The drug-related violence in Mexico is harrowing and depressing. It poses a growing danger to Mexican civil society, the Mexican economy and the U.S. We are Mexico's largest trading partner, and only part of that business is drugs. The simple equation has always been one of supply and demand: America's insatiable demand drives the drug business in Mexico. But the huge increase in violence and lawlessness in Mexico over the past five years vastly outstrips the rise in drug use ...

The world economy has run into a brick wall. Despite countless warnings in recent years about the need to address a looming hunger crisis in poor countries and a looming energy crisis worldwide, world leaders failed to think ahead. The result is a global food crisis. Wheat, corn and rice prices have more than doubled in the past two years, and oil prices have more than tripled since the start of 2004. These food-price increases combined with soaring energy costs ...

The travel experts predict that this will be a staycation summer, with gas prices over $4 and the economy melting like an Eskimo pie. It's always been a luxury to be able to hop a plane to Paris, to Venice, to the Grand Canyon. But as I read the welcome letter sent to my daughter from her camp director, I decided that she is luckier still. The real luxury travel of the modern age is not through space; it's through ...

As Europe confronts another act in its Greek drama, many are watching and wondering, Is the U.S. next? Could our debt-ceiling debate be the beginning of a crisis that makes the world lose faith in American credit? Anything could happen, but it's worth noting the big differences between Greece and the U.S. Greece faces three problems. First, it has an uncompetitive economy that cannot generate growth. Its labor is too expensive, it exports few products, and its ...

The Hunts face Congress and bankers after their fallThose bashful bullionaire brothers W. Herbert and Nelson Bunker Hunt showed up in public last week for the first time since their speculative bubble burst on "Silver Thursday," March 27. The Hunts were testifying before two congressional subcommittees looking into their metal market machinations over the past year. As the brothers told the tale, they were just worrying, like most Americans, about the worsening economy. As Bunker Hunt has reportedly said, "A billion dollars is not what it used ...

Muammar Gaddafi remains hunkered down in Tripoli, ever defiant despite the the heaviest bombing of NATO's three-month campaign. But outside Libya, the talk has moved on from war to the business opportunities offered by a post-Gaddafi Libya. It's hard to envision a booming Libyan economy with its communication infrastructure shattered by bombs and its oil fields abandoned and idle. Yet economists and investors say that as an intensifying NATO campaign brings Gaddafi's 42-year rule closer to its end, ...

Everyone should love Brazilian tourists. They spend more per capita than any other nationality. Worldwide, Brazilian tourists shell out an average of $43.3 million a day, dropping a gigantesco $1.4 billion last April alone, up 83% from the same period last year, according to the Brazil's Central Bank. In 2010, 1.2 million Brazilians visited the United States, injecting $5.9 billion into the U.S. economy. Even exclusive ski resorts in Vermont are scrambling to hire Portuguese-speaking ski instructors ...

The slopes of the Rockies beckoned for spring skiing. The airfare seemed reasonable enough on short notice: New York City to Denver for $386 round-trip. But United wasn't finished trying to pry money out of me. At the self-service check-in kiosk, I was offered a chance to upgrade to Economy Plus for $40. Did I have bags to check? The first was $25, the second $45. Did I want to shortcut the security line and board early with the swells, ...

As the crisis in Syria continues, many observers are beginning to say that if the protesters cannot overthrow the regime, the economy will. With political uncertainty at a suffocating level, the Syrian pound has fallen against the U.S. dollar. As a result, Syrians are feverishly hauling their money out of banks — about 8% of all banks deposits have been withdrawn — and shifting it into more stable foreign currencies. GDP was predicted to grow at a ...

When her husband Dominique Strauss-Kahn was preparing to run for President of France five years ago, Anne Sinclair told a Paris newspaper that she was "rather proud" of his reputation as a ladies' man, a chaud lapin nicknamed the Great Seducer. "It's important," she said, "for a man in politics to be able to seduce." Maybe it was pride that inspired French politicians and International Monetary Fund officials to look the other way as the rumors about "DSK" ...