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The new rules, combined with the other major changes, have effectively removed both the floor and the ceiling. It’s easier for some to make a lot more money and for others to fall much further behind. That has meant a huge increase in inequality. The top 1 percent of families now makes 26 times the average of the other 99 percent (the ratio was 11 to 1 in 1979). The top 0.1 percent makes 130 times the bottom 99 (up from a 38-to-1 ratio 40 years ago). And the inequality is not just between classes. The average wages of the average American have stayed largely flat for decades, but those averages hide a lot of volatility, as more people find themselves at the extremes of wealth or poverty. A successful plumber who has mastered all the new water-flow sensor technology and pipe-fitting innovations (and is probably in a union) can make more than $100,000 a year, while other plumbers, who just know the basics, could make less than $20,000.

The increasingly vicious battle between left and right is, at the most basic level, a dispute over how to respond to these new rules. Republicans largely claim that the new rules will make the country richer and, in the long run, will be beneficial to everyone willing to put in the hard work. Few Democrats call for a return to record high taxes and trade barriers — after all, the free flow of cheap goods has helped many, particularly the poor. But many do want a return to the spirit of the old rules, when the government sought to make life more equal, more stable and, for some, less rewarding.

Such big drops are a reminder of how investors don't have any tolerance when stocks at large are hovering around their long-term average valuations. "Any company that misses in this environment is getting hurt big time," says Peter Cardillo of Rockwell Global Capital. "It's a question of investors not being forgiving."

Mr. Karzai seemed to jump at what he believed was a chance to achieve what the Americans were unwilling or unable to do, and reach a deal to end the conflict — a belief that few in his camp shared.

Afghan officials have struggled in recent years to find genuine Taliban representatives, and have flitted among a variety of current and former insurgent leaders, most of whom had only tenuous connections to Mullah Omar and his inner circle, American and Afghan officials have said.

. The continued presence of American troops after 2014, not to mention billions of dollars in aid, depended on the president’s signature. But Mr. Karzai repeatedly balked, perplexing Americans and many Afghans alike.

And it is not clear whether the Taliban ever intended to seriously pursue negotiations, or were simply trying to derail the security agreement by distracting Mr. Karzai and leading him on, as many of the officials said they suspected.

But other Afghan and Western officials said that the contacts had fizzled, and that whatever the Taliban may have intended at the outset, they no longer had any intention of negotiating with the Afghan government. They said that top Afghan officials had met with influential Taliban leaders in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in recent weeks, and were told that any prospects of a peace deal were now gone.

The diplomats repeatedly found themselves incurring the wrath of Mr. Karzai, who saw the effort as an attempt to circumvent him; he tried behind the scenes to undercut it.

American forces are turning over their combat role to Afghan forces and preparing to leave Afghanistan this year, and the campaigning for the Afghan national election in April has begun. An orderly transition of power in an Afghanistan that can contain the insurgency on its own would be the culmination of everything that the United States has tried to achieve in the country.

Mr. Karzai has been increasingly concerned with his legacy, officials say. When discussing the impasse with the Americans, he has repeatedly alluded to his country’s troubled history as a lesson in dealing with foreign powers. He recently likened the security agreement to the Treaty of Gandamak, a one-sided 1879 agreement that ceded frontier lands to the British administration in India and gave it tacit control over Afghan foreign policy. He has publicly assailed American policies as the behavior of a “colonial power,” though diplomats and military officials say he has been more cordial in private.

In some respects, Mr. Karzai’s outbursts have been an effort to speak to Afghans who want him to take a hard line against the Americans, including many ethnic Pashtuns, who make up nearly all of the Taliban. With the American-led coalition on its way out and American influence waning, Mr. Karzai is more concerned with bridging the chasms of Afghan domestic politics than with his foreign allies’ interests.

