The new era of muddle-nomics
October 6, 2014
By Robert J. Samuelson I have been reading Martin Wolf’s “The Shifts and the Shocks,” a detailed analysis of the 2008-2009 financial crisis and its aftermath. Wolf is the…
Read MorePosted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc Category: op-ed
The Lehman Brothers lesson, five years later
October 6, 2014
By Robert J. Samuelson The New York Times had a fascinating story the other day, which again raises a crucial historical question about the financial crisis: Did Lehman Brothers have to…
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The silly, selective ‘war on women’
October 1, 2014By Kathleen Parker It has long been accepted by the conventionally wise that the Republican Party is waging a “war on women.” Let’s be clear. The war on women…
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The logic in exporting U.S. oil
September 29, 2014
By Robert J. Samuelson One of the economy’s good-news stories is the oil boom, a derivative of the natural gas boom. When the drilling techniques used to tap vast…
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The Alibaba moment
September 29, 2014
By Robert J. Samuelson Alibaba, China’s giant e-commerce firm, is a harbinger. We are going to see more Chinese firms venturing onto the world stage. The most ambitious are…
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The next (nasty) economic surprise?
September 24, 2014
By Robert J. Samuelson We live in the shadow of “secular stagnation,” to use a phrase now fashionable among economists. Even assuming a full recovery from the Great Recession, it’s…
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Cry, your car’s on hidden camera
September 24, 2014By Kathleen Parker Without prior knowledge or intent, I recently was inducted into a club I had no interest in joining, especially in light of the $200 initiation fee.…
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America’s B-minus economy
September 21, 2014
By Robert J. Samuelson The Census Bureau has just released its 2013 edition of “Income and Poverty in the United States,” sometimes called the nation’s “economic report card.” It depicts…
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Mark Sanford’s pathetic saga with himself
September 21, 2014By Kathleen Parker As a South Carolinian, it falls to me to examine the peculiarities afflicting our former governor and now-congressman Mark Sanford, who, contrary to decorum and taste,…
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George Will: Scotland’s epic vote on independence from the United Kingdom
September 15, 2014
By George F. Will Tucking into a dish of Scottish haggis is not a task for the fainthearted. There are various haggis recipes, but basically it is sheep’s pluck…
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George Will: Senate Democrats’ extremism on display
September 15, 2014
By George F. Will Since Barry Goldwater, in accepting the Republicans’ 1964 presidential nomination, said, “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice,” Democrats have been decrying Republican…
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The roughed-up American
September 15, 2014
By Robert J. Samuelson America’s economy is improving, but the public mood is a lagging indicator. A Pew poll in late August found that Americans recognize that the job market has…
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Curb your enthusiasm about those Medicare savings
September 15, 2014
By Robert J. Samuelson Contrary to some media reports, the Medicare monster hasn’t been tamed. But it has been made a little less unruly. To be precise: Spending is…
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Has NATO lost its will as well as its muscle?
September 8, 2014
By George F. Will Speaking on Aug. 29 — at a fundraiser, of course — Barack Obama applied to a platitude the varnish of smartphone sociology, producing thisintellectual sunburst: “The…
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An eye on the Baltic states?
September 8, 2014
By George F. Will The Islamic State is a nasty problem that can be remedied if its neighbors, assisted by the United States, decide to do so. Vladimir Putin’s fascist revival is…
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America’s neglected defense
September 8, 2014
By Robert J. Samuelson You might have thought that the lesson would be obvious. In the past year, we’ve had an elementary tutorial in the uses of raw military power:…
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The coming investment boom?
