[Noah Smith] Apple’s business model will backfire in self-driving cars

Fans of self-driving cars will have breathed a sigh of relief at news that Uber and Google’s Waymo, two giants in the industry, have settled their intellectual property lawsuit. This removes a huge distraction for companies, and frees them up to focus on their own research.So that’s good. Driverless cars will be an incredible boon to society. They could save tens of thousands of American lives every year, and even more in countries such as India and China, and prevent millions of injuries. They

Feb. 21, 2018

[Dave Hyde] Listen to Douglas students -- they offer America hope

Just listen to them. They’re so remarkable.　They’re Ariana Ortega, at the funeral of her friend Alexander Schatcher, saying, “We’re here to make change. We don’t want another community going through this.”　They’re Christine Yared, writing an op-ed column in the New York Times under the headline, “Don’t let my classmates’ deaths be in vain.”　They’re Emma Gonzalez, saying at a rally, “The people in the government who are voted into power are lying to us. And us kids seem to be the only ones who no

Feb. 21, 2018

[Los Angeles Times] South African democracy survives the sordid presidency of Jacob Zuma

Jacob Zuma stepped down as president of South Africa on Wednesday, leaving a nation weakened by his nine years of rule yet in the hands of the same political party -- the African National Congress -- that has won every election since universal suffrage began in 1994. Zuma’s fate was sealed when the ANC rejected his preferred candidate for party leadership in December in favor of anti-apartheid leader-turned-businessman Cyril Ramaphosa. The job was completed last week when the ANC-dominated Natio

Feb. 21, 2018

[Ferdinando Giugliano] What eurozone can learn from US

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and UK Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Boris Johnson traded barbs over how far the EU intends to push its integration agenda. In a speech Wednesday, the UK foreign secretary accused the EU of seeking to create an “overarching European state.” Not true, Juncker responded: “I am strictly against a European superstate. We are not the United States of America.”　This exchange of views looks baffling to an economist. The question is not what lev

Feb. 20, 2018

[Leonid Bershidsky] EU doesn’t want to be more democratic

The European Union has had a democratic legitimacy problem for years: Its governing bodies -- with the exception of those that consist of national leaders and ministers -- are neither particularly responsive nor accountable to ordinary European voters. And, as the latest failed attempt to reform them has shown, they like it this way, for all the rhetoric about the need to overcome the democratic deficit.Voters have influence on the EU via two channels. One is electing national leaders, who, thro

Feb. 20, 2018

[Leonid Bershidsky] Geostrategists: Give Russia and China a rest

In recent years, concern about a resurgent Russia has dominated the Western security establishment’s conversations. Judging by this year’s edition of the Munich Security Report, which traditionally sets the agenda for the high-profile conference held in the Bavarian city -- it’s starting on Friday -- the focus is gradually beginning to shift to China. Big and important as these authoritarian countries are, though, I can’t help thinking the West should pay a bit more attention to internal threats

Feb. 19, 2018

[Andrew Polk] Chinese need to learn to save again

For years, economists and policymakers have hailed the propensity of Chinese to save. Among other things, they’ve pointed to low household debt as reason not to fear a financial crash in the world’s second-biggest economy. Now, though, one of China’s greatest economic strengths is becoming a crucial weakness.　Over the past two weeks, as they’ve held their annual work meetings, China’s various financial regulatory bodies have raised fears that Chinese households may be overleveraged. Banking regu

Feb. 19, 2018

[Christine M. Flowers] The forgotten side of the #MeToo movement

In the mid-1960s, I knew an elderly Greek fellow who tended to fig trees in front of his home at the end of our block. My recollections of our neighbor are hazy, but the thing that sticks with me is how gentle he was.　Years later, I learned that his wife would throw things at him, or yell through the night when he did something that angered her. He lived with her, and never complained. He never had the chance to file a restraining order, or jump onto social media for his own #MeToo moment. Like

Feb. 19, 2018

[Eli Lake] Trump’s ‘hard line’ on North Korea is soft symbolism

One could be forgiven for thinking the symbolism at the Olympics signaled a hard line from the Donald Trump administration on North Korea.　Before the opening ceremony, US Vice President Mike Pence met with North Korean dissidents. At the opening ceremonies, he sat with the parents of Otto Warmbier, the American student who was imprisoned and injured so gravely during his detention that he died shortly after being flown back to the US. In Tokyo, Pence announced that new sanctions would be unveile

Feb. 18, 2018

[Kofi A. Annan] How IT threatens democracy

The internet and social media were once hailed for creating new opportunities to spread democracy and freedom. And Twitter, Facebook, and other social media did indeed play a key role in popular uprisings in Iran in 2009, in the Arab world in 2011, and in Ukraine in 2013-2014. Back then, the tweet did at times seem mightier than the sword. But authoritarian regimes soon began cracking down on internet freedom. They feared the brave new digital world, because it was beyond the reach of their anal

Feb. 18, 2018

[Bennie Thompson and Robert A. Brady] The Russians -- and the midterms -- are coming

In November 2016, 139 million Americans cast their votes in the wake of a massive Russian cyber-enabled operation to influence the outcome of the presidential election.　The Kremlin spread disinformation through hundreds of thousands of social media posts. Russian agents hacked US political organizations and selectively exposed sensitive information. Russia targeted voting systems in at least 21 states, seeking to infiltrate the networks of voting equipment vendors, political parties and at least

Feb. 18, 2018