The German Political Theorist Who Explains What’s Happening in Washington
Carl Schmitt, a Third Reich jurist and philosopher, saw politics as a life-and-death battle against enemies and democracy as dispensable. By Robert J. Shapiro Americans are, of course, deeply divided today over race, gender, immigration, religion, and other differences that define us as a people and political culture. These cleavages have existed throughout American history, but in their current iterations,… Continue reading
The World Is Watching and, Oops, There Go Our Interest…
Here’s a piece of dry financial data that could herald big changes in our politics and economy: Over the last five weeks, yields on 10-year U.S. Treasury bonds have risen nearly two-thirds of a point. The interest rates the U.S. government pays are rising across the board, and quickly, and it’s not because the Federal Reserve is tightening credit —…Continue reading
Two Thoughts for President Obama on his Way to Copenhagen
With the President getting ready for Copenhagen, the EPA did what Congress would not: Put in place a policy to ultimately reduce carbon emissions. The EPA finding that greenhouse gases (GHG) pose a danger and thus trigger a process to reduce the risks through direct regulation has become the president’s only “deliverable†in Copenhagen. More important, the only forces that…Continue reading
One Way to Create 1 to 2 Million Jobs without…
At last week’s Jobs Summit, President Obama said he’ll consider any good idea to create jobs. I heard him say it, and I believe him. His speech yesterday at the Brookings Institution offered some decent, standard approaches, including more infrastructure spending and tax breaks for small businesses. The President would be well-served to cast his policy net a bit wider.…Continue reading
How to Create New Jobs in a Troubled Economy
The inconvenient truth that lies behind this week’s White House jobs summit is that there are no magic bullets for an economy thrown over the cliff by a huge financial crisis. Even with all of our stimulus, bailouts, tax breaks and special Fed lending programs, job losses continue to mount, dampening investment and overall demand. That’s not all: Despite the…Continue reading
Storms on the Economy’s Horizon
The high economic anxieties that most Americans felt six months ago may have faded, but count me among economists who are still very concerned. Sure, the last GDP report came in at 3.5 percent, and the next one should show comparable gains. Virtually all of those gains, however, come from the temporary stimulus and unusual inventory corrections. Once those factors…Continue reading
Health Care’s Raw Deal for Middle-Class Families
Health care reform advocates often point out that the costs of reform should be weighed against the costs of doing nothing. Unfortunately, that’s very hard to do, since our health care and tax arrangements mask those costs so well. I suspect that if middle-class Americans had a better grasp of what health care really costs them, and how those costs…Continue reading
A New Economic Strategy for Hard Times and Good Times
You might not know it from what passes for economic commentary on cable TV, but the U.S. economy remains pretty sick. Last week’s report of 3.5 percent GDP growth in the third quarter seemed like cause to celebrate — until you looked more carefully at the data and saw that virtually all of the upside came from temporary government stimulus.…Continue reading
Scoping Out “Plan B” for Climate Change
Beyond the public’s view, major players in the climate change debate are reassessing their options. In fact, as the prospects of Congress approving a cap-and-trade system fade, discussion is shifting to “Plan B.†One reason is that the version of cap-and-trade which just barely passed the House of Representatives a few months ago, the Waxman-Markey bill, made so many concessions…Continue reading