In Haiti three days after the earthquake, the terrible reality of death and destruction settles upon the nation and the world. The preliminary estimates of fatalities appear to be range between 45,000 and 50,000. Three million Haitians, one-third of the countries population, appear severely impacted. Access to clean, uncontaminated water and food is increasingly difficult. The principal port is ruined and the one international airport is overwhelmed. The U.S. and all others are truly in a race against time. In his first major leadership challenge in the Americas, President Obama has …
In the New York Times today, David Brooks has a column in which he describes two theories about the financial crisis: “greed” and “stupidity.” The “greed” theory is not what you might be thinking—it is not the simplistic notion that Wall Street is just full of greedy capitalists that swindle the people out of their money. It is a little bit more sophisticated than that, because it involves the government bailing out the banks. They do this, of course, because politicians earn handsome rewards for it. This theory has some …
Under the header Big Government Ahead, David Brooks identifies four sources of massive new spending soon to be coming out of Washington and warns: “What we’re going to see, in short, is the Gingrich revolution in reverse and on steroids. There will be a big increase in spending and deficits. In normal times, moderates could have restrained the zeal on the left. In an economic crisis, not a chance. The over-reach is coming.” As bad as the new levels of spending in Washington will be, what Brooks forgets to mention …
In his New York Times column today David Brooks cites data showing that populist fears that free trade is destroying American manufacturing jobs are unfounded: The chief force reshaping manufacturing is technological change (hastened by competition with other companies in Canada, Germany or down the street). Thanks to innovation, manufacturing productivity has doubled over two decades. Employers now require fewer but more highly skilled workers. Technological change affects China just as it does the America. William Overholt of the RAND Corporation has noted that between 1994 and 2004 the Chinese …
