-scale deprivation. In America this decade, we have reached [...]

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Ever since I returned to the United States in 2004 from my last posting to China, as this newspaper’s Beijing bureau chief, I’ve been struck by the breathless way we talk about that country. So often, our perceptions of the place have more to do with how we look at ourselves than with what’s actually [...]

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Gasoline prices rose to a record-high four expletives per gallon Monday, a rate of fuel-price-related cursing not seen since the 1979 energy crisis sparked a nationwide obscenity boom.
Warning, contains lots of expletives. But funny if they don’t bother you.
⇒ Price Of Gas Rises To Four Expletives Per Gallon (The Onion)

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If you had a spare $10 billion over the next four years, how would you spend it to achieve the most for humanity?
This is a small amount compared to rich-government budgets. But if we could set aside an extra $10 billion, we could achieve an awful lot.
Would you spend your money tackling diseases like malaria, [...]

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Environmentally and nutritionally, insects are more appealing than meat: you get more for less. But persuading flesh-loving, ento-phobic westerners of this is going to be tricky. “We’re not going to convince Europeans and Americans to go out in big numbers and start eating insects,” Mr Durst concedes. The trick might be to slip them into [...]

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Until then, I had drifted along with the do-it-yourself economy. I bused my own lunch trays. I booked my own movie tickets. I checked myself in at hotel kiosks. I even succumbed when an upscale seafood restaurant expected me to swipe my credit card through a handheld computer as if I were in a supermarket.
But [...]

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I love $4 gas. It makes me appreciate freedom. I watch as the dollars spin and think, “You, Triceratops, did not get squished by an asteroid in vain. You got squished for a $60 drive to Vegas.”
Considering that people in europe have been paying gas prices higher than ours for who knows how long, we [...]

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“When something is destroyed you don’t necessarily rebuild the same thing that you had. You might use updated technology, you might do things more efficiently. It bumps you up,” says Mark Skidmore, an economics professor at Michigan State University. “Disasters help people think about things differently.”
Studies have found that earthquakes in California and Alaska helped [...]

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These engineers, scientists, doctors, and researchers entered the country legally to study or to work. They contributed to U.S. economic growth and global competitiveness. Now we’ve set the stage for them to return to countries such as India and China, where the economies are booming and their skills are in great demand. U.S. businesses large [...]

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A recent Washington Post article highlighted the fact that many corporations are moving their manufacturing centers from China to an even cheaper country, Vietnam.
Due to the firm grip of communism, labor can be found cheaper in Vietnam than in its northern neighbor, and the perennial powerhouse of inexpensive labor, China. Weak labor laws, as [...]

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