NEW YORK ― We are just recovering, in the United States, from the entirely predictable kerfuffle over a plaint published by Anne-Marie Slaughter, former director of policy planning at the State Department and a professor at Princeton University, called “Why Women Still Can’t Have it All.” The response was predictable because Slaughter’s article is one that is published in the U.S. by a revolving cast of powerful (most often white) women every three years or so.The article, whoever has written it

Due to the widespread use of SNS and texting today, the language of young people has become radically different from that of the older generation. While texting or tweeting on the Internet, youth frequently adopt abbreviated forms of words and phrases, which lack decency and clarity, much to the dismay of their elders. No longer reluctant to use aggravating and offensive language, young people fill their text messages with indecent content, which is not only inappropriate but indecipherable as w

While all eyes are on the Supreme Court and Obamacare, a quieter battle is being waged against the president’s other major initiative, the Dodd-Frank financial reform act.Wall Street has already watered down or delayed most of Dodd-Frank. Now it wants to create a giant loophole, exempting its foreign branches from the law.Yet the overseas branches of Wall Street banks are where the banks have done some of their wilder betting. Four years ago, bad bets by American International Group’s London off

TOKYO ― Few recent elections have grabbed world attention in the way that Greece’s vote on June 17 did. Now that the center-right New Democracy, which finished first, has formed a coalition government with the center-left PASOK and the Democratic Left, the key issue for Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’s administration is whether it can implement the austerity measures agreed with Greece’s eurozone partners in exchange for continued support from the International Monetary Fund and the European Uni

BARCELONA ― The line of credit to Spain from fellow eurozone governments may help to stabilize a fragile banking system, at least in the short term, but it is a missed opportunity. Spain’s banking crisis provides a perfect opening to move towards a European banking union.In the medium term, help to Spain will merely reinforce the link between the sovereign and the banks’ problems, causing even greater fragmentation in the European banking market and pushing Spain closer to potential insolvency b

If you’re a particular kind of writer, the kind with a taste for “social observation” and a belief in the divine partnership of unbridled humor and unapologetic honesty, Nora Ephron, who died last Tuesday, almost certainly fell into the category of Central Influence. If you’re a particularly lucky writer, Nora was not only an influence but a sort of literary mother hen with a cashmere-clad wing outstretched. She was a connector, a cajoler, a cheerleader ― maybe even a friend. I was among those l

BERKELEY ― We economists who are steeped in economic and financial history ― and aware of the history of economic thought concerning financial crises and their effects ― have reason to be proud of our analyses over the past five years. We understood where we were heading, because we knew where we had been.In particular, we understood that the rapid run-up of house prices, coupled with the extension of leverage, posed macroeconomic dangers. We recognized that large bubble-driven losses in assets

KIFISIA, Greece ― This upscale suburb of Athens offers a snapshot of a country sliding toward bankruptcy. It’s an ugly picture, as expectations of prosperity and stability vanish, and fear begins to take over. The trendy shops in the town center looked empty during a visit this week; many stylish restaurants were said to be closed or open only on weekends; banks here, as everywhere in Greece, have been depleted over the past month by a riptide of withdrawals. I’m here visiting Yannos Papantoniou