September 8, 2014
By Robert J. Samuelson Suppose we could design the next phase of the economic recovery. What would it look like? Here’s one pleasing vision: Business investment in plants and…
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Paul Ryan rethinks the ‘makers’ and ‘takers’ idea
September 1, 2014
By George F. Will To take the measure of this uncommonly interesting public man, begin with two related facts about him. Paul Ryan has at least 67 cousins in his Wisconsin…
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Navy with a mission in mind
September 1, 2014
By George F. Will Russia’s ongoing dismemberment of Ukraine and the Islamic State’s erasing of Middle Eastern borders have distracted attention from theharassment of U.S. Navy aircraft by Chinese fighter jets over the South…
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Workers are at the mercy of markets
September 1, 2014
By Robert J. Samuelson The questions hanging over Labor Day 2014 are whether and when the United States gets a pay raise. Ever since the 2008-2009 financial crisis, the job…
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George F. Will: Is the Criminal Justice Act of 1964 a failure?
August 25, 2014
By George F. Will What is called “the” 1964 Civil Rights Act is justly celebrated for outlawing racial and other discrimination in employment, “public accommodations” and elsewhere. But that…
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From cupcakes to the police, fed up with government
August 25, 2014
By George F. Will In physics, a unified field theory is an attempt to explain with a single hypothesis the behavior of several fields. Its political corollary is the Cupcake Postulate,…
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Do Dems run the economy better? Nope.
August 25, 2014
By Robert J. Samuelson It’s a Democratic campaign consultant’s dream: a study from two respected academic economists concluding that, since the late 1940s, the economy has consistently performed better under Democratic…
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Global prosperity is no panacea
August 20, 2014
By Robert J. Samuelson What we are witnessing in the spreading turmoil around the world — in Iraq, in Ukraine, in Gaza — is the silent rejection of a central…
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In a stew over inversions
August 18, 2014
By George F. Will Barack Obama, presiding over an unusually dismal post-recession economy, might make matters worse with a distracting crusade against the minor and sensible business practice called…
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In a stew over inversions
August 18, 2014
By George F. Will Barack Obama, presiding over an unusually dismal post-recession economy, might make matters worse with a distracting crusade against the minor and sensible business practice called…
Read MorePosted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc Category: op-ed
Global prosperity is no panacea in the post-euphoric world
August 18, 2014
By Robert J. Samuelson What we are witnessing in the spreading turmoil around the world — in Iraq, in Ukraine, in Gaza — is the silent rejection of a…
Read MorePosted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc Category: op-ed
Global prosperity is no panacea in the post-euphoric world
August 18, 2014By Robert J. Samuelson What we are witnessing in the spreading turmoil around the world — in Iraq, in Ukraine, in Gaza — is the silent rejection of…
Read MorePosted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc Category: op-ed
Use of force against Islamic State could create a new void Into a new void?
August 14, 2014
By George F. Will Sailors guide an F/A-18C Hornet assigned to the Valions of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 15 on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS George…
Read MorePosted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc Category: op-ed
Use of force against Islamic State could create a new void Into a new void?
August 14, 2014
By George F. Will Sailors guide an F/A-18C Hornet assigned to the Valions of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 15 on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS George…
Read MorePosted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc Category: op-ed
Where have all the entrepreneurs gone (continued)?
August 14, 2014By Robert J. Samuelson U.S. businesses are aging, I wrote last week, and a sharp decline in start-up companies is a big reason. As the share of young firms shrinks,…
Read MorePosted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc Category: op-ed
Where have all the entrepreneurs gone (continued)?
August 14, 2014
By Robert J. Samuelson U.S. businesses are aging, I wrote last week, and a sharp decline in start-up companies is a big reason. As the share of young firms shrinks,…
Read MorePosted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc Category: op-ed
Interest rates and the Fed’s great ‘slack’ debate
August 14, 2014By Robert J. Samuelson Call it the great “slack” debate. For nearly six years, the Federal Reserve has held short-term interest rates near zero to boost the economy. Is…
Read MorePosted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc Category: op-ed
Interest rates and the Fed’s great ‘slack’ debate
August 14, 2014
By Robert J. Samuelson Call it the great “slack” debate. For nearly six years, the Federal Reserve has held short-term interest rates near zero to boost the economy. Is…
Read MorePosted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc Category: op-ed
Nature’s terror weapon
August 9, 2014
By George F. Will Although the Ebola virus might remain mostly confined to West Africa, it has infected the Western imagination. This eruption of uncontrolled nature into what developed…
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Nature’s terror weapon
August 9, 2014
By George F. Will Although the Ebola virus might remain mostly confined to West Africa, it has infected the Western imagination. This eruption of uncontrolled nature into what developed…
Read MorePosted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc Category: op-ed
Where have all the entrepreneurs gone?
