Middle-aged capitalism
April 12, 2015
By Robert J. Samuelson On any given day, you can expect news of major corporate mergers. Last week, we had decisions from FedEx to buy the Dutch delivery company…
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The investment bust (explained)
April 12, 2015
By Robert J. Samuelson One of the great disappointments of the weak economic recovery has been the sluggish revival of business investment — spending on new buildings, factories, equipment…
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Rolling Stone gathers dirt — on itself
April 12, 2015By Kathleen Parker “As we asked ourselves how we could have gotten the story wrong …” Thus read a Rolling Stone editor’s note attached to a post-mortem story on…
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Revenge of the help
April 12, 2015By Kathleen Parker The new tell-all, “The Residence,” featuring intimate anecdotes collected from past and current White House staff members, is absolutely delicious — and utterly lacking in nutritious…
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The quest for ‘full employment’
April 5, 2015
By Robert J. Samuelson Concerning economic policy, it’s back to the future. As the unemployment rate (5.5 percent in March) has dropped, there’s been a shift in language. We’re…
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Here’s something that worked
April 5, 2015
By Robert J. Samuelson Every so often, we ought to celebrate our victories. The auto bailout is a case in point. Six years ago, it was wildly controversial, with…
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Born-again parenting
April 5, 2015By Kathleen Parker For a variety of reasons, I gave up alcohol Jan. 4. I have your attention, don’t I? This is because people who enjoy drinking are always…
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Freedom is a two-way street
April 5, 2015By Kathleen Parker Excited protests against Indiana’s recently passed religious freedom law have highlighted both America’s growing support for same-sex marriage and our apparent incapacity to entertain more than…
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Partners in posturing
March 30, 2015
By Robert Samuelson When it comes to the federal budget, what consistently unites Democrats and Republicans is their common capacity to lie to themselves, lie to the public…
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Remember the 1937-38 recession!
March 30, 2015By Robert Samuelson How fast should the Federal Reserve tighten monetary policy? Should it tighten at all? I recently wrote about these issues but didn’t have the space to…
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A leap of faith — into thin air
March 30, 2015By Kathleen Parker The apparently intentional downing of a Germanwings airliner by the co-pilot has us riveted, as commercial plane crashes usually do. In each terrible instance, we put…
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Wacko birds nesting in U.S. Senate
March 30, 2015By Kathleen Parker President Obama got it two-thirds right when he said that the delayed confirmation of his attorney general nominee, Loretta Lynch, is owing to Senate dysfunction and…
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Hillary & the Media: Act 2016
March 23, 2015By Kathleen Parker Amid all the verbiage about Hillary Clinton’s email, one irrefutable fact emerges: Polls will drive us crazy before the Clintons do. The latest CNN/ORC poll shows…
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The Fed’s reckoning
March 22, 2015
By Robert J. Samuelson The Federal Reserve is at a crossroads, and it doesn’t know where it’s going. After holding short-term interest rates near zero for six years, Fed…
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Shareholder capitalism on trial
March 22, 2015
By Robert J. Samuelson The latest rap against big corporations is that they’re returning too much money to shareholders through dividends and stock repurchases. What they should be doing,…
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Let’s not talk
March 22, 2015By Kathleen Parker I’m standing in the Starbucks line behind 10 other sleepyheads waiting to order my tall skinny cappuccino, otherwise known as a shot of coffee described as…
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Who’s afraid of robots?
March 17, 2015
By Robert Samuelson For some time, I’ve been collecting news stories about robots and jobs. By robots, I mean almost any automated process that substitutes machines for people. Here…
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Hillary Clinton’s secret mess
March 17, 2015By Kathleen Parker On March 2, the story broke that Hillary Clinton had possibly violated email regulations while secretary of state. You could almost hear the collective gasp in…
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Dunking the president
March 17, 2015By Kathleen Parker With a few tweaks to Scripture, herewith today’s relevant verse: What therefore President Obama hath joined together, let Republicans put asunder. The letter from 47 Republican…
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The folly of Fed bashing
March 10, 2015
By Robert Samuelson Fed bashing — strident criticism of the Federal Reserve — is back in style, and it’s taken a new turn. Traditionally, it’s been a liberal sport. When…
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‘Just look at him’
March 10, 2015By Kathleen Parker “At least nobody died,” we often hear in politics to explain away some regrettable act. As in: So, yeah, maybe President Obama wasn’t telling the complete…
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The GOP: A tragedy in 52 acts
March 10, 2015By Kathleen Parker I’m getting that deja vu feeling as House Republicans these past several days have failed to alter the public’s perception that they’re incapable of governing. This…
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The “next America” is now
March 2, 2015
By Robert Samuelson The political paralysis in Washington is often ascribed, depending on partisanship, to Republican obstructionism or President Obama’s arrogance. But there are deeper causes to the stalemate.…
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Family-friendly politics
March 2, 2015
By Robert Samuelson If you’re wondering what the 2016 presidential election will be about, here’s one dark-horse possibility: the family-friendly workplace. As millions of Americans struggle to balance family…
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Twitter as America’s conscience
March 2, 2015By Kathleen Parker Denizens of social media were rankled during Sunday night’s Academy Awards telecast when actor Sean Penn made a crack about Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and…
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The love litmus test
March 2, 2015By Kathleen Parker Republicans seem ceaselessly enamored of litmus tests, but the newest one — Do you believe President Obama loves America? — makes birthers seem witty. The…
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Success = Tech + Creativity
February 26, 2015
By Alan Cooper The following is based on my interview with Mike Switzer on the South Carolina Business Review – click here. You will never guess where I took…
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The real middle-class squeeze
February 23, 2015
By Robert Samuelson Given the obsession with economic inequality, you might think it’s the main force squeezing the middle class. It isn’t. We have this not from some right-wing…
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Wow, ‘negative’ interest rates!
