India Set To Miss Budget Deficit Target As Oil Shock Strains Public Finances

The World Is Becoming Increasingly Divided By Fertility The world is becoming increasingly divided by fertility. One group of countries now has too few births to naturally replace its population, while another continues to see population growth driven by higher fertility rates. This demographic divide has major implications for aging populations, labor markets, immigration, and future economic growth. This map, via Visual Capitalist's Jeff Desjardins, shows which countries are above and below the replacement fertility rate of 2.1 children per woman, using projections for 2025 from the UN World Population Prospects 2024 Revision. While...

Conflict Hits 6 Months: Iran Says Diplomacy Can Return But "Pressure Doesn't Work" In what will likely prove to be a very limited and ultimately unfruitful diplomatic overture, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas ​Araghchi has newly announced that Tehran views renewed talks with Washington as not impossible, and that dialogue can actually get on track - but so long as the US understands that pressure does not work. In a Friday post on X, Araghchi ⁠acknowledged "creative discussions" ‌with Qatar's Prime Minister and Foreign Minister ‌Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al -Thani, wherein...

Why Businesses Haven't Left California - Yet Authored by Tom Wilson via the Mises Institute, California has a strange relationship with business. Its lawmakers seem determined to make doing business more expensive, yet companies continue to operate there. Taxes rise, regulations accumulate, and new compliance requirements are added, but California remains home to some of the most successful companies in the world. That raises a question more interesting than whether California is "business friendly." Why do businesses continue to stay - and how far can the state push them before they...