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Perhaps the most startling discovery of the WikiLeaks dumps so far didn't come from the most recent emails surrounding the various Hillary scandals, though there are many great ones, but from 2008 when John Podesta served as co-chair of President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team.  The email came from Michael Froman, a former Citibank executive, who single-handedly built the entire cabinet of what was supposed to be the "main street" President.     The email in question was even sent from Froman's Citibank email address (rookie!) and includes "A list of African American, Latino and Asian American candidates, broken down by...

London is the most important city in the world for the rich, according to the latest Wealth Report from real estate consulting firm Knight Frank. But it won't hold onto its title for long. According to the report, New York is set to overtake London as the top city for the wealthy in the next decade. And Asian cities like Singapore, Hong Kong, and Shanghai will also become more important over the next 10 years. Knight Frank determined its eighth-annual "global cities" ranking based on four factors: economic activity, political power, quality of life, and influence and power

COMMENTARY By Andy Dehnart On a recent “American Idol 5” performance show, host Ryan Seacrest asked judge Paula Abdul to compare this year's finalists to past groups. Here’s what she said: “Ryan, I think this is the most unique, well-diverse, most-talented and most talked about top 12 that we’ve ever had. There’s not a day that people don’t come up to me and everyone has different favorites, so it’s anyone’s game, and it’s exciting as can be.” Paula said 50 words, but she actually said not much at all. In Paula’s universe, stating the obvious incoherently qualifies as answering a...

The Most Important Economic News of the Year By Arnold Kling 29 Dec 2005 "[P]roductivity is the best single measure of what leads to differences in economic performance. Even though GDP per capita is the all-encompassing measure, GDP per capita is determined primarily, almost entirely, by productivity. People basically work in order to have a place to sleep and something to eat and so on and so forth. The huge differences around the world are the efficiencies with which they work -- their productivity." -- William Lewis Politicians and pundits re-assess the state of the economy often. They look at...

Sometimes you wonder if our elected officials know, or even care, which issues the voters think are important. Even Bush seems disconnected from the voter's wishes. Do you have real hot button issues that you think are going unaddressed? For starters, many of us wish the administration would tell the UN they are a bloated bureacracy that does nothing to solve the world's problems. That should be followed by a declaration that they do not deserve our continued funding dollars. As it is, Kofi draws diplomatic praise from Bush. Even more distressing is the almost desperate belief held by many...