Social Control at the School for Good Mothers
[ad_1] Jessamine Chan’s 2022 novel The School for Good Mothers (New York: Simon & Schuster) constructs a bureaucratic dystopia in which unfit parents—mostly mothers, but not all—are ordered by family courts into a re-education camp run by Child Protective Services. Perhaps the most chilling part of the narrative is how easy it is to imagine […]
ECB holds interest rates, gives strong signal that cuts are on the way
[ad_1] Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank (ECB), at a rates decision news conference in Frankfurt, Germany, on Thursday, March 7, 2024. Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images The European Central Bank on Thursday held interest rates steady for a fifth straight meeting and gave its clearest signal yet of an upcoming rate […]
What China’s central bank and Costco shoppers have in common
[ad_1] Listen to this story.Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS or Android. Your browser does not support the <audio> element. Gold has always held an allure. The earliest civilisations used it for jewellery; the first forms of money were forged from it. For centuries kings clamoured to get their hands on the stuff. Charlemagne […]
How fast is India’s economy really growing?
[ad_1] Listen to this story.Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS or Android. Your browser does not support the <audio> element. Optimism about India tends to spike now and again. In 1996, a few years after the country opened to foreign capital, the price of property in Mumbai, India’s financial hub, soared to the highest […]
Big-Government Welfare Crowds Out Beneficial Social Behavior
[ad_1] Volunteers sort donations at a food bank in Cleveland, Tennessee. 2010. Many of the most important and serious conservative intellectuals today seem to have concluded that criticizing national government welfare policy spending is no longer worth the cost of being considered miserly, uncharitable, and even immoral. But what if that social policy is not […]
Ukrainian drone strikes are hurting Russia’s oil industry
[ad_1] Listen to this story.Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS or Android. Your browser does not support the <audio> element. Selling more oil at higher prices ought to be the stuff of dreams for a petrostate. But for Russia it is a sign of a new, punishing phase in its war with Ukraine. Months […]
China’s state is eating the private property market
[ad_1] Listen to this story.Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS or Android. Your browser does not support the <audio> element. At an upmarket housing development in Wuhan, sales agents want to make clear that their state-owned firm has severed all its ties to the private sector. The firm had at first partnered with Sunac, […]
Canada Accuses India Of Election Interference
[ad_1] The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) issued a report accusing India and Pakistan of interfering in Canada’s federal elections in 2019 and 2021. India has called the claims “baseless,” but the CSIS said it will be on the hunt for meddling during the upcoming election. “It is not Government of India’s policy to […]
When will Americans see those interest-rate cuts?
[ad_1] Perhaps it was always too good to be true. The big economic story of 2023 was the seemingly painless disinflation in America, with consumer price pressures receding even as growth remained resilient, which underpinned surging stock prices. Alas, the story thus far in 2024 is not quite so cheerful. Growth has remained robust but, […]
Wisdom on Worth and Work
[ad_1] What do we desire from our lives and our work? In October of 2023, I participated in a debate at my college, Western Carolina University, regarding whether gender affirming care for minors should be banned. When it was my turn, I mostly stuck to the facts. I cited medical organizations, doctors, and meta-analyses. Though we […]