Forbes

The American jobs machine is broken. That much isn't in dispute. The June labor market report saw the creation of a paltry 83,000 private sector jobs. Over the same four weeks, an extraordinary 652,000 people left the workforce, swelling the ranks of the discouraged. Millions of potential workers are living on the margins of the mainstream economy. And this sad fact isn't just a product of our recent economic woes.

At this year's G-20 summit in Toronto, the world's leading economies sealed their fate. Rather than reach a consensus on the need for fiscal consolidation or for more aggressive fiscal stimulus, the assembled officials have, in scrupulously diplomatic and often hilariously vague language, agreed to disagree on the future direction of the global economy. The U.S. will continue to borrow vast sums in an effort to keep demand afloat, a policy that will aid exporters in Europe and East Asia and the oil-rich states of the Gulf.

The Chinese economy is about to enter a new phase. The decision by the Chinese central bank to let the renminbi appreciate might seem minor. After all, the currency was allowed some flexibility before the global financial crisis, so China is arguably just returning to the status quo ante. But this decision is being made in the context of a proletariat that is growing restless. Schooled in the classics of Marxism-Leninism, the country’s political elite understands the dangers this entails.

In David Kirkpatrick's brilliant new book The Facebook Effect he describes how a handful of bright college kids created one of the world's most successful consumer Internet companies. But, in a way, Facebook itself isn't the interesting story. Kirkpatrick describes how Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his friend and collaborator Adam D'Angelo devoted considerable time developing a file-sharing service called Wirehog, which they envisioned as an application that would run on what they began envisioning as the Facebook platform.

The convenience of electronic payments is nothing short of a miracle. Though we're not quite living in a cashless society, we're getting closer all the time. I've noticed that I've grown increasingly frustrated by coins, a technology that's been with us for thousands of years. They seem somehow primitive, not to mention unwieldy.

Coastal animals covered in oily filth have given us a visceral sense of what the BP oil disaster means for our natural environment. The more disturbing news is that this oil spill represents a drop in the bucket--a small fraction of the petroleum that enters the world's oceans every year.

Lisa Margonelli, author of Oil on the Brain, has crafted a reform proposal designed to reduce oil dependence without overburdening working and middle class families. ...

The decades-long struggle between Israel and the Palestinians is not the world's bloodiest ongoing conflict. And unlike the fight for Kashmir or the slow-motion collapse of North Korea, it doesn't threaten to escalate into nuclear war. But it has nevertheless seized the imagination of millions. Across the Arab and Muslim world, the conflict is seen as an unambiguous morality play, with brutal Zionists cast in the role of villains.

In late March a South Korean naval vessel, the Cheonan, was destroyed, almost certainly by North Korean saboteurs. Given that North Korea, a vast Stalinist gulag masquerading as country, depends on the generosity of South Korea and the international community for its very survival, the brazenness of the attack defied logic.

Steven Hill, author of Europe's Promise, has said Europe's "social capitalist policies represent best practices in handling most of the challenges modern ...