Here are the latest reports from the Washington Posts ‘Wonkblog’.
A top candidate to be Trump’s VP is totally at odds with him on a major issue
Before he became governor of Indiana and a candidate to be Donald Trump’s vice-presidential nominee, Mike Pence was a congressman, and he voted for every free-trade agreement that came before him. That record, along with at least two votes favoring freer trade with China, puts him squarely at odds with Trump on one of the signature issues of the […]
How your political views affect who you think is attractive
Earlier this week, I wrote about how often Republicans and Democrats marry across party lines. The data show that it’s not all that common — while three in 10 married couples are made up of people from different political parties, research shows, only one in 10 of those couples are a Democrat with a Republican. […]
A lot of people get a basic fact wrong about criminal justice
The bipartisan congressional effort to reform federal criminal penalties has stalled, with little prospect of progress until autumn at the earliest. If you fear that Congress’ inaction could undermine the nation’s recent progress toward reversing mass incarceration, it may be helpful to reflect upon an underappreciated fact about American criminal justice: The number of people […]
In an era of Black Lives Matter protests, history offers a powerful lesson
A black man tackled and killed outside a convenience store in Baton Rouge. A black man shot dead at a traffic stop for a broken taillight in Minnesota. Five police officers killed in Dallas by a black man seeking to slay “white people, especially white officers.” The conjunction of tragedies the past week reminded us, as we […]
Police are safer under Obama than they have been in decades
In the aftermath of the mass shooting of a dozen police officers in Dallas this week, some conservatives rushed to lay blame for the incident at the feet of the Obama administration. Former Republican congressman Joe Walsh said on Twitter that “Obama’s words & [Black Lives Matter]’s deeds have gotten cops killed.” Texas congressman Roger […]
‘How do I teach my son to stay alive?’: The collective trauma after violence.
On Thursday morning, Randi Gloss gripped the wheel of her old, black Toyota Camry and tried to focus on the road. Someone on the radio talked about a traffic stop that ended in death. Tears stung her eyes. She hoped nobody on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway could see her cry. “I was wondering if I could […]
More police officers die on the job in states with more guns
Five police officers were killed and seven others were wounded this week by sniper fire in Dallas, in what has become the deadliest day for the nation’s law enforcement officers since 9/11. Texas has long had a strong gun culture, with the state’s gun laws among the country’s least restrictive according to the Law Center […]
Yes, violence in America has suddenly increased. But that’s far from the whole story.
Five officers and counting in Dallas. Two black men in Minnesota and Louisiana. Forty-nine club-goers in Orlando. It’s hard not to feel like we’re experiencing a surge of gun violence in the United States. And we are – but in the grand scheme of history, not as much. Fatal shootings by police are up in the first half […]
This is what 5.8 million failures look like
“Yoga With Adriene” is a popular YouTube channel featuring yoga instructional videos. Host Adriene Mishler has taught viewers how to do everything from yoga for weight loss to yoga for anxiety to how to make their own yoga mat spray. One of Mishler’s most popular video series is “30 Days of Yoga,” a collection of 30 tutorial […]
U.S. employment rebounds strongly in June, calming fears of economic slowdown
The U.S. job market once picked up speed in June, new government data showed Friday, allaying fears that the economy was headed for a sustained slowdown after a weak start to this year. Employers added 287,000 jobs in June, up sharply from a meager addition of only 11,000 jobs in May. The June figure was […]
The big question about why police pull over so many black drivers
Last October, President Obama told a gathering of police chiefs in Chicago about one way he had experienced racial bias before coming to the White House — while driving on the road. “[M]ost of the time I got a ticket, I deserved it. I knew why I was pulled over. But there were times where I didn’t,” […]
Dallas sniper shootings: When, where, and how often police are shot dead in America
Late Thursday night in Dallas, snipers shot 11 police officers, killing at least four officers and injuring seven others, Dallas authorities said. The shootings came amid protests in the streets over police shootings that killed two black men in Louisiana and Minnesota this week. These killings represent the largest single incident of police being killed since November 2009, when […]
