”Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice.”

Adam Smith had it basically right when he described the essential pre-conditions for…

It’s over a year since the credit crunch began wrecking havoc throughout the global economy. Never before, it seems, have we been so aware of how dependent our economies are upon the willingness to lend and borrow.

Since August 2007, we…

Constitutional referenda are usually tame, even boring affairs. Sometimes it’s a challenge just getting people to vote.

None of this, however, rings true for Ecuador’s forthcoming September 28 referendum. After much acrimonious debate, this beautiful but deeply troubled Latin American nation…

Few fights are nastier than theological quarrels. This axiom has been amply confirmed by the on-going spat that has erupted between two brothers who were crucial figures in the rise of liberation theology — the Brazilians Leonardo and Clodovis Boff.

Largely…

With the credit crunch and oil prices continuing to shake economies across the globe, the world’s more prominent financial centers, most notably Wall Street and the City of London, have lost much of their luster.

From Geneva to Hong Kong, thousands…

As the ongoing global financial crisis continues to shake the world's economies, it's no surprise banks are under increased scrutiny. Few would have predicted, however, that the spotlight would turn to tiny Liechtenstein.

A war of words has just erupted between the small Alpine principality and Germany over German citizens placing assets in Liechtenstein's banks in order to reduce their tax bills.

The skirmishing broke out when Berlin admitted that, as part of an investigation into some Germans' alleged tax evasion, it had purchased data about a Liechtenstein bank's clients from a former bank employee who allegedly stole the information and broke banking confidentiality laws.

Credit shortages make available capital a much sought after commodity. With the world's financial industries struggling to find investors to make up sub-prime mortgage-related losses, sovereign wealth funds are taking the opportunity to invest heavily in some of the biggest…

"Hope." Like the word "love," it's overused today, but that's the fundamental theme of Benedict XVI's new encyclical Spe Salvi. Just as his first encyclical Deus Caritas Est explored the subject of love, Catholicism's theologian-pope has chosen to focus on an…

When Venezuelan voters rejected President Hugo Chávez's plan to overhaul the constitution in a Dec. 2 referendum, they were not only pushing back on Chávez's latest grab for power but sending him a message on what he calls "21st Century…

Coherence is not something expected from fundamentalist terrorists. But Osama bin-Laden's latest missive (September 7^th) to the rest of humanity attained new lows in confusion by articulating ideas normally associated with unrepentant Western European leftists trapped in the 1960s.

Amidst the…