The benefits of technology are pervasive. We are flooded with the fruits of technological progress ― the iPad, iPod, electronic gadgets like smartphones, smart TVs, etc. The spread of technical progress is like a double-edged sword, creating winners and losers. The Schumpeterian perspective on technological progress under capitalism is well discussed in economics where it endangers creative destruction. Recently, in a book by Evgeny Morozov named “To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Tec

Of all the reporting trips I made in my Washington days, flying with Lawrence Summers to Beijing so he could kiss Zhu Rongji’s ring ranks among the most fascinating. Anyone who has spent inside of five minutes with Summers knows he’s not the groveling type. But this was in January 1998, when Summers was deputy secretary of the U.S. Treasury, and Bill Clinton’s White House feared China would devalue the yuan and toss more fuel onto Asia’s already blazing crisis. As we landed in Beijing, Zhu, Chin

LONDON ― In Canada, if you say you come from London, the natives often ask if you mean London, Ontario, or London, England. I always find the question somewhat irritating, perhaps revealing the persistence of an arrogant imperial mindset.But soon, perhaps, they will no longer need to ask: in London, we are all Canadians now. With what one commentator described as “his rock star looks and PR charm,” Mark Carney, the former governor of the Bank of Canada, has taken the city by storm in his first w

By any standard Pope Francis’ Brazil trip was a great success. Enthusiastic crowds clogged the routes of the papal motorcade and reportedly more than a million people were present for the pope’s final Mass on Copacabana beach. The media no less than Catholic pilgrims seemed enchanted by the new pontiff and his appeals for dialogue, conciliation and social justice.For this pope, who presents himself above all else as a pastor and teacher, the achievements of this first international foray must be

“Mind if I vape?” The question may become more common as electronic cigarettes become more popular. The answer, however, remains elusive. Etiquette aside, the health effects of inhaling nicotine vapor (hence the term) are largely unknown. More research is clearly needed, but in the meantime, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has to start regulating e-cigarettes. U.S. consumers will spend $1 billion on battery-powered smokes this year, 10 times more than they did four years ago. Are e-cigaret

There’s a grade-school-level international game being played. It’s like the one you played as a kid when you would have a friend punch you as hard as possible in the stomach to see how long you could keep a fake smile plastered on your face. “Oh, THAT didn’t hurt AT ALL! Hit me harder, you wimp!” That, right now, is America ― and it needs to stop.Let’s take two recent beneficiaries of the goodies-for-abuse program: Russia and Pakistan.Russia apparently doesn’t feel that granting asylum to Nation

North Carolina is channeling Alabama and South Carolina when it comes to the best economic, social and political model for a U.S. Southern state. For more than half a century, North Carolina has been progressive on education and public investments, and pro-business ― witness the celebrated Research Triangle between Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill and the financial center in Charlotte ― with less racial strife than other Southern states. As Republicans took full control of the state government in

President Barack Obama last week condemned the Egyptian military’s slaughter of Muslim Brotherhood members and sympathizers, and canceled joint military exercises scheduled for next month. He said that the violence should stop and that “a process of national reconciliation should begin.”What the White House fails to understand is that the Egyptian military has very different ideas about what “reconciliation” should look like. Its goal is to destroy the Muslim Brotherhood, its traditional adversa

Japan stands accused at the International Court of Justice of disguising commercial whaling as scientific research, a violation of its international obligations. Japan’s lawyers really don’t have much of a case. Then again, in a larger sense, neither do the country’s accusers. There’s plenty of hypocrisy to go around here. Japan’s whaling isn’t necessary for science, as it claims (and you have to ask if the country’s taste for whale meat is just a coincidence). On the other hand, Japan’s critics