“This is the brain on horror”: the incredible calm of Diamond ‘Lavish’ Reynolds
Seconds after shooting the man he had just pulled over, the police officer yelled at a woman in the passenger seat: “Ma’am, keep your hands where they are.” Diamond “Lavish” Reynolds watched blood drench her boyfriend’s white shirt. She did not scream. She did not cry. Her language remained polite. “I will, sir,” she replied […]
Five of the best optical illusions reveal hidden secrets about the brain
Many people think of their eyes as operating like a movie camera – capturing everything that happens in front of them and then projecting those images back into the dark room that is the brain. But scientists say that metaphor isn’t accurate. Our brains don’t just watch a rolling film of everything in front of our eyes […]
The world economy is turning Japanese
Bond yields aren’t always the most exciting thing in the world, but they are right now. In fact, you’ll probably be telling your grandkids about them one day. That’s because the yield on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury bond plunged to an all-time low of 1.37 percent on Tuesday. Not only that, but it’s done so […]
The states that spend more money on prisoners than college students
Since 1990, state and local spending on prisons and jails has risen more than three times faster than spending on schools, according to a new Department of Education report released Thursday. Driving that disparity is the unprecedented rise in the incarcerated population over that time period, due in large part to the drug war and mandatory […]
Alton Sterling, Eric Garner and the double standard of the side hustle
Alton Sterling was outside of a Triple S Food Mart in Baton Rouge selling CDs on Tuesday when an encounter with police left the 37-year-old man dead on the pavement, according to the 911 call that sparked the incident. The news immediately recalled the death of Eric Garner nearly two years ago on Staten Island, not just because the […]
Scientists have finally figured out how much weed is in a joint
0.32 grams. That’s how much marijuana is in the typical American joint, according to a rigorous statistical analysis recently published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence by drug policy researchers Greg Ridgeway of the University of Pennsylvania and Beau Kilmer of the Rand Corp. The amount of weed in the typical joint is actually an important […]
Young women are still less likely to negotiate a job offer. But why?
Nearly a decade ago, Carnegie Mellon University researchers surveyed a group of graduating college students and found just 7 percent of women said they’d tried to negotiate their initial job offers, compared to a whopping 57 percent of men. This negotiation gap appears to stubbornly persist among today’s young workers — though it’s less dramatic. The latest evidence comes from Earnest, a lending company […]
Researchers now have a much more nuanced understanding of whether we should eat pasta
It once seemed a quintessential American meal, even if it was, like so many of our more delicious foods, an import. But in the United States, pasta, cheap and delicious, has fallen on hard times recently. Lumped together with other carbohydrates fueling the obesity epidemic, villainized by the Atkins and paleo diets, and indeed declared […]
Larry Summers: Interest rates are at inconceivable levels, and we must confront what that means
The U.S. 10- and 30-year interest rates on Wednesday reached all-time lows of 1.32 percent and 2.10 percent. Record-low 10-year interest rates were also registered in Germany, France, Switzerland and Australia. Notably, Swiss 50-year interest rates are now for the first time negative. Rates out 15 years are negative in Germany and nine years in France. […]
Many parents will say kids made them happier. They’re probably lying.
Ask the vast majority of American parents, and they will tell you that having kids has made them happier. The problem with this claim, as common as it is, is that research suggests it just isn’t true. People who have kids in the United States and in many countries around the world report being less […]
Why living in some U.S. cities is literally like living in the Middle Ages
It’s easy to forget among the daily din of headline-grabbing tragedies, but historically speaking, we live in a time of unprecedented health, peace and prosperity. Global life expectancy has more than doubled since 1900. The number of people who die in wars has plummeted. The percent of the world’s population living in abject poverty is at […]
This crazy doodle is the shortest possible path through every zip code in the U.S.
