US president Donald Trump has disrupted the nature of class politics. In a reversal of long-standing allegiances, working-class Americans – including many minorities – have shifted towards the MAGA right. Meanwhile, the well-educated, the corporate elites and the government-dependent have generally veered leftwards.  read more »

This annual report assesses housing affordability in 95 major markets across eight nations (Australia, Canada, China, Ireland, New Zealand, Singapore, United Kingdom and the, United States).  read more »

Recent revelations that the University of California received massive donations from organisations linked to China’s Communist Party — including a $220 million investment in Berkeley’s joint research project with Tsinghua University — may have elicited a harsh reaction  read more »

Critics of plans to build more light-rail lines in Charlotte, North Carolina say that proposed new lines will fail to serve the neighborhoods of blacks who “need it most.”  read more »

In American politics, the main beneficiaries of “dark money” have in recent years tended to be Democrats.  read more »

In the early 1990s, Ken Lay and his colleagues at Houston-based Enron, were, as one veteran of the energy business told me, “the kings of the American pipeline business.”  read more »

It’s once more springtime for America doomers, those who believe the United States will soon lose its global top-dog status.  read more »

There’s a great line from the comedy show Kath & Kim, where the very suburban Kim expresses her desire to be like affluent city people. “I want to be effluent Mum," she says. "You ARE effluent, Kim," replies the equally suburban Kath.  read more »

By his supreme idiocy, U.S. President Donald Trump has stirred up anti-American sentiment, but largely to the benefit of America’s archrival, China.  read more »

Minnesota legislators are not only considering shutting down the Northstar commuter train, they are raging at the Metropolitan Council, which is the Twin Cities’ regional planning agency which also runs its transit agency, for its light-rail cost overruns.  read more »