World Bank: U.S. Fourth Friendliest Country For Business

The debate over regulation has been in the news lately, because it’s been a point of conversation among the 2012 presidential candidates. The Republicans have said that over-regulation has kept businesses from expanding and creating jobs. But a new report from the World Bank that measures business regulation is throwing some cold water on the [...]

Boom In Shadow Financing Exacts High Toll In China

In recent weeks, at least 80 business owners have fled Wenzhou in eastern China and gone into hiding because they can’t pay crushing debts to the city’s empire of underground lending firms and loan sharks. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao became so concerned that he flew to Wenzhou earlier in October to try to keep the [...]

Bottle Return Bill Considered

A state lawmaker is putting together a bill for next session which would create a bottle return program in Oklahoma.

Jobs’ Biography: Thoughts On Life, Death And Apple

When Steve Jobs was six years old, his young next door neighbor found out he was adopted. “That means your parents abandoned you and didn’t want you,” she told him. Jobs ran into his home, where his adoptive parents reassured him that he was theirs and that they wanted him. “[They said] ‘You were special, [...]

Steve, Myself And i: The Big Story Of A Little Prefix

Steve Jobs did his last product launch last March, for the iPad 2. At the close, he stood in front of a huge picture of a sign showing the intersection of streets called Technology and Liberal Arts. It was a lifelong ideal for Jobs, the same one that had drawn him to make his famous [...]

‘Your Man Reminder’: A Cheeky Breast Health App That Raises A Few Questions

There are several reasons to be ambivalent about the Your Man Reminder app, and only one of them is sexy. Released just a few days ago, the app comes from ReThink Breast Cancer, a Canadian nonprofit whose website promises it will raise “bold, relevant awareness” about breast cancer by infusing “sass and style into the [...]

Photos Show Sheer Scale Of Shark Fin Trade

Every year, 73 million sharks are killed for their fins. Most go to make shark fin soup, a luxury dish and status symbol in some Asian cultures that can sell for $100 a bowl. In recent years, graphic undercover footage of the shark finning trade has helped raise public awareness of the issue. Photos and [...]

The Potential Reach Of Obama’s Refinancing Plan

President Obama’s home refinancing plan seeks to let a million or more American homeowners save money on their mortgages, even if those loans are underwater. But the plan announced Monday is not a new idea: A pair of economists at Columbia University — Chris Mayer and Glenn Hubbard — have been proposing a similar measure [...]

Don’t Mix The Ecclesiastical With The Economical

Thomas E. Woods Jr. is the author of 11 books, including The Church and the Market: A Catholic Defense of the Free Economy. The Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace released a document Monday, calling for a world economic authority and condemning the “idolatry of the market.” It’s a document that could have been [...]

Occupy Wall Street’s Most Unlikely Ally: The Pope

Thomas J. Reese is a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University, and a former editor of America, the national Catholic weekly magazine. The Vatican released a document on the world economy on Monday that will cause heartburn in the Tea Party, but will be cheered by the folks occupying Wall Street. [...]