Zip codes are funny things. There are close to 42,000 of them, and when you start plotting them on a map, you realize there’s a certain method to how the numbers are set up, such that you can slice the country into ever-smaller chunks depending on how you group Zip codes together. Computer scientists and cartography […]
Aftershocks of ‘Brexit’ ripple through Britain’s economy
LONDON — New evidence of weakness in Britian’s economy emerged Tuesday as the aftershocks of Britain’s historic decision to abandon the European Union rippled through global financial markets. Three investment funds focused on the United Kingdom’s frenzied commercial real estate market — M&G Investments, Aviva and Standard Life Investments — suspended activity this week after anxious […]
Why people should be able to bet on Taylor Swift and Tom Hiddleston breaking up
Proving that people will create markets in everything, Chinese news agency Xinhua reports that Taylor Swift fans in China have been buying insurance to hedge against the possibility — or, perhaps, probability — that she will dump her alleged new beau Tom Hiddleston. The odds were surprisingly favorable, given T-Swift’s habit of using her exes as fodder for vengeful, chart-topping […]
What Gary Johnson, the Libertarian nominee for president, wants to do to America
Two things make Gary Johnson an unusual Libertarian nominee for the presidency. The first is that Johnson, the former governor of New Mexico, is polling respectably well for a third-party candidate whom few voters have ever heard of. A recent poll by the Salt Lake Tribune put Johnson at 13 percent in Utah, for example, with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump even at […]
What Kevin Durant tells us about tax rates
We’ve been writing for years now at Wonkblog about how California’s highest-in-the-nation income tax rates don’t seem to be crippling the state’s economy, or producing the high-earner exodus that many conservatives once predicted. The simple explanation for that is tax rates are only part of the calculation that people make on where to live. Kevin […]
Quiz: Can you identify what America is truly great at?
So much talk, this election cycle, about America’s alleged greatness or lack thereof. We here at Wonkblog love to quantify things, and while we can’t (yet) provide a definitive answer about whether America is, was, or will ever be *truly* great, there are nonetheless any number of measurable things that the United States is indisputably the […]
The weird origins of going to the beach
Like the steam engine, the tin-can telephone and the first vaccine, the modern American beach holiday was actually invented in Britain. A beach vacation might seem like the most natural thing in the world — to head to the shore, play in the waves and splay your limbs out on the sand. But people didn’t […]
The weird origins of going to the beach
Like the steam engine, the tin-can telephone and the first vaccine, the modern American beach holiday was actually invented in Britain. A beach vacation might seem like the most natural thing in the world — to head to the shore, play in the waves and splay your limbs out on the sand. But people didn’t […]
It may be calm, but markets are still plenty worried after Brexit
Brexit might be the beginning of the end of the euro, the European Union, and the liberal international order itself, but, on the bright side, it hasn’t been that bad for your 401(k). At least not right now. Global markets have rallied enough the past few days, as you can see below, that the American […]
Paris just banned all cars made before 1997
In an effort to curb pollution that some days makes the city as smoggy as Beijing, Paris began on Friday to ban cars within city limits built before 1997. Vehicles registered before then — and motorcycles before 1999 — will now face modest, phased-in fines during weekday traffic between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., though they can drive freely into the […]
You should never eat cookie dough — period.
Always cook your cookies. The Food and Drug Administration warned this week that Americans shouldn’t eat cookie dough or other raw batters, even if it’s egg-free, due to the risk of contracting the E. coli virus. Many might think it’s the risk of salmonella and raw eggs that the FDA wants Americans to avoid. But this warning […]
New Jersey declares a state of emergency over its crummy roads
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has declared a state of emergency due to Garden State lawmakers’ inability to fulfill one of the basic obligations of government: keeping the roads passable. The state’s transportation trust fund will run dry this summer, leaving no money to pay for roads, bridges and transit. It’s a slow-moving crisis that lawmakers have seen coming for years. And […]
Boris Johnson won’t run for British prime minister but may be able to run for U.S. president
Boris Johnson stunned the world this week when he withdrew from the campaign to become Britain’s next prime minister. The shaggy-haired member of parliament was one of the driving forces behind the country’s decision to abandon the European Union and had been a prime candidate to take the political reins from outgoing Prime Minister David […]
The 99 percent just had its best year in nearly two decades
The vast majority of American workers are finally seeing their incomes rise from the depths of the Great Recession, a new analysis from one of the world’s leading scholars of economic inequality suggests. But incomes for the top 1 percent continue to rise substantially faster. The analysis of Internal Revenue Service data on pre-tax earnings, from […]
