Business is booming in Brazil. So is Christianity. What does the latter mean for the former, and vice versa? The former statement has become commonplace in discussions about the world’s economy. While the United States and Europe experience the full weight of fiscal irresponsibility and their national limbs strain to…  [more]

The new Wall Street drama “Margin Call” is only slightly less boring than a quarterly report. And that’s exactly what makes it so frightening. Set at an imploding investment firm on the eve of the 2008 financial collapse, “Margin Call” means to capture the panic of that moment and raise…  [more]

As I walked through a Chicago park three weeks ago, I poked fun at the small entourage of protesters, slightly outpacing us, making a relatively unintelligible comment on greed and corporate corruption. Now I find out I was making fun of what’s become a global movement. Occupy Wall Street, which…  [more]

As an independent who leans left on social issues and right down the middle on economic ones, the “Buffett Rule” as proposed by President Barack Obama is both fascinating and problematic. On the one hand, imposing a minimum tax rate on those making the most money would seem to make…  [more]

If there’s one thing President Obama wanted his audience to take away from his speech in support of the American Jobs Act last Thursday night, it’s the urgency of the crisis facing the United States. Repeatedly he exhorted Congress to “pass this bill,” which the president assured would “create jobs…  [more]