Mr. Karzai has insisted that he will not sign the agreement unless the Americans help bring the Taliban to the table for peace talks. Some diplomats worry that making such a demand allows the Taliban to dictate the terms of America’s long-term presence in Afghanistan. Others question Mr. Karzai’s logic: Why would the insurgency agree to talks if doing so would ensure the presence of the foreign troops it is determined to expel?

The police advance followed hours of street battles that destroyed hopes of an early political settlement, stirred in recent days by an amnesty deal. The resumption of violence underscored the volatility of a political crisis that has not only aroused fear of civil war in Ukraine but has also dragged Russia and the West into a geopolitical struggle redolent of the Cold War.

News agencies quoted antigovernment activists as saying three protesters had been killed, but there was no immediate confirmation of casualties. Olga Bogomolets, a doctor, told the Ukrainska Pravda newspaper that three activists had died at a medical unit in the Officers’ House on Kriposniy Lane. She said that they had died from gunshot wounds to the head and heart and that tens of other people had suffered injuries.

Protesters reported that the police were using live ammunition, but this could not be confirmed. Cartridges scattered on the street suggested that most, if not all, of the firing from police lines involved rubber bullets.

“Kiev stand up! Kiev stand up!,” screamed a speaker on a stage in the square that, since late November, has been occupied by protesters.

“Extremists from opposition have crossed the line” and bought chaos to the center of Kiev, said the statement. “We warn hot irresponsible heads of the opposition — the government has forces to restore order.”

The 6 p.m. deadline passed with no sign of a push into Independence Square by Ukraine’s feared anti-riot force, known as Berkut. With the night sky darkened further by clouds of black smoke from burning rubber tires, police officers hammered their shields for several minutes as if Roman centurions preparing for battle. But they did not move forward.

“There should have been a resolution,” he said. “But they did not even put it up for a vote.”

The Russian aid signaled confidence from the Kremlin that important votes in Parliament expected this week to amend the Constitution and form a new cabinet will go in Russia’s favor. It also highlighted the absence of any clear promise of financial aid from the European Union or the United States, which have supported the opposition in Ukraine.

Mr. Yanukovych negotiated a $15 billion loan with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in December, and Ukraine received a first segment of this soon afterward when Russia purchased Ukrainian bonds worth $3 billion. But Russia suspended further payments last month after violent clashes broke out in Kiev and the pro-Russian prime minister resigned.Germany, which on Monday hosted a visit to Berlin by two of President Yanuvoych’s most ardent opponents, called for all sides to seek a peaceful solution to the explosive political confrontation.

“We call on the Foreign States and International Organizations to be objective and unbiased in assessing the internal developments in Ukraine,” the statement said. “We also expect that they will strongly condemn the unlawful activities of the radical forces.”

The Andean smallholders are trying to keep up with the demand. They’ve put more and more land into quinoa in recent years; Bolivia had 400 square miles under cultivation last year, up from 240 in 2009. The arid, cool land that quinoa needs was plentiful, since little else could grow there. And thus far, that trait has made it difficult to grow elsewhere.

U.S. industry has shown little interest in developing the ancient grain. Kellogg uses quinoa in one granola bar, and PepsiCo’s Quaker Oats owns a quinoa brand, but the biggest grain processors–Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland–say they’ve got no plans to start sourcing it. Monsanto, the world’s largest seed producer, has nothing either.

Instead, their research and development dollars are focused entirely on developing newer, more pest-resistant forms of corn, soybeans, wheat, sugar, and other staples. All of those crops have their own corporate lobbying associations, government subsidy programs, and academic departments devoted to maintaining production and consumption. Against that, a few researchers and independent farmers trying to increase quinoa supply don’t have much of a chance.

it’s hard for any new crop to make the transition from niche to mainstream.

For that reason, quinoa prices are likely to remain volatile for a long while yet. Brigham Young’s Rick Jellen says the lack of research funding for quinoa–relative to the other large crop programs–means that even if they come up with a more versatile strain, it won’t have the resilience to survive an infestation

Since Chairman Mao's death, China has been hands down the most peaceful great power of its time. For all the recent concern about a newly assertive Chinese navy in disputed international waters, China's military hasn't fired a single shot in battle in 25 years.

