August 10, 2012
Why Promising to Save the Middle Class May Just Not Be Enough!
This is the lull before the storm, the final moments within which to settle the character of the presidential campaign of 2012. Even in the lull, however, the likely lines-of-march are already clear – lines that, if unaltered, should give far more comfort to conservatives than they do right now to progressives. read more »
July 10, 2012
The Unfinished Business of the Obama Administration: The Foreclosure Crisis
Administrations are invariably criticized for things they do right, for things they do wrong, and for things they fail to do at all. They are invariably criticized for doing too much and criticized for doing too little. Conservative critics of the current Administration tend to do the former. Liberal, by contrast, would do well […] read more »
June 12, 2012
The Unfinished Business of the Obama Administration: Bank Reform
As the big five American banks await the downgrading of their credit ratings by Moody’s Investors Service – a downgrading that is apparently due any day now[1] – it is worth asking: after more than three years of the Obama Administration, where exactly are we on the substance of bank reform? Has it happened? […] read more »
May 30, 2012
Olympic Lessons for an Imperial America
The Olympics loom. American eyes will turn to London, hoping for Olympic gold. As they do so, it will be worth remembering that this will be London’s second post-World War II Olympic Games, not the first, and that there are also medals to be won by comparing the condition of the U.K. on the […] read more »
May 11, 2012
The Unfinished Business of the Obama Administration: Poverty & Unemployment
The Obama Administration has unfinished business: lots of it, actually. The President will no doubt seek re-election in November by emphasizing policy successes. He would do well, however, to seek re-election by also recognizing policy failures: recognizing them and committing his Administration to do better. To win re-election, that recognition will need to be honest […] read more »
April 9, 2012
Taking the Republicans to Task: (4) On Health Care Reform
As we await the verdict of nine Supreme Court Justices on the constitutionality of all or part of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), it is worth asking what the remaining Republican Presidential nominees would create in its place. We know that they would have to create something, because each is committed to the […] read more »
March 26, 2012
The White House and Your House: Policy Inertia and Organizational Resistance in the On-going Crisis of American Housing
Ask any of the Republican presidential hopefuls in this long and drawn out primary season what in general is wrong with the economic policies of the Obama Administration, and they will each tell you that the economy is under-performing now because the current Administration intervenes in its workings too frequently and too heavily. They […] read more »
March 8, 2012
Taking the Republicans to Task: (3) on Smaller Government, Smaller Deficits
The current frontrunners in the fight for the Republican presidential nomination vary far more in their personalities and leadership styles than they do in their problem analysis and policy prescription. Ron Paul apart, their explanation of what is going wrong in contemporary America, and what therefore needs to be done to put things […] read more »
February 23, 2012
Taking the Republicans to Task: (2) On the Regulation of Business and Labor
In the standard trilogy of core commitments currently being made by Republican presidential candidates, the cutting of taxes and the pruning of government is invariably accompanied by the promise to deregulate business – and indeed to re-regulate labor. The Obama administration stands condemned, not simply for its tax-and-spend propensities, but also for its subordination […] read more »
