16 Articles

Thursday, November 19, 2009
Obama's Home And The Report Is Out: China Takes Us To School
(7 comments) President Obama is home from China and the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission today releases its 2009 report to Congress. What have we learned? That we need to pay attention because we're getting schooled.

Thursday, November 12, 2009
What Chinese Currency Manipulation Looks Like
(6 comments) As President Obama packs for China, I thought I'd draw him a picture of how China is manipulating its currency.

Friday, November 6, 2009
New Unemployment, Old Solutions
Today's unemployment data contain gloomy news. Gloomy, but expected. The interpretation of the data is even worse.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Building a Smart Grid, Smartly
(3 comments) President Barack Obama announced today $3.4 billion in government grants to help build a "smart" electric grid. Like many Obama initiatives, it's a smart first step. But much more is needed and one piece is rarely mentioned at all.

Monday, October 19, 2009
Bernanke solves the wrong deficit
(1 comments) Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke recognized today that America's trade deficit played a central role in the global economic crisis. Then after he recognized the problem, he went on to solve a different one.

Friday, October 16, 2009
Time to Take on the Banks
(2 comments) The American people didn't bail out banks that were too big to fail so they could take over banks that were smaller and did.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009
The American People: Smarter Than They Look On TV
New public opinion research by the Economic Policy Institute contains reassuring findings. The American people are smarter than they sometimes look on TV.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Steel City: Forgotten But Not Gone
(1 comments) The G-20 summit is an opportunity to reexamine world trade. And the new economy most worth exploring is one that's more balanced and less dependent on overstretched U.S. consumers.

Monday, September 21, 2009
The G-20 Summit: Lessons from Pittsburgh
(2 comments) At the G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh later this week, people will hear about the city's slump and rebirth. That's good as far as it goes, but it dodges the ultimate question. Can the United States remain the world's consumer forever? Or will the G-20 chart the process by which the global economy after the crisis is more balanced, less dependent on U.S. consumption, and sustainable in Pittsburgh as well as Beijing?

Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Hobbled, We're Losing The Global Energy Race
(1 comments) While American ideologues talk free market purity, countries with intelligent, carefully considered industrial policies are pulling ahead of us. Energy is key.

Friday, July 10, 2009
Building a Clean Energy Economy: The IMPACT Act
(1 comments) The Waxman-Markey Clean Energy and Security Act squeaked through the House of Representatives late last week (219-212). One unheralded addition in the closing hours makes the bill even stronger and more important - the IMPACT provision to support clean energy manufactur

Saturday, July 4, 2009
Madoff: Fall Guy or First of Many?
(3 comments) Bernard Madoff has been sentenced to 150 years in prison for one of the biggest investment frauds in Wall Street history. But there is no closure here. We can't let Madoff's sentence distract us from the underlying problems. This isn't just about Madoff. This is about the system in which Madoff's scam took place.

Saturday, June 13, 2009
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce: Threat To Capitalism
(3 comments) The U.S. Chamber of Commerce launched yesterday "a sweeping national advocacy campaign ... to defend and advance America's free enterprise values in the face of rapid government growth and attacks by anti-business activists." The Chamber of Commerce doesn't get it. They aren't defending capitalism and free enterprise. They are all but destroying it.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009
2044: Big Brother Inc.
(2 comments) A new novel, "2044," starts where George Orwell's 1984 left off. The problem is Big Brother Inc., not Big Brother. The government didn't take over. It got taken over. 2044 follows the pattern to the endpoint.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Center-Left America
(3 comments) The media still calls America a "center-right" nation, but "center-left" is closer to the truth. On issues ranging from health care to energy, the public is more progressive than people think. A new report documents the trends and challenges the mainstream media to recognize reality.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008
CPAC: Conservatives Pout and Complain
(1 comments) Three days at the 2007 I just spent three days at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), the preeminent national gathering of the conservative movement.