Nobody needs to be told that our economy is going down the tubes at a rate unseen for decades. Every week brings new numbers that are setting records. In just the three months ending in November, the job loss was 1.26 million, the worst since 1975. We have lost more...

President-elect Obama's historic triumph was welcomed in Latin America by left-of-center governments who saw it as a continuation of their own electoral victories. Even before the election President Lula da Silva of Brazil said: "Just as Brazil elected a metal worker, Bolivia elected an Indian, Venezuela elected Chavez and Paraguay...

Can South America escape the wrath of the economic and financial storms that have their epicenter in the United States? Since the financial meltdown began in mid-September, the bond markets of most of the region (Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Venezuela) have been hit, as well as most of their stock markets...

The nation's capital came alive after 11 p.m. on election night, as thousands poured into the streets to celebrate a victory that everyone was calling historic. Car horns blaring, whooping and shouting, high fives all around, multi-racial crowds celebrating joyously. Historic it is, most obviously in the election of an...

Senator Barack Obama's campaign for the White House pulled ahead of his opponent, Senator John McCain, as soon as the current financial crisis hit the headlines. As one of McCain's top strategists recently blurted out, "If we keep talking about the economic crisis, we're going to lose."

There's a reason...

It is now clear the approval by Congress of President Bush's $700 bailout package on Friday October 3rd has done nothing to ease the current financial crisis. Credit markets have worsened for several days after the bill passed the Congress. The stock market also plummeted to nearly ten-year lows.

So...

Battle in Seattle opens September 19-26 in movie theaters across the country, a rare combination of high drama and history-making events as they actually happened when thousands of protesters shut down the World Trade Organization in Seattle nearly nine years ago. It has an all-star cast including Oscar-winning beauty...

Tensions between the United States and Russia have a long history, but one only need go back to the early nineties to see how our own government threw away its chance to have a better relationship with post-Communist Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

In 1992, inflation in...

While it hasn't gotten much attention, one of the most important issues that our elections this November could decide is the future of organized labor in the United States. This is important not just for the 15.7 million workers who happen to be in unions, but for the vast majority...

In the last decade political change has swept across most of Latin America. Much of the region - including the majority of South America - is now run by left governments. These governments have also become much more independent of the United States - in their foreign policy they are...

Evo Morales changed the history of Bolivia when he was elected in December 2005 as the country's first indigenous president, and the first to get a majority of 54 percent. On Sunday he expanded his mandate considerably in a referendum, with 68 percent of voters opting to keep him in...

"Gas prices - $4, $5, no end in sight, because some in Washington are still saying no to drilling in America," says the narrator in the TV ad that Republican presidential candidate John McCain played last week.

"Who can you thank for rising prices at the pump?"

Cut to...

Who says there's no anti-war movement in the United States? In the past two months, the anti-war movement has taken on one of the most powerful lobbying groups in the United States in an important fight. And so far, the anti-war movement is winning.

Here's the story: On May 22,...

Senator John McCain's latest gaffe on Social Security is somewhat breathtaking, and ought to be a campaign issue. It indicates that he is not any better informed on major domestic policy issues than he is on foreign policy (which is supposedly his "strength").

Readers whose memory extends beyond the...

Can our state and local governments afford to subsidize businesses that conduct their sales only on the internet, rather than through physical retail stores? And if we could, is there a good reason to do so?

These are the two most obvious questions when addressing the issue of whether internet...

Washington's foreign policy establishment - and much of the U.S. media -- was taken by surprise this week when President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, stated that the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) should lay down their arms and unconditionally release all of their hostages. The FARC is a guerrilla...

Since the U.S. economy showed positive growth for the last quarter, some commentators in the business press are saying that we are not necessarily going to have a recession, or that if there is one it will be mild. This is a bit like the proverbial story of the man...

'The IMF is back," declared the International Monetary Fund's managing director, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, at its annual spring meeting earlier this month in Washington. And not a moment too soon either. To hear the organization's economists tell it (as they mingled in five-star hotels, long black limos and posh restaurants with...

Of all the nonsense that we hear regularly about Venezuela, the idea that the country is a "security threat" is probably the most ridiculous. For six years now, since the Bush administration supported a failed coup attempt against the democratically elected government of President Hugo Chavez, Washington has been sporadically...

Eighty-one percent of Americans now agree that "things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track," the most since this question has been asked and a remarkable preponderance of pessimism by any comparison.

And this recession is only beginning; real home prices have dropped only about 13 percent, (since...