[Bloomberg] Why Not Make Economics a Science?

Economists have come to rival even journalists and politicians in lack of public esteem. That might be partly because so many economists seem as interested in journalism and politics as in advancing their science. But there’s also a deeper problem: Far from advancing, the science of economics has been going backwards.Economists tend to be either practitioners or theorists. Practitioners on Wall Street, in central banks, and in government aim to say where the economy is headed and offer advice on

Feb. 9, 2017

[Slawomir Sierakowski] The Female Resistance

Antagonism is mounting between today’s right-wing populists and a somewhat unexpected but formidable opponent: women. In the United States, much like in Poland, women’s rights have been among the first targets of attack by populist leaders. Women are not taking it lying down.Traditional conservatism in the West has largely come to terms with the need to grant women broad reproductive freedom. Today’s right-wing populist administrations, by contrast, are downright pre-modern in this regard, attem

Feb. 9, 2017

[David Ignatius] Can Flynn rein in the national security apparatus amid Trump‘s disruption?

Of the many puzzles posed by Donald Trump’s administration, the role of the National Security Council is among the trickiest. The NSC usually tries to act as an “honest broker” among cabinet agencies. But how will it function under a headstrong president who sees his role as disruptor and tweeter-in-chief? This challenge falls to national security adviser Michael Flynn, a retired Army general who holds a position once filled by such luminaries as Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Sc

Feb. 9, 2017

[Other View] Trump’s chance to act on Iran

Iran’s recent test of a medium-range ballistic missile is an early indicator it doesn’t fear the bellicose rhetoric of Donald Trump any more than it did the passive approach of Barack Obama. Unfortunately, the Trump administration’s immediate response -- National Security Adviser Michael Flynn said the US is “officially putting Iran on notice” -- seems straight out of the Obama playbook.　The president needs to get beyond his vague campaign statements about standing up to Iran. When the regime br

Feb. 8, 2017

[Malcolm Lazin] Religious exemption would open up sanctioned discrimination

President Trump would be ill-advised to sign a proposed executive order that exempts religious organizations that provide federally funded services from nