In The News

Going Off to College for Less (Passport Required)

Tamar Lewin December 11, 2008
Higher education has become a global commodity, and students seek out both great bargains and the very best of brand names, reports Tamar Lewin for the New York Times. “Universities worldwide – many of them in Canada and England – are competing for the same pool of affluent, well-qualified students, and more American students are heading overseas not just for a semester abroad, but for their...

A Question of First Things First

Clive Crook December 9, 2008
The ancient proverb of finding opportunity in crisis sounds wonderful, but the follow-through can be problematic. Transition staff working for US President-elect Barack Obama hope to enact health care reform and a clean-energy policy. But an economic crisis may not be the time to take on grand new initiatives, suggests Clive Crook, in an essay for the Financial Times. The Obama administration...

When Chocolate Is a Way of Life

Jill Santopietro November 20, 2008
The Quichua people of Ecuador are no longer simply cultivators of cacao, transforming their role into manufacturers and owners, by forming their own cooperative known as Kallari. “Chocolate making has always been less common in cacao producing countries than it has been in Europe, where the technology to create chocolate bars was developed and where such a luxury could be more easily afforded,”...

Obama's Wi-Fi White House Speaks to the YouTube Age

Paul Harris November 17, 2008
In the midst of economic crisis, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave his first “fireside chat” by radio on March 12, 1933, less than two months after entering office. President-elect Barack Obama did not wait that long, and two months before entering office, he turned to YouTube to share his thoughts with the public. “Technology and the internet are set to be a core part of the new...

FCC Vote on "White Spaces" to Be Delayed?

Cyrus Farivar October 28, 2008
Besides the presidential election, November 4 marks another big vote in the US, with the Federal Communications Commission set to decide whether to open its white space – unused space between channels that produces static on televisions – for unlicensed use that could potentially allow universal broadband access throughout the US. The amount of white space will increase after the US moves to...

Mortgage Prospects Dim for Illegal Immigrants

Miriam Jordan October 27, 2008
Undocumented immigrants who work hard and save money can no longer easily invest in US businesses and real estate. The US Internal Revenue Service accepts the payment of taxes from undocumented workers who use tax identification numbers. Even as the US Department of Homeland Security attempted to deport undocumented workers, other government agencies encouraged their tax payments and investments...

Do You Really Want This Job?

David Dapice October 24, 2008
An era of the US living beyond its means has come to an abrupt end, with a flailing stock market and credit freeze, mounting job losses, wages that do not keep pace with climbing housing prices, and the world’s costliest health care system that fails to cover all citizens. The next US president, to be decided in the November 4 election, will inherit a battered economy that restrains any US role...