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it’s also possible that a decades long accretion of regulation has come to weigh on new-business formation and growth; that for all the tales of Silicon Valley swashbuckling, most Americans have become more cautious and less entrepreneurial; or that—and this argument springs straight from Christensen’s keyboard—the pressures of the financial market and a preoccupation with corporate financial metrics have left most businesses “afraid to pursue what they see as risky innovations” and focused instead on cutting costs.

some companies are pursuing risky innovations and disrupting established industries. Business publications are full of stories about them: Google and Uber and Amazon and Salesforce and Workday and many more. They just haven’t had a measurable impact on the overall economy yet. One group of economists says to give it a few years— the adoption of new technologies has always affected productivity in fits and starts, and the rise of smartphones and cloud computing and Big Data will show up in the numbers eventually. The other view is that today’s technological innovations pale in significance beside electricity and the internal combustion engine—they’ll have some positive impact, but growth will be slower than it used to be.

60 percent of disrespectful behavior came from above, 20 percent from colleagues on the same level and 20 percent from below. And half said they decreased their effort on the job after experiencing ongoing rude behavior

in these volatile times, intellectuals would do well to reacquaint themselves with what Kolakowski described as the “history of many deceitful hopes”—the crimes of ideological passion in which even liberals have been complicit. ♦

not only is the total number of manufacturing jobs limited globally, but a smaller share of those jobs will be local.

Shifting income from those who would spend it to those who won’t lowers aggregate demand. By the same token, soaring energy prices shifted purchasing power from the United States and Europe to oil exporters, who, recognizing the volatility of energy prices, rightly saved much of this income.

while the buildup of reserves – currently around $7.6 trillion in emerging and developing economies – protected them, money going into reserves was money not spent.

ith oil prices back above $100 a barrel this summer – and still high – money is once again being transferred to the oil-exporting countries. And the structural transformation of the advanced economies, implied by the need to move labor out of traditional manufacturing branches, is occurring very slowly.

Government plays a central role in financing the services that people want, like education and health care. And government-financed education and training, in particular, will be critical in restoring competitiveness in Europe and the US. But both have chosen fiscal austerity, all but ensuring that their economies’ transitions will be slow.

The prescription for what ails the global economy follows directly from the diagnosis: strong government expenditures, aimed at facilitating restructuring, promoting energy conservation, and reducing inequality, and a reform of the global financial system that creates an alternative to the buildup of reserves.

The deadline is the first milestone of a deal to rid Syria of its chemical weapons arsenal by the middle of 2014.

Western powers said only Syrian government forces could have carried out the attack, but President Bashar al-Assad blamed rebel fighters.

Under the international disarmament plan, US satellites and Chinese surveillance cameras are to track the progress of Russian armoured lorries as they carry the chemical weapons from 12 storage sites in Syria to Latakia, on Syria's Mediterranean coast.

Danish and Norwegian cargo ships will then transport the chemicals to a port in Italy, where they will be loaded on to the US Maritime Administration vessel MV Cape Ray and taken out into international waters before being destroyed by hydrolysis.

reports that the European ships are docked in Limassol, Cyprus on the day they are supposed to be escorting Syria's most dangerous chemicals out of the country.

The vessels left Limassol on Saturday but turned back on Tuesday after the hazardous containers failed to arrive for collection in Latakia. Now the plan is to refuel in Limassol before returning to sea in the coming days.

Co-operation on the chemical weapons removal programme was seen by many of those involved as a potential catalyst for broader peace negotiations in Syria.

Failing to meet this ambitious target, our correspondent adds, will demonstrate the difficulties involved in operating in a country with constantly changing frontlines - even with an international mandate and co-operation from President Assad.

"A number of external factors have impacted upon timelines, not least the continuing volatility in overall security conditions, which have constrained planned movements," a statement said.