The interesting thing that happens when a Republican marries a Democrat
The gulf in American politics between the left and the right can seem insurmountable. There are red states and blue states, liberal media sources and conservative media sources, even jobs and names that differ by political party. Research has suggested that liberals and conservatives even wash with different shampoos and soaps and thus have different smells. But actually, millions of Americans cross […]
The group that seriously outearns white men
This morning, the Pew Research Center released a new report on how Americans are paid by race and gender — and boy, are there some bombshells for those interested in our nation’s wage disparities. We talk (and argue) often about the gender wage gap, that women in the United States make, on average, 79 cents […]
Income inequality today may be the highest since the nation’s founding
A few years ago, economists Peter Lindert and Jeffrey Williamson uncovered a startling fact about the origins of inequality in America. We know, of course, that incomes are highly unequal today. We can trace the rise and fall of the 1 percent back to the early 1900s, when robber barons ruled and Jay Gatsby partied. […]
What happens when we all become our own bosses
The “sharing economy” has evoked two possible futures for what work will look like in the years to come: one dystopian, the other idealistic. In the first, workers scurry among shopping trips, carpools, minor home repairs and menial errands so that the wealthy don’t have to. “Work” will mean piecing together other people’s tasks, with no benefits, picking […]
Why this ‘horrible’ idea for how to legalize pot could be worth voting for
California’s marijuana legalization initiative is “horrible, awful, very bad no-good drug policy,” said a leading marijuana expert who helped implement Washington state’s legal market. That said, he’d vote for it, anyway. Mark Kleiman, a professor of public policy at New York University, wrote this week that marijuana would become so inexpensive under California’s proposed legalization ballot initiative, the […]
Europe’s immigration crisis is just beginning
The debate over immigration has thrown politics on both sides of the Atlantic into confusion. In the United States, Republicans are divided over the nominee their voters have chosen for the presidency and his incendiary comments about migrants. Meanwhile, as Britain prepares to leave the European Union, the British prime minister has said he will step down, and the leader […]
The incredibly stupid thing thousands of people will do this weekend
If history is any guide, thousands of Americans are going to be flooding the nation’s emergency rooms this Fourth of July weekend suffering from self-inflicted fireworks injuries. A little over 12,000 Americans hurt themselves with fireworks last year, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which tracks this sort of thing. I’ve broken out those […]
Doctors received $6.5 billion from drug and device companies in 2015
Doctors received $6.5 billion worth of payments — including meals, research grants and charitable contributions from drug and medical device companies in the last year, according to new data released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Thursday. They also owned a little over $1 billion in stock in the industry. The financial relationships between 618,000 doctors […]
Planned Parenthood announces it will fight abortion laws in eight states after Supreme Court ruling
Four days after the Supreme Court tossed a set of Texas abortion restrictions that wiped out half the state’s clinics, Planned Parenthood announced a campaign to repeal similar laws across the country, arguing the legal defense of rules that are not “medically necessary” has evaporated. Opponents of abortion, meanwhile, are bracing to fight back. “We’ve […]
A top British official’s ominous warning has sent the pound back down again
Investors sold off pound sterling once again Thursday following a pessimistic speech from Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, on the consequences of the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the European Union. “The economic outlook has deteriorated,” Carney said. “The bank has identified the clouds on the horizon and can see that the wind has now changed direction.” […]
Meat is horrible
It may be delicious, but the evidence is accumulating that meat, particularly red meat, is just a disaster for the environment — and not so great for human beings, too. By 2050, scientists forecast that emissions from agriculture alone will account for how much carbon dioxide the world can use to avoid catastrophic global warming. It already accounts for one-third of […]
The real reason so many millennials are living at home
Last month, a new Pew Research Center report grabbed a lot of attention for saying that, for the first time since 1880, young adults age 18 to 34 are more likely to live with a parent than in any other arrangement. But a new analysis by Pew shows that the trend isn’t being driven, primarily at least, […]
A simple but controversial law that can make babies healthier
The national debate on the minimum wage has focused on businesses and their workers, but increasing the minimum has consequences for everyone else as well, including the tiniest members of society. When expecting mothers are better off, their children will be, too. A working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research suggests that increasing the minimum wage by $1 […]
Sorry, Donald Trump. America already thinks it’s great again.
