The changes Roubini proposes would have many of the same effects as a simple protective tariff on imported goods, increasing federal revenue and rendering U.S. manufacturers more competitive in domestic markets.

China's one-party government is undergoing a leadership change, and both the United States and China have an interest in building constructive relationships.

There is one form of prejudice that most people are not aware of: singlism.

President Obama is right to put more pressure on colleges and universities as well as the states to make a college education more affordable.

Recent revelations about the deplorable working conditions at an Apple factory in China provide a cautionary tale about globalization and consumerism.

Mark Twain once remarked, "Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, all our irritations and resentments slip away, and a sunny spirit takes their place."

One year ago, young Egyptians poured into Tahrir Square in a revolt whose outcome surprised them as much as the world.

Americans bought 50 million fewer movie tickets in 2011 than the year before, continuing a downward slide for Hollywood that began in 2003. The anemic ticket sales - the lowest total in 16 years

While much of the nation's capital has been engrossed in the debate over unemployment, taxes and spending, lobbyists representing a huge swath of the U.S. economy have been battling over proposals to combat foreign websites dedicated to piracy.

This week in Washington, the United States is hosting an international conference obliquely titled "Expert Meeting on Implementing the U.N. Human Rights Resolution 16/18." The impenetrable title conceals the disturbing agenda: to establish international standards for, among other things, criminalizing "intolerance, negative stereotyping and stigmatization of ... religion and belief."

As a child perusing my parents' and grandparents' libraries in the 1950s, I came across odd books like one instructing the reader in proper pronunciation. It taught how to say the word "despicable" (stress the "des," not the "pic") and incognito (stress the "cog," not the "nito") - just the opposite of what you normally hear.

Journalism was something I did not have any interest in. That's probably a strange opinion to read in a newspaper, but it's true.

Polling stations in Connecticut were commandeered to shelter residents still without power eight days after a freak October snowstorm. Two months earlier, residents of Bastrop County, Texas, lost a record 476 homes to a single wildfire. And corn farmers in Mississippi County, Mo., are still picking up the pieces after their land disappeared under the raging Mississippi River in May.

As consumers, we transmit valuable personal information to the companies with which we do business. In doing so, we trust that information will remain secure. Over the past year, however, we have learned of a number of instances in which vast quantities of personal data have been compromised.

The college class of 2010 now has a dubious distinction. Its graduates who had student loans owed a record-high average of $25,250, up 5.2 percent from the previous year, according to a new report from the Project on Student Debt, a nonprofit advocacy group.

Freedom, fantasy & financial ruin

The Internet and related technologies have turned money virtual, an even less-tangible and further-removed concept than the plastic of credit cards often blamed for our reckless out-of-touchness with finances.