United States

During the last fifty years, the United States and the EU countries have developed very high, though different, consumers protection standards. A free trade agreement based on the unification of standards will be unrealistic. Ideas of functional equivalents and/or mutual recognition of national standards is the best recipe.

Funny thing is that even professors of economics in the United States themselves were often not able to see the worse performance and lagging of centrally planned economies. Too much of intellectual work sometimes makes people forget to look out of the window.

In considering the extent to which the state should be relied upon to promote social cohesion and virtue, one must keep in mind the potential associated pitfalls as well as the other possible means to accomplish the same desired ends.

On October 28, Colleen Bell, American ambassador to Hungary, pointed out the dire political and social problems Hungary faces today – problems it must solve. The speech, delivered at a university in Budapest, is not the first criticism Hungary received from its Western ally.

A common EU cyberspace market is expected to transform cyberspace into a favourable environment for new businesses and provide even the smallest digital companies with access to 500 million consumers across the EU. It is indeed an excellent intention, but what are the steps to a successful implementation?

Recently, it became obvious that women’s issue and the fight for enhancing the situation of American women is a priority not only for the Democrat Hillary Clinton, but also for a Republican candidate: Carly Fiorina.

This is the sad history of price regulation of wages, venerated by the politicians, voters but also various organizations trying to help minorities. Although its current defenders do not have the same reasons as its supporters from the previous century, their agendas, unfortunately, still bring the same consequences.

Hong Kong and Switzerland top the rankings of a new index released today that presents the state of human freedom in the world. The U.S. performance is worrisome and shows that the United States can no longer claim to be the leading bastion of liberty in the world. The Human Freedom Index (HFI) is the most comprehensive measure of freedom ever created for a large number of countries around the globe.

Earlier this week, the world witnessed two deals sealed by international powers: on Greece’s future in the European Union and on Iran’s future in the world. Both deals will have their political and social costs and profits, winners and losers.

The dramatic upsurge of CHF/PLN exchange rate in mid-January 2015 triggered in Poland a wave of discussion on the situation of people with mortgages in Swiss currency and who should be deemed responsible for such a state of affairs.