The U.S.A. has never been known for being overly humble, but this year, it’s looking even less so. Following the 2008 financial crisis, there was a lot of uncertainty about whether America was still the world’s pre-eminent superpower. A lot of people started to think that China had eclipsed the U.S. as the world’s leading economy. […]
Even most Republicans now support higher taxes for the rich
A majority of Republicans now support increasing taxes on wealthy Americans, according to a new poll — an abrupt shift against a long-held tenet of GOP economic doctrine. The results from the Public Religion Research Institute and the Brookings Institution show that 54 percent of Republicans support increasing taxes on those with incomes over $250,000 a year, an increase […]
Men say they work more than women. Here’s the truth.
Another year, another Time Use survey from the Department of Labor — and another eyebrow-raising revelation that men log more hours at work than women. Those who argue both genders receive equal pay for equal work, once you control for choice, often point to the annual report, which breaks down how Americans pass their days. Since […]
American gun ownership drops to lowest in nearly 40 years
The percent of American households owning guns is at a near-40 year low in the latest CBS News poll released this month. According to the survey, which was conducted among 1,001 Americans in the aftermath of the Orlando nightclub shooting, 36 percent of U.S. adults either own a firearm personally, or live with someone who does. That’s […]
What the 1880s tell us about why the rich are moving to cities today
Wealthy, college-educated residents with the budget to bid up home prices are increasingly turning up in the center of major American cities, driving a generation-long shift in demand for downtown living. The trend is notable for what preceded it: For decades, until about 1990, people with options largely dodged city centers. But if you look much further […]
Was this painting made by Rembrandt — or Photoshop?
People don’t typically talk about “stock images” and “art” in the same sentence. Stock images — supplies of photos and illustrations that can be purchased cheaply online for creative projects — are usually somewhat fake and awkward looking (think “women laughing alone with salad”) and offer plenty of fodder for hilarious BuzzFeed stories. But a new project […]
These states take the most #drivingselfies and they need to stop
It should go without saying, but please do not take selfies while driving. In fact, don’t take any photos while driving. It’s not safe and you don’t want to be that guy posting sunsets while sitting in traffic or showing people how great your makeup looks today or thinking about how #blessed you are for […]
Bud Light runs ads saying it ‘proudly supports equal pay,’ won’t say whether it gives equal pay
In its newest national TV ad, the world’s biggest brewer portrays itself as a staunch defender of paying women as much as men. “Bud Light proudly supports equal pay,” comedian Amy Schumer says. “Women don’t get paid as much as men and that is wrong,” co-star Seth Rogen adds. So we asked Anheuser-Busch InBev, the Belgian beer conglomerate […]
How Brexit threatens one of Britain’s biggest perks
Britain’s shocking decision to leave the European Union last week fueled global worry over a potentially far-flung economic disaster. The markets took a nosedive. The pound lost nearly 10 percent of its value overnight. Analysts feared other countries could follow suit, sending the world into another destabilizing fit. In short: The aftermath has been dramatic — […]
Donald Trump is detonating a GOP policy position
You have to reach all the way back to Herbert Hoover, more than three-quarters of a century ago, to find a Republican president who even closely approximates Donald Trump’s views on international trade. Hoover levied a sweeping tariff that economists generally agree did not work as intended. The years that followed saw GOP nominees consistently […]
This could be the start to a whole new world of chicken
Animal activists have shuddered for years at how supermarket chickens meet their end. Across the industry, they are hung upside down, often breaking their bones, bruising their legs and causing hemorrhages. Workers then cut their throats to kill them, before they’re plunked in boiling water. Now, America’s third-largest chicken producer is introducing changes that animal rights groups are […]
One weird difference between Brexit’s supporters and Donald Trump
Prominent members of the campaign to remove the United Kingdom from the European Union are backing away from major promises now that they have won the vote. Nigel Farage — the leader of the U.K. Independence Party — has distanced himself from a widely debunked claim that 350 million pounds purportedly paid weekly by the United Kingdom to the […]
Americans are watching more TV and working less, new federal data show
This is your life, America: A thorough accounting of every minute in the average day of the average American’s life in 2015, according to the number-crunchers at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The typical American spends a whopping 8 hours and 49 minutes sleeping. They spend 41 minutes on grooming and hygiene. They spend 1 hour and 50 minutes on […]
The myths that Brexit was built on
In July 2003, British papers reported on the latest outrageous regulation imposed on the country by the European Union. Tightrope walkers and other acrobats performing with a circus touring Britain would now be required to don hard hats while flipping through the air in their routines. “It is bureaucracy gone mad,” the Telegraph quoted the […]
How Brexit could turn every country into a loser
Thanks to Brexit, the French may not buy as many American pharmaceuticals this year. Germans probably won’t buy as many Japanese printers. It’s the best time in recent memory for a non-Brit to drive home a new Jaguar, but no one in Britain should be too excited about that. Britain’s vote to leave the European Union […]
Researchers have found that war has a remarkable and miraculous effect
Twenty-five years ago, civil war erupted in the coastal African nation of Sierra Leone. Civilians were massacred, mutilated and gang-raped; children were kidnapped and injected with drugs to make them fight. By the end of the conflict, which lasted more than a decade, more than half the population had fled their homes, and some 70,000 […]
After talking to this book’s author, I’ll never look at bathrooms the same way.