The joint mission also noted that the Syrian government had met the 1 November deadline to destroy critical chemical weapons production equipment, which meant it could no longer weaponise the chemical agents at its storage facilities.

But deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf also acknowledged that it was a "complicated process", adding: "As long as we see forward progress, that what's most important here."

activists said a missile fired by government forces hit a bus in Aleppo, killing at least 10 people.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that the dead included two children and that the missile was fired from a plane.

Syria now has “virtually all” of the logistical and security assets it needs to undertake the movement of its chemical weapon

But transporting the chemicals by road to Latakia poses a particular challenge. Syrian government forces, which reportedly control the road from Damascus to the port, may still face the danger of rebel attacks.

While Japan and Germany’s economies might be considered very large by developed country standards, these countries are not economic giants

n addition to being as big as continental Europe’s three largest economies put together, China’s economy is about 55 percent the size of the United States’ in current U.S. dollars

It is also, in U.S.-dollar terms, one and a half times the size of the other three so-called BRIC economies combined (Brazil, Russia, India and China),

It is already the major trading partner for many countries — both exports and imports — and I would expect that before this decade is over, possibly quite a bit before, China will replace the United States as the world’s largest importer.

it is adding another $1 trillion to global GDP every year. I often point out to people that China is adding another India to the world economy every two years.

Today, the economies of Brazil, India and Russia are all generating around 3 percent of global GDP, similar to Italy. But the countries’ big populations and reforms to lift productivity still mean their economies have a reasonable chance of going above that 5 percent threshold. They may someday become giants.

What about the other BRIC countries? Some years after I first coined the acronym in 2001, I suggested that a BRIC economy should be regarded as one that was already producing or had the clear potential to produce 5 percent of global GDP or more. China’s is the only one that qualifies

I am quite confident that India will make this leap — its economy has a really good chance of becoming the world’s third-largest before 2040. The country has exceptionally favorable demographics, and in electing Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India has given itself the best chance in at least 30 years of being run by a government that is not smothered by its democracy but flourishes instead

Brazil and Russia’s economies have different reasons for their recent disappointments, but they share a common dilemma: They are too dependent on volatile commodities.

Brazil’s economy in particular needs to change course, whatever the country’s political leadership. The government has to create incentives and room for much more private sector investment and it needs to stop using directives to run so much of the economy.

Of the rest of the world’s largest populated countries, I believe none has a realistic chance of producing 5 percent of global GDP or more, but there are a few that could reach the 3-5 percent range, or more than Italy, which currently has the world’s eighth-largest economy. Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey — the so-called MINT economies — along with the more developed South Korea, have this chance.

As a result, their student populations are often far less diverse than they should be. And, sometimes, kids who would otherwise be eligible for these schools never get to enjoy them.

The country, he discovered, is home to some 165 of these institutions—"exam schools," as he calls them—or 1 percent of all public high schools.

econdly, selective-enrollment schools "are very sought after by upper-middle class people who might not consider using public schools if it weren’t for the selective-enrollment institutions. Essentially, it’s a way of ensuring greater participation from wealthier families who might otherwise move to the suburbs."

Selective-admissions programs are in part symptomatic of a broader, three-decade-old reform movement that has aimed to overcome the "mediocre educational performance" of the country’s students

They’re also an example of "school choice," the tenet that parents should have options when it comes to their kids’ education, even when it’s free.

"The idea was that, if you wanted to provide an excellent, gifted, and talented education for public school students, one could do a better job of that if in large cities there were specialized schools that would bring academically talented students together,"

These schools, some of which are centuries old, are concentrated in 31 states, including nearly three dozen total in New York City, Chicago, and Boston alone. All but three of these 31 states are located in the eastern half of the country,

"How do you recognize excellence on the one hand and promote genuine equal opportunity on the other?"

getting into selective-enrollment schools typically requires having proactive parents who know how to navigate the system—a resource many children lack.

The clashes over selective-admissions policies reflect the challenges districts face in reconciling two goals that are often diametrically opposed: academic achievement and equity. How can a school be color blind while simultaneously promoting educational access and diversity?

