Economics focus
Lessons from a “lost decade”
Will America follow Japan into a decade of stagnation?
AS FALLING house prices and tightening credit squeeze America’s economy, some worry that the country may suffer a decade of stagnation, as Japan did after its bubble burst in the early 1990s. Japan’s property bubble was also fuelled by cheap money and [...]

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Bye-Bye ‘Olympics Excuse’
by Amir Taheri

For a decade, whenever faced with a difficult decision, China’s leaders have used a convenient way out: Let’s wait until after the Olympics.
To ensure it would win the right to host the Games, China developed what its leaders have labeled a “no enemies” foreign policy. In practice, this meant treating every [...]

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Market.view
An arable parable
Is farmland overvalued?
WITH many financial assets in the doldrums and markets spooked by the twin spectres of economic weakness and rising inflation, is it time to head for the hills? Barton Biggs, an investment guru, famously suggested that those wishing to preserve their wealth in times of turmoil should consider buying an “unostentatious [...]

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The coming days
The week ahead
Israel plans to release some 200 Palestinian prisoners, and other news

• THE Democratic Party begins its four-day national convention in Denver, Colorado, on Monday August 25th. Barack Obama, who will become the official nominee, will have his widely praised powers of speechmaking put to the test when he addresses a crowd [...]

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Russia urged to quit Georgia port

Russian peacekeepers passed hundreds of Georgian protesters in Poti

French President Nicholas Sarkozy, who brokered the ceasefire in Georgia, has urged Moscow to remove its troops quickly from the west of the country.
Phoning his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev, he hailed Friday’s pull-back of troops but said they should [...]

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How the Election of 1968 Reshaped the Democratic Party
By TED VAN DYK
It was 40 years ago that the most disastrous modern-day national political convention convened in Chicago. The 1968 Democratic convention contributed to Richard Nixon’s victory that fall and, in turn, the prolongation of the Vietnam War. It also set the Democratic Party on a [...]

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TODAY SATURDAY

The Democrats
Joseph Biden for veep
Barack Obama picks Joseph Biden as his running mate

LIKE much else about Barack Obama’s campaign, his announcement of a running-made was unconventional. It came in the form of emails and text-messages released simultaneously to the tens of thousands of people who had signed up to receive them, at the distinctly unconventional [...]

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Bernanke Says U.S. Inflation Should Slow Into 2009 (Update4)

Aug. 22 (Bloomberg) — Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said inflation should ease later this year and in 2009, while warning that policy makers will act if price increases don’t slow over the “medium term.”
A recovery in the dollar and declines in commodity prices “should [...]

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8

Should Gay Marriages be Allowed?
Gary Becker
Many gay couples want to be allowed to call their union “marriage” mainly because they believe this will give their relation a degree of acceptance that is closer to that given to heterosexual unions. They also believe that marriage connotes a more stable long-term relation, although gay unions have a [...]

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