Predicting the Future Is Easier Than It Looks

Before Billy Bean and the sabermetric revolution upended baseball and ushered in a new era of statistically driven baseball analysis, old-timers insisted that the young eggheads and their spreadsheets were no match for a time-worn scout. Experience, gut feeling, and a sense of the intangible qualities that make up a quality prospect — these were […]

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The Four Horsemen of Foreign Policy

Barack Obama has been reelected by concentrating on domestic issues. A look beyond US borders would have been unbearable to American voters anyways. That isn’t Obama’s fault: Foreign policy problems usually come with a long history, and we certainly can’t blame the president for not forecasting global turmoil. Yet we can admit that the global […]

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Gulf Cools Towards Muslim Brothers

Dubai’s chief of police, General Dahi Khalfan al-Tamim, claims that the Muslim Brotherhood is “a small group that has strayed from the true path.” He also says that the revolution in Egypt “would not have been possible without Iran’s support and is the prelude to a new Sykes-Picot agreement” (1). And that Mohammed Morsi’s election in […]

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In The End, Obama Won On The Economy

In the end, President Barack Obama won re-election on the issue that was supposed to send him packing: the sluggish U.S. economy. The United States is still digging out from the deepest recession in 80 years, and employers are barely adding enough jobs to keep pace with population growth. Trillions of dollars of household wealth have vanished in […]

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Obama Wins Re-election With Romney Defeated in Key States

Barack Obama, the post-partisan candidate of hope four years ago who became the first black U.S. president, won re-election by overcoming four years of economic discontent with a mix of political populism and electoral math. Obama defeated Republican Mitt Romney, with the Associated Press projecting the president winning at least 303 electoral votes in yesterday’s election, with 270 […]

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US Heads For Cliffhanger Election

US presidential rivals Barack Obama and Mitt Romney face a final sprint across swing states for undecided voters, on their last day of campaigning. Mr Romney is in Florida, where polls suggest he has the edge, and will head to Virginia, New Hampshire and Ohio. Mr Obama is scheduled to appear in Madison, Wisconsin, accompanied by […]

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Bangladesh Has Dysfunctional Politics And A Stunted Private Sector. Yet It Has Been Surprisingly Good At Improving The Lives Of Its Poor

Bangladesh was the original development “basket case”, the demeaning term used in Henry Kissinger’s state department for countries that would always depend on aid. Its people are crammed onto a flood plain swept by cyclones and without big mineral and other natural resources. It suffered famines in 1943 and 1974 and military coups in 1975, […]

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