Until recently, few Americans probably thought of peeing as political. But in the last few years, the issue of which bathrooms transgender people ought to use has become a big political question. The most contested law has been North Carolina’s requirement that people use restrooms in government-run buildings that align with the gender on their birth […]
Five ways Donald Trump benefits from the globalization he says he hates
Donald Trump has taken a major victory lap over Britain’s vote Thursday to leave the European Union, saying during a visit to his Scotland golf course that people of the United Kingdom “want to take their country back.” He also said there was “a big parallel” between the so-called Brexit vote and American anger over globalization — the growing spread of trade and business […]
Why Harvard’s career advice for its students is totally wrong
“Follow your passion.” It’s a mantra that bright kids heading off to college will likely hear over and over again. The nation’s top schools are passionate about “passion.” Harvard, for instance, touts its students’ and faculty members’ passion for, among other things, service, justice, learning, food, Harvard, jogging, dancing, motocross, flowering plants, astronomical instrumentation, banjo and […]
What the Supreme Court abortion ruling means for Texas
Hours after the Supreme Court struck down a Texas law that had shuttered half the state’s abortion clinics, abortion providers on Monday said they are planning to reopen across the state, a process that could stretch months. Meanwhile, antiabortion state legislators are gearing up to introduce new legislation aimed at restricting the procedure. “This fight is […]
Trump economic plan is the best and everybody should love it, Trump adviser says
An independent analysis that predicts Donald Trump’s economic policies would plunge the United States into a deep recession is a “hit piece” that “lacks credibility,” from a lead author who “appears to be pursuing a political agenda on behalf of the Democratic Party,” an economic adviser to the Trump campaign declares in a brief report set to […]
Why Japan will pay a big price for Britain’s vote to leave the E.U.
