By Robert Samuelson   The stock market giveth; the stock market taketh away. With Wednesday a federal holiday to honor former President George H.W. Bush, the U.S. stock market will be…

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By Robert Samuelson   President Trump, do yourself a favor. Stop attacking the Federal Reserve and its chairman, Jerome Powell (yes, the same Powell you nominated). The result would be better…

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By Kathleen Parker   Michael Cohen’s guilty plea Thursday that he lied to Congress about Donald Trump’s interests in building a Moscow tower comes as little surprise — everyone attached…

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By Robert Samuelson   We aren’t stagnating, after all. Unless you’ve been hibernating in the Himalayas, you must know of the recent surge in economic inequality. It’s not just that the…

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By Robert Samuelson   The United States-China trade war goes on … and on and on. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are expected to meet later this week…

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By Kathleen Parker   As newly elected congresswomen are poised to color this city blue, one wonders what effect they’ll realistically have on the gridlock known as the House of…

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By Robert Samuelson   Here’s today’s economic quiz: Was the 2007-09 Great Recession more damaging than the Great Depression of the 1930s? Surely the answer is “no.” In the 1930s, unemployment…

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By Kathleen Parker   Strutting isn’t just for turkeys anymore. We’re reminded of this nearly every day, but Donald Trump outdid himself Thanksgiving Day when a reporter asked the president what…

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By Kathleen Parker   When polarity defines us, it’s easy to lose sight of our common humanity. But all is not political, as nature increasingly reminds us. The fires in…

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By Kathleen Parker   It wasn’t a blue trickle, but nor was it a tsunami. Rather, the midterm elections brought a gentle, purplish wave of mostly center-leaning Democrats whose profiles…

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By Robert Samuelson   President Trump and Congress face a mountain of unfinished business — and chances are that most of it will stay unfinished. Of course, no one knows what…

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By Kathleen Parker    The midterm elections are finally over, more or less, and we got what we got — Donald Trump is still president. Sorry, but someone had to…

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By Kathleen Parker    BEAUFORT, S.C. – As the famed author Pat Conroy began his journey from this earth two years ago, he might have dreamed of weekends like this.…

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By Robert Samuelson   We’ll know soon who won the fiercely contested midterm elections, but we already know who lost: We all did. This election has been a referendum on President…

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By Robert Samuelson   Perhaps it was naivete, ignorance or stupidity — or all three — but when I was growing up in the 1950s in a suburb of New York…

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By Kathleen Parker   Network announcer: We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming for this special message from the president of the United States. My fellow Americans. I want to speak…

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By Robert Samuelson   The story of American capitalism is a contradiction. It has succeeded brilliantly in creating widespread material well-being; and yet, it has not satisfied a popular yearning for…

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By Robert Samuelson   Globalization strikes again. The latest target is entrepreneurship. For decades, promoting startup firms through venture capital and other methods of business investment seemed a peculiarly American strength.…

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By Kathleen Parker     Slowly but inevitably, the two major political parties have become the party of women and the party of men — guess which is which —…

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By Robert Samuelson   Competition is dying. That’s the latest complaint against American business. We have too many super-sized firms, excessively large and unnaturally profitable. Dubious mergers, permitted by toothless antitrust…

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By Kathleen Parker   As a new-product junkie, it was foregone that I’d swap a C-note for something called CBD, a cannabis extract promising relief from pain and anxiety, the…

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By Kathleen Parker   Now that the DNA is out of the bag, Sen. Elizabeth Warren can put her Native American heritage down for a nap — maybe. After two…

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By Kathleen Parker   Amid hurricanes, a vanished journalist, the recent Supreme Court hearings, midterms and “mobs,” it is little wonder that Americans are drinking more than ever. Factually, this…

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By Kathleen Parker   As we continue examining Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s high school and college life, it has been easy to forget what this was originally all about.…

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By Kathleen Parker   Republican Sen. Jeff Flake may have become a momentary hero for Democrats hoping to block Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, but Sen. Lindsey Graham has cinched…

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By Robert Samuelson   The Economist magazine is marking its 175th birthday with a special issue that looks back on its history and speculates about the future. It is a sobering…

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By Robert Samuelson   It has long been an accepted axiom in the United States — and also in many advanced democracies — that the future would be better than the…

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By Kathleen Parker   In one of Brett Kavanaugh’s responses to allegations that he sexually assaulted a 15-year-old girl when he was in high school, a charge he has denied…

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By Robert Samuelson   All during the 2008-09 financial crisis, Americans were told that the government was saving Wall Street not to protect overpaid bankers but to help Main Street avoid…

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By Kathleen Parker   After several days of showboating and judicial hazing, Democrats pulled out their biggest weapon against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh — a letter from an anonymous…

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By Robert Samuelson   Ten years after the 2008-09 financial crisis, we’re swamped with studies and reminiscences. What are the legacies of the crisis? How long will they endure? Are they…

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By Kathleen Parker   PAWLEYS ISLAND, S.C. — Tuesday morning, I did what millions of people have done in hundreds of places for centuries. I picked the few favorite items…

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By Robert Samuelson   The news is better than you might think. A decade after the onset of the 2008-09 global financial crisis — an event usually dated to the bankruptcy…

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By Kathleen Parker   If you missed Day One of Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court hearing, just try to imagine a mud-wrestling contest attended by banshees howling at the referee. Between…

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By Kathleen Parker   As the late Sen. John McCain’s departing call to national unity reverberated across America this past week, Donald Trump’s prediction of violence should Democrats prevail in…

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By Robert Samuelson   It’s wages vs. health benefits. On this Labor Day, just about everything seems to be going right for typical American workers, with the glaring and puzzling exception…

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By Robert Samuelson   When the North American Free Trade Agreement took effect in 1994, it was widely regarded — by friend and foe alike — as an ambitious experiment in…

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By Robert Samuelson   Who lost Lehman Brothers? Could it have been saved? As we approach the 10th anniversary of Lehman’s collapse (Sept. 15), these questions won’t go away. The Lehman…

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By Kathleen Parker   Juror No. 0302 may not have sought fame, but Paula Duncan will long be remembered in connection with Paul Manafort, whom she and 11 others convicted…

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By Robert Samuelson   The Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan think tank, put out an interesting report the other day, whose main conclusion is this: Much of the Great Recession’s economic…

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By Robert Samuelson   The pertinent and unanswerable question about Turkey is whether the country’s present economic turmoil is an isolated event, mostly confined to Turkey itself, or whether it portends…

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By Robert Samuelson   Inflation is back. What do we do about it? For starters: Don’t ignore it. The latest consumer price index (CPI) — the government’s best-known inflation indicator —…

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By Robert Samuelson   Welcome to the Age of Malware. It promises to be a huge downer and, possibly, a great tragedy. For years, we have regarded personal computers, the internet,…

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By Robert Samuelson   It’s an axiom among many Americans that each future generation will live better than its predecessor. New technologies, greater efficiencies and a can-do spirit will reward us…

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By Kathleen Parker   Thank God for Uncle Rudy. You know Rudy — the eccentric, sometimes batty, uncle who lives in the attic? One thing about Rudy, he always seems…

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By Robert Samuelson   Can we make sense of ETFs? If you’re in the investing class, you doubtlessly know that ETF stands for “exchange-traded fund.” Along with index mutual funds, they…

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By Robert Samuelson   The Trump administration may have declared it over, but a new War on Poverty is coming anyways. It will be fought largely over the “work requirement” —…

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By Robert Samuelson   The untold story of the world economy — so far at least — is the potentially explosive interaction between the spreading trade war and the overhang of…

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