February 23, 2015
By Robert Samuelson To the long list of economic mysteries can now be added interest rates. They’ve been at rock bottom, as everyone knows. But now we’ve encountered something…
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Wordsmithing war
February 23, 2015By Kathleen Parker Channel-surfing the nightly cable news, one is reminded that certitude is the enemy of sanity. On both Fox News and MSNBC, conversation has centered lately on…
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The riddle of war
February 23, 2015By Kathleen Parker There’s a very 2001 feel to President Obama’s request for authorization to use military force and the nauseating sense that we’ll be at war indefinitely. Although…
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Wireless Consumers Don’t Deserve Double Dipping Landline Tax
February 16, 2015
By Douglas Kellogg, National Taxpayers Union Policy Manager In the Palmetto State, there’s a battle brewing that could force millions of residents to pay higher taxes. Traditional landline phone…
Read MorePosted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc Category: government, headlines, op-ed, telecommunications
Light bulbs vs. the Internet
February 16, 2015
By Robert Samuelson We are not getting our money’s worth from “creative destruction.” For history buffs, the phrase will be familiar. Coined by Joseph Schumpeter (1883-1950) — one of…
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The great debt debate
February 16, 2015
By Robert Samuelson One of the legacies of the 2008-09 financial crisis is a world awash in debt — and this explains much of the confusion and acrimony of…
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Juicing the story
February 16, 2015By Kathleen Parker As soon as the news broke Tuesday evening, anyone near a TV, radio or computer heard that three Muslim students were murdered near the University of…
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Brian Williams’ six-mile stare
February 16, 2015By Kathleen Parker These are tough times for NBC’s Brian Williams — and tougher times for journalism. The NBC newsman was suspended Tuesday night for six months amid charges…
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The twisted priorities of a graying nation
February 9, 2015
By Robert Samuelson We are gutting government. It is an extreme irony of the Obama presidency that a proud liberal — someone who believes in government’s constructive role — is…
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Obama’s community-college gamble
February 9, 2015
By Robert Samuelson A presidential budget is more than an expression of policy. It’s also an exercise in political brand management. It aims to project the president and his administration…
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Seeking a vaccine for ignorance
February 9, 2015By Kathleen Parker Flashback: Galileo is under house arrest pondering the unyielding ignorance of The Church for refusing to consider his heliocentric proposition that the Earth circled the sun. We…
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The economy’s Achilles’ heel
January 27, 2015
By Robert Samuelson President Obama has declared the economic crisis over — and for the United States, maybe it seems that way. But most other countries, not so much. Their…
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Reagan, Volcker & Krugman (Part 2)
January 27, 2015
By Robert Samuelson A week ago, I wrote a column taking issue with Paul Krugman’s contention that President Reagan had little to do with the decisive crushing of double-digit inflation of the early…
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The economy’s Achilles’ heel
January 26, 2015
By Robert Samuelson President Obama has declared the economic crisis over — and for the United States, maybe it seems that way. But most other countries, not so much. Their…
Read MorePosted in: midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc Category: op-ed
Reagan, Volcker & Krugman (Part 2)
January 26, 2015
By Robert Samuelson A week ago, I wrote a column taking issue with Paul Krugman’s contention that President Reagan had little to do with the decisive crushing of double-digit inflation of the early…
Read MorePosted in: midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc Category: op-ed
When the pope talks …
January 21, 2015By Kathleen Parker Forget E.F. Hutton. It’s P.F. (Pope Francis) these days who, when he talks, people listen. And then they get busy trying to figure out what he…
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Why wages lag
January 18, 2015
By Robert Samuelson The great wage mystery deepens. In economic recoveries, there usually comes a time when strong job gains lead to strong wage gains. Businesses must pay more…
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“Dynamic” deceptions
January 18, 2015
By Robert Samuelson The dustup over “dynamic scoring” is a small indicator of the routine irrelevancy of Washington’s budget debate. Instead of facing the real issues — how much…
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Hyping Obama’s Paris fail
January 18, 2015By Kathleen Parker If we can be serious for a moment: The president made an error in judgment by not sending someone with a higher profile than our ambassador…
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Volcker, Reagan & history
January 12, 2015
By Robert Samuelson It’s important to get history right — and economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has got it maddeningly wrong. Krugman recently wrote a column…
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Europe’s unending crisis
January 12, 2015
By Robert Samuelson The European economic crisis refuses to go gently into the night. As 2015 opens, Europe represents “the biggest economic threat” to the fragile global recovery, as…
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Is the economic slog really over?
January 12, 2015
By Robert Samuelson Hello, 2015. We now are in the sixth year of economic recovery since the end of the Great Recession in mid-2009, says the National Bureau of…
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