Britain’s decision to leave the European Union has sent stock markets and currencies across the globe somersaulting. But the changes are particularly pronounced and worrying in Japan, where Brexit has caused the yen to strengthen more than any other major currency and where the Nikkei 225 last Friday plunged more than any index outside of […]
Ginsburg smacks down a major abortion myth after historic SCOTUS ruling
On Monday, the Supreme Court struck down a set of Texas restrictions that shuttered half the state’s abortion providers, and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg used her concurring opinion to blast a key argument for the state’s tighter regulations — that terminating a pregnancy in a clinic is dangerous. She alluded to cases similar to former physician Kermit Gosnell, a criminal named 10 times in Monday’s […]
The real reason why Americans love bacon for breakfast
There’s a secret history of bacon that almost nobody knows. As we tell in this new video, it involves Sigmund Freud, 4,500 doctors and a man who has been linked to the overthrow of a democratically elected president. Bacon always had a place on the breakfast table when the majority of Americans lived in rural […]
Americans are shouldering more and more of their health-care costs
For years, economists have been talking about a historic slowdown in the growth of health spending, which they say was triggered largely by the recession. To people feeling the financial crush of rising deductibles and premiums, talk of a slowdown can feel totally wrong, and a new study of the out-of-pocket costs shouldered by patients with private […]
The critical thing to know after the Supreme Court ruled against a major abortion law
The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that regulations Texas imposed on abortion clinics and doctors in 2013 created an unconstitutional “undue burden” on women seeking out the procedure, in what is largely regarded as the most important case on reproductive rights in more than two decades. Today’s ruling breaks with a steady decay of abortion rights since […]
This is the scariest thing that’s happening right now in the markets
One of the biggest immediate casualties of Britain’s decision to leave the European Union appears to be the banking sector. Stocks of the world’s biggest banks, especially those headquartered in Britain and elsewhere in Europe, are on track for the largest two-day fall in their history. U.S.-listed shares of Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse both plummeted to never-before-seen […]
The pound’s dramatic decline is the biggest impact of Brexit so far
While financial overall markets remained fairly calm Monday after last week’s plunge, the sharp decline of the British pound deepened, in what is the biggest and most immediate impact of Britain’s vote to leave the European Union. The continued weakness signals global pessimism about the United Kingdom’s economic prospects. Some analysts say the country could fall into recession, while […]
Americans are paying more to live in the very places they once abandoned
America’s urban downtowns were neglected for decades, abandoned for newer malls in the suburbs and bigger homes on the edge of town. The construction of new highways helped speed their decline. And rising crime nearly killed them. That’s the story of much of the second half of the 20th century in cities such as Washington, New York and Chicago. But […]
Brexit is a reminder some things just shouldn’t be decided by the people
Since British voters elected on Thursday to leave the European Union, signs have quickly emerged of the flaws in holding a referendum on such a messy, massive, far-reaching decision. Politicians responsible for explaining what’s at stake have admitted they may have fudged some of the consequences. Nigel Farage, leader of the U.K. Independence Party, acknowledged Friday merely an hour after the election was called that […]
Why Brexit was only the beginning of a revolt by the world’s financial losers
THE world has enjoyed an unprecedented run of peace, prosperity, and cooperation the last 25 years, but now that might be over. At least when it comes to those last two. That, more than anything else, is what Britain’s vote to leave the European Union means. A British exit, or Brexit, will make the country poorer […]
Five clues to whether markets are going to collapse this week
NEW YORK —By the time markets open Monday morning in Asia — just a few hours from now — investors across the globe would have had a couple of nights to absorb the stunning news that Britain had voted to leave the European Union. Their initial reaction was to send global markets into a meltdown. The British pound […]
The startling human toll of Brexit
On paper, Britain’s vote to exit the European Union will change little in the short term. The U.K. has two years to untangle trade agreements, financial obligations and legal frameworks as it divorces itself from the rest of Europe. But in reality, a lot is already changing. When it comes to the economy, people’s expectations […]
Why people who really wanted Brexit will regret it most
Parliament would never have let this happen. And yet, the United Kingdom is now in the process of leaving the European Union and, if a deal is not made otherwise, its trade agreements. This result comes out of last night’s so-called “Brexit” referendum, where the British voters decided to part ways with the E.U. It […]
Britain just killed globalization as we know it
The economic story of the past quarter century was the rapid advance of globalization, the unleashing of trade and commerce among countries rich and poor — a McDonald’s in every European capital, “Made in China” labels throughout Toys R Us. The Brexit vote on Thursday ends that story, at least in its current volume. Voters […]
The people who will suffer the most severe impact of Brexit don’t live in the U.K.
