[Laurence Kotlikoff] U.S. fiscal meltdown in spitting distance

The two parties are having a heated debate over the Republican plan to slice $61 billion off Uncle Sam’s projected $3.6 trillion budget. If the Republicans get their way, the deficit will fall from 9.5 percent of gross domestic product to 9.1 percent. If they don’t, they’ll probably shut the government for a couple of days. Then they’ll compromise on, say, a $40 billion budget cut, having proved t

April 7, 2011

[Ruti Teitel and Robert Howse] Debt, dictatorship, and democratization

NEW YORK ― After Saddam Hussein’s fall, the United States successfully pressed creditors to write off much of Iraq’s external debt. Senior American officials, including Paul Wolfowitz, later president of the World Bank, argued that the Iraqi people should not be saddled with obligations that the dictator contracted in order to enrich himself and oppress his subjects. Citing a long-standing doctrin

April 7, 2011

U.N. should be honest Mideast broker

In 2009, a United Nations panel led by Richard Goldstone issued a 575-page bombshell of a report. It accused Israel of committing war crimes against the Palestinians in a three-week Gaza invasion. The Goldstone report was a diplomatic bonanza for Israel’s enemies around the world. The report was so damning that some Israeli officials stopped traveling abroad for fear they’d be arrested for war cri

April 6, 2011

[Raphael A. Auer] Eurozone’s inflation divide

ZURICH ― Discussions within the European Central Bank’s Governing Council, which is poised to meet on April 7, are about to get hot. The risk that rising inflation in emerging Asia could spill over into Europe will pit the Bank’s inflation hawks against those in favor of ensuring as fast a return to full employment as possible. But what may cause even greater dissension is a renewed clash of natio

April 6, 2011

[Daniel Akst] Digital books eat Google dominance

Recently a family friend, knowing that I write books, asked how she could copyright her daughter’s poetry. For the record, the girl is 13. My answer ― don’t worry about it ― was the same one I give to writers fretful over Google’s plans to digitize the world’s books. Go ahead, Google. Scan my out-of-print works, now otherwise available for a penny (plus shipping) from used-book sellers on the Inte

April 6, 2011

[William Pesek] This man’s $120 million taps a nation’s anger

Something fascinating is afoot in Japan: anger. People are fuming about the nuclear crisis that put their nation in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons.The response is restrained compared with the perpetually aggrieved Tea Party crowd in the U.S., or Chinese who lash out at anyone abroad with the slightest criticism. Germans are plenty annoyed about bailing out deadbeat nations sharing the eur

April 6, 2011

[Matthew Lynn] How to avoid the pitfalls of a new tech bubble

Initial public offerings. Big takeovers. Nerdy 20-somethings getting rich quickly. To borrow a phrase from an old Prince song, the markets are suddenly partying like it’s 1999 again. The tech bubble is back. Facebook Inc. is commanding an enormous valuation. So are Groupon Inc., Twitter Inc. and LivingSocial.com. Even Rovio Mobile Oy, the small Finnish company behind the hit app Angry Birds, looks

April 6, 2011

Carter’s visit encourages dissidents in Cuba

When former President Jimmy Carter last visited Cuba, in 2002, he delivered a remarkable speech via the state-run media that criticized the Castro dictatorship and exposed listeners to the truly revolutionary idea that it’s up to the Cuban people, not the one-party regime nor any foreign government, to determine Cuba’s future.Naturally, his visit raised hopes that this might represent an ever-so-s

April 5, 2011

Excessive love for money is the root of all evils

Even people in the sports world are not free of this craze for money as more in-depth reports on the arrest of three soccer referees show. Lu Jun was arrested for taking bribes from local soccer teams. Before being exposed, he was known as the “golden whistle” for his “integrity.” He officiated in two matches at the 2002 World Cup finals in South Korea and Japan. Praising the clean soccer administ

April 5, 2011

[Gregory Rodriguez] Business beats bigotry

Conservative Utah has bucked the national GOP trend of embracing hard-line ― and arguably inhumane ― laws meant to make states inhospitable to illegal immigrants. Two weeks ago, Utah Gov. Gary R. Herbert signed into law a bill that will grant work permits, and a path to legal residence, to undocumented immigrants and their immediate families.And conservative Arizona, which last year passed the ant

April 5, 2011

[Andrew Hammond] Who will be Obama’s Republican opponent?

With U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday announcing his re-election campaign bid, the unofficial starting whistle for the 2012 election has been blown. In a highly unusual move, Obama will be the first U.S. president in modern history to place his campaign headquarters outside of the Washington D.C. and suburban Virginia corridor (basing it instead in his home city of Chicago). The president hop

April 5, 2011

Homecoming for victims of Stalin’s terror

TBLISI, Georgia ― Nearly 70 years after being deported by Stalin, members of the Meskhetian Turkish community are preparing to return to Georgia. But after all this time, it’s unclear exactly what kind of welcome they will receive.The Meskhetians were one of several ethnic groups who were deported from the Caucasus region during World War II because Stalin feared they might form a fifth column wit

April 5, 2011

No more sumo until bout-fixing rooted out

Penalties meted out to many sumo wrestlers involved in bout-fixing must be a catalyst for eliminating this unseemly practice from the sumo world. The Japan Sumo Association announced Friday (April 1) that it had punished 23 wrestlers and sumo elders who had rigged bouts.The penalties, including “a recommendation to voluntarily retire” and two-year suspensions from sumo tournaments, were imposed on

April 4, 2011

[Dick Polman] Michele Bachmann’s lightbulb moment

Michele Bachmann, who is basically Sarah Palin with better articulation, appears to be mapping a 2012 Republican presidential bid. Swell. This means we’ll be hearing a lot more about how the socialists are coming to take away our incandescent lightbulbs.Seriously, this is one of Bachmann’s big causes. She happens to be flat wrong on the facts, but people who pay attention to facts probably wouldn’

April 4, 2011