"the trick," he said, "is you don’t want the selective-enrollment schools to become enclaves of privilege that are separate and unequal from the rest of the system."

Can a fair selective-admissions system for public schools even exist?

urban school districts are nowhere near coming up with a model that works well and raises all students. The fact remains that many of these schools look and operate like elite schools exclusive to elite families.

These are schools renowned for their academic prowess and widely seen as conduits to the country’s top colleges. But, as the NAACP complaint demonstrates, they’re also notorious for their lack of racial diversity, enrolling disproportionate numbers of white and, in particular, Asian students, who made up 60 percent of the student bodies at these schools last year despite constituting just 15 percent of the city’s total enrollment.

Blacks and Latinos made up just 7 percent and 5 percent of the student bodies at these elite schools last year, respectively, even though the two groups together account for 70 percent of the public school population citywide.

many of New York City’s specialized high schools are more socioeconomically diverse than critics make them out to be.

"It’s not just a simple picture—there’s no one profile in this city," she said. "Those [test-only] schools are serving some first-generation strivers and working-class strivers that some of these other schools are not taking …

it’s hard to deny arguments that the test-only admissions policy can serve as a form of de facto discrimination. The multiple-choice exam is so rigorous some students devote entire summers to studying for it, often with the help of private tutors or intensive prep courses that cost thousands of dollars

much of the prejudice traces back to the lack of equal educational opportunity in kids’ earlier years, which effectively debunks the notion that a test is the fairest way to assess a student’s eligibility for enrollment.

When it comes to admission to one of the selective schools, most students only compete with their peers in the same tier. A student who lives in a single-parent household and relies on welfare, for example, would in theory rarely contend with a middle-class student for the same seat. Just 30 percent of the seats at each selective school goes to the highest-scoring students, regardless of their tier; the rest, for the most part, are divided among the highest-performing students in each tier. That means the bar is typically set higher for kids in the upper tiers (the fourth tier corresponds with the highest median income) than for those in the lower ones.

"Given the overlap between race and class in American society in cities like Chicago, giving a leg up to economically disadvantaged students will translate into [racial diversity],

Diversity aside, selective-enrollment high schools also raise questions about what the admissions process can do to an adolescent’s psyche, particularly when it places an inordinate emphasis on testing

Forget Halloween, weekend sleepovers with friends, playing outdoors. For many eighth graders in New York City, the fall is synonymous with tutors and exams, while the spring brings intense competition—and often volatile emotions—over placement in coveted spots at the city’s best high schools.

As for the students, "you’re given a cornucopia of beautiful and horrible choices and then held up, feeling like you’re being assessed and placed and feeling like your life is not your own," Szuflita said. "It feels very uncertain, and it feels like there are great triumphs and disasters."

For one thing, rising mortality is a uniquely American phenomenon – yet America has both a much weaker welfare state and a much stronger role for traditional religion and values than any other advanced country. Sweden gives its poor far more aid than we do, and a majority of Swedish children are now born out of wedlock, yet Sweden’s middle-aged mortality rate is only half of white America’s.

You see a somewhat similar pattern across regions within the United States. Life expectancy is high and rising in the Northeast and California, where social benefits are highest and traditional values weakest. Meanwhile, low and stagnant or declining life expectancy is concentrated in the Bible Belt.

What about a materialist explanation? Is rising mortality a consequence of rising inequality and the hollowing out of the middle class?

it’s not that simple. We are, after all, talking about the consequences of behavior, and culture clearly matters a great deal. Most notably, Hispanic Americans are considerably poorer than whites, but have much lower mortality.

what is going on? In a recent interview Mr. Deaton suggested that middle-aged whites have “lost the narrative of their lives.” That is, their economic setbacks have hit hard because they expected better. Or to put it a bit differently, we’re looking at people who were raised to believe in the American Dream, and are coping badly with its failure to come true.