Britain is not just a hub for global financial activity and a major trading partner for countries on both sides of the Atlantic. Another aspect of the importance of the British economy is the nation’s relationship with the developing world. Immigrants working in Britain send billions of pounds home every year, and the nation is one of the world’s most generous in […]
The one investment that just made a killing thanks to Brexit
On Friday, as markets collapsed around the world after Britain voted to leave the European Union, investors in one kind of asset did fabulously: owners of gold. The precious metal saw a huge one-day price jump, increasing in value by $53.35, or 5 percent, to $1,318 per ounce, a two-year high. That’s 13 percent higher than […]
Why scientists are freaking out about Brexit
In laboratories across the United Kingdom, scientists were shaking their heads about the unprecedented vote to leave the European Union, with worries about what the split will mean about the future of research funding and the possibility of a “brain exit.” Nobel Prize winning physicist Peter Higgs has described #Brexit results as a “disaster” for British […]
Dow drops more than 600 points as Brexit raises risk of global recession
The risk of another global recession escalated Friday after Britain’s stunning decision to leave the European Union plunged financial markets into free fall and tested the strength of the safeguards put in place since the last downturn seven years ago. Wall Street was slammed from the moment trading opened, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average […]
The powerful thing that divides Britain also divides America
The map of the Brexit vote looks so familiar, those tiny clusters that voted to “remain” set against an entire country that disagreed. Sixty percent of voters in the London region wanted to stay in the European Union. In Liverpool, 58 percent did. In Manchester, 60 percent. In Birmingham, just over 50 percent. The cities chose […]
Five charts capture the world’s stunned — and scary — reaction to Brexit
Many people around the world woke up today to the stunning news that the U.K. had voted to leave the European Union — if they didn’t stay up all night watching the vote. In the aftermath of Britain’s referendum, global markets have tumbled, bond yield spreads have soared, and financial analysts and economic officials have been left […]
Why Wall Street fought so hard against Brexit
NEW YORK — Wall Street banks on Friday scrambled to contain the fallout from Britain’s stunning vote to break ties with the European Union. Some of America’s largest banks, including Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase, contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to efforts to stop Britain from withdrawing from the European Union — popularly known as Brexit […]
No, Brexit isn’t a good sign for Trump
Donald J. Trump was quick to draw the connection between last night’s so-called “Brexit” vote – a referendum in the United Kingdom where the majority of citizens chose to leave the European Union – and his own presidential campaign. “I think I see a big parallel,” he said. “People want to take their country back […]
Rich gamblers lost a lot of money when the U.K. voted to leave the European Union
After the United Kingdom’s vote to leave the European Union, Donald Trump argued the result was a good omen for his own campaign. “I really do see a parallel between what’s happening in the United States and what’s happening here. People want to see borders,” he told reporters on arriving at one of his golf courses […]
One British industry could suffer a particularly harsh impact from Brexit
Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union could have a particularly harsh impact on the country’s auto and manufacturing sectors. Manufacturing accounts for 10 percent of the U.K.’s gross domestic product, and the automotive industry employs nearly 800,000 people, including parts manufacturing. Another 41,000 are employed in motorsports businesses. The U.K. is Europe’s third-largest car manufacturer and […]
Why Brexit is worse for Europe than Britain
Brexit is in progress. If journalism is the rough draft of history, instant blog responses are even cruder responses to events. Nonetheless, here are some thoughts prior to markets opening in the United States. Markets So far, given the shock value of what has happened, the market response has been on the calm side. The […]
The critical fact Trump forgets when he says Brexit would be great for his Scottish golf course
Donald Trump took time out of the fiercely contested presidential campaign this week to visit one of his golf courses in Scotland. Arriving there Friday, he commented on U.K. voters’ unexpected decision to leave the European Union, saying that the vote would mean more business at the resort, Trump Turnberry. Trump’s comments revealed one way the presumptive Republican nominee’s financial holdings worldwide could create conflicts of […]
Brexit-weary Britons suddenly want to run away to Canada, too
In the aftermath of the U.K.’s shocking vote to leave the European Union for good, many dissatisfied Britons are now considering a Plan B: moving to Canada. Data from Google Trends show a huge spike in Britons typing “move to Canada” into their search bar today, rising approximately 100-fold compared to the period 24 hours […]
The absolute best place to grow up in America
Few things are more gratifying than brand-new data that validates your life choices. This week, the Annie E. Casey Foundation published its 26th annual Kids Count report, an investigation into trends in health, education and economic well-being among the nation’s kids. For the headline-making part of their report, the Foundation’s researchers ranked the states on 16 […]
The stunning collapse of the British pound, in charts
The British pound fell more than 10 percent on Thursday night, reaching $1.34 per pound, after midnight Eastern time, a stunning decline for a rich country’s currency in a single day. The plunge came as United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, a historic event that shatters 40 years of efforts to foster economic integration on the […]
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