August 9, 2014By Robert J. Samuelson We may have a “senile economy,” says economist Robert Litan of the Brookings Institution. That’s senile as in old, rigid and undynamic. We are taught…
Read MorePosted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc Category: op-ed
Where have all the entrepreneurs gone?
August 9, 2014
By Robert J. Samuelson We may have a “senile economy,” says economist Robert Litan of the Brookings Institution. That’s senile as in old, rigid and undynamic. We are taught…
Read MorePosted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc Category: op-ed
The (millennial) parent trap
August 4, 2014By Robert J. Samuelson You could hear the tension in his voice. His 20-something daughter was living at home. She had a graduate degree from a good university that,…
Read MorePosted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc Category: op-ed
The (millennial) parent trap
August 4, 2014
By Robert J. Samuelson You could hear the tension in his voice. His 20-something daughter was living at home. She had a graduate degree from a good university that,…
Read MorePosted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc Category: op-ed
The future of think tanks
July 30, 2014By Robert J. Samuelson Unless you’re a dedicated policy wonk, the name Stuart Butler probably doesn’t ring a bell. For 35 years, Butler has been a senior researcher at…
Read MorePosted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc Category: op-ed
The future of think tanks
July 30, 2014
By Robert J. Samuelson Unless you’re a dedicated policy wonk, the name Stuart Butler probably doesn’t ring a bell. For 35 years, Butler has been a senior researcher at…
Read MorePosted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc Category: op-ed
Dodd-Frank’s Achilles’ heel
July 28, 2014By Robert J. Samuelson Four years after Dodd-Frank became law, the question being asked is whether the country is safe from another financial crisis. It’s the wrong question. It…
Read MorePosted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc Category: op-ed
Dodd-Frank’s Achilles’ heel
July 28, 2014By Robert J. Samuelson Four years after Dodd-Frank became law, the question being asked is whether the country is safe from another financial crisis. It’s the wrong question. It…
Read MorePosted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc Category: op-ed
Making corporate tax dodgers patriotic
July 28, 2014By Robert J. Samuelson Corporate America’s latest public relations disaster comes under the banner of “tax inversion.” In an inversion, a U.S. company shifts its legal headquarters to a…
Read MorePosted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc Category: op-ed
Making corporate tax dodgers patriotic
July 28, 2014
By Robert J. Samuelson Corporate America’s latest public relations disaster comes under the banner of “tax inversion.” In an inversion, a U.S. company shifts its legal headquarters to a…
Read MorePosted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc Category: op-ed
The downside of giving weapons to rebels in Ukraine or Syria
July 23, 2014
By Eugene Robinson The bodies and debris that rained from the Ukrainian sky offer a cautionary lesson about the danger of giving heavy weapons to non-state actors. I hope the hawks…
Read MorePosted in: midlandsbiz Category: op-ed
Peace may never be at hand
July 21, 2014By Eugene Robinson Israelis and Palestinians may someday make peace. But the assumption should be that it won’t happen soon — perhaps not in our lifetimes. How often have…
Read MorePosted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc Category: op-ed
Peace may never be at hand
July 21, 2014By Eugene Robinson Israelis and Palestinians may someday make peace. But the assumption should be that it won’t happen soon — perhaps not in our lifetimes. How often have…
Read MorePosted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc Category: op-ed
Budget policy as prayer
July 21, 2014By Robert J. Samuelson The Congressional Budget Office last week issued one of its periodic long-term budget outlooks. Its themes are distressingly familiar. There is no balanced budget in sight. Under…
Read MorePosted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc Category: op-ed