I’m not the only observer who sees a link between the despair reflected in those mortality numbers and the volatility of right-wing politics. Some people who feel left behind by the American story turn self-destructive; others turn on the elites they feel have betrayed them.

At this point you probably expect me to offer a solution. But while universal health care, higher minimum wages, aid to education, and so on would do a lot to help Americans in trouble, I’m not sure whether they’re enough to cure existential despair.

the most shareable moments come when a story lights up the deepest recesses of our minds

“Hate, fear of the other, anger — they come directly from the nonconscious, and that’s why they’re so easy to evoke,”

news stories were more likely to be shared if they elicited emotions like awe, anger and anxiety.

as long as stories about Mr. Trump are receiving as many eyeballs as possible, it doesn’t really matter if people are reacting negatively to him. In fact, it probably helps his popularity.

That Mr. Trump is both volatile in nature and allergic to nuance is part of his viral success. Humans use mental shortcuts to process information quickly while conserving brain power. This means that we often don’t think critically about the information we’re receiving before sharing it with others.

Unsurprisingly, that can mean that things that are not true go viral. But lies, like fear, can maintain a powerful grasp on the human mind.

“Once we see something and accept it as true, it’s really, really hard to falsify the belief,” said Rosanna Guadagno, a social psychologist at the University of Texas at Dallas. “I’ve occasionally spread something that turned out to be false, and the sad thing is, I’m still trying to scrub that out of my memory as something I’ve accepted as real.”

According to Bradley M. Okdie, a social psychologist at Ohio State University at Newark, conservatives are more likely to share a given piece of content than liberals are, especially if it provokes a negative emotion.

“Conservatives tend to be a lot more reactive to negative information and they also tend to be a lot more insular in nature, and they also tend to have less tolerance for ambiguity,” Professor Okdie said. “Conservatives would prefer a negative concrete statement to a slightly positive, uncertain statement.”

With his us vs. them invective and his refusal to denounce hate-filled speech from some of his supporters, Mr. Trump is an echo chamber for certain corners of the far righ

The U.S. economy has been steadily adding jobs, but is struggling to break out of a sluggish growth trajectory amid turmoil in overseas economies.

Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, so-called core prices rose 0.1%, their smallest increase since August.

Even as unemployment has fallen to 5%, workers have seen only modest wage growth. Wednesday’s report showed gasoline prices have fallen by 19.7% since December 2014, saving many Americans hundreds of dollars. But those savings from have so far failed to translate into robust consumer spending.

One piece of evidence for this theory: Bank stocks have fallen even more in 2016 than the stock market over all

Financial markets are always more volatile than the underlying economy; the stock market has predicted nine of the last five recessions

The officials said that it was meant primarily as a re-examination of how the military positions itself for future counterterrorism missions, but that the growing concern about a metastasizing Islamic State threat has lent new urgency to the discussions.

The plan has met with some resistance from State Department officials concerned about a more permanent military presence across Africa and the Middle East, according to American officials familiar with the discussion.

Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups — including possible attacks against American embassies, like the assault on the diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012.

“You can’t just leave this on cruise control,”

“hubs” — including expanding existing bases in Djibouti and Afghanistan — and smaller “spokes,” or more basic installations, in countries that could include Niger and Cameroon, where the United States now carries out unarmed surveillance drone missions, or will soon.

The military already has much of the basing in place to carry out an expansion. Over the past dozen years, the Pentagon has turned what was once a decrepit French Foreign Legion base in Djibouti, in the Horn of Africa, into a sprawling headquarters housing 2,000 American troops for military operations in East Africa and Yemen.

“Because we cannot predict the future, these regional nodes — from Morón, Spain, to Jalalabad, Afghanistan — will provide forward presence to respond to a range of crises, terrorist and other kinds,”

He said that the Islamic State’s inclusion of Boko Haram and other militant groups into its fold was part of a “global dynamic.”

“completely subsumed” into the Islamic State.

They are flying the Islamic State flag, he said, “in an attempt to elevate their cause.”