Articles on Europe’s unraveling, the coming of taxation on world-wide income for Canadians, why legacy airline companies can’t be profitable, why the home team wins, Taliban tricks, new entrepreneurs in Japan, James Grant slams the Fed, paralysed economic policy, energy efficiency and cars, the end of liberal intervention, immigration and the economy, and when an American visited China in 1973.

Going backwards.

Project Syndicate – The Unraveling of European Peace
The European Commission recently unveiled long-awaited measures to bring neighboring countries in the Mediterranean and the former Soviet Union closer to Europe.

2.8 million Canadians live abroad, expect to be rescued by the state when things go bad, and return to Canada when they want with all the country’s benefits. Hmmm, the case is being made for taxing world wide income.

Globe and Mail – As Nation of Immigrants, Canada Must Now Confront Emigrants
Canada has always thought of itself as a nation of immigrants. But new research suggests that among wealthy immigrant-receiving nations, Canada is one of the likeliest to see its own citizens move abroad.

The legacy airlines are in a business where no one wants to pay the full price that is punctuated with crisis beyond their control. Sell.

Freakonomics – Why Do Airlines Always Lose Money?
It’s been more than 30 years since the airline industry was deregulated in 1978.

Home advantage? The officials are on the home side.

London Review of Books – Swing for the Fences
Until recently, one of the most remarkable unbeaten records in sport belonged to a football manager, the much reviled Portuguese provocateur and clotheshorse José Mourinho.

Yes the bomb carried by the eight year old girl was Taliban trickery.

New York Times – Afghan Girl Was Tricked Into Carrying Bomb
Insurgents tricked an 8-year-old girl in a remote area of central Afghanistan into carrying a bomb wrapped in cloth that they detonated remotely when she was close to a police vehicle, the Afghan authorities said Sunday.

The new and old in Japan. Thanks to Robert of Victoria.

Economist – Something Has to Give
MORE than 100 days after the earthquake that hit Japan in March, 30,000 survivors still huddle in shelters, politicians have returned to their bickering and Japan Inc to business as usual.

James Grant not so polite remarks on the Fed.

Bloomberg – James Grant on Fed Policy, Quantitative Easing
James Grant, editor of Grant's Interest Rate Observer, talks about the outlook for Federal Reserve monetary policy and the consequences of the central bank's policy of quantitative easing.

Robert Samuelson on paralysed economic policy.

Real Clear Markets – Global Economic Policy Paralysed
The Bank for International Settlements in Switzerland has just published its annual report, and it is a dour document.

Related.

Financial Times – A Fiscal Policy Fit for the Next Crisis
The debt-ceiling talks in Washington have stumbled again.

Cars get lighter, less safe, and won’t come with a spare tire anymore.

Wall Street Journal – Why Your New Car Doesn’t Have a Spare Tire
Fewer tires, higher taxes.

The end of liberal intervention.

Independent -- Finally, the age of Western intervention is over
With a rhetorical flourish, President Obama last week drew to a close an era of war.

Immigration and the economy.

Modeled Behavior – Immigrants, Pie, Salam, Lee
Reihan Salam and Tim Lee have written very thoughtful posts on immigration and the whether and why that affects our the size of our collective economic pie.

A visit to China changes one point of view.

New York Review of Books -- My Disillusionment: China, 1973
The first time I tried to go to China was in 1967, the year after I graduated from college.

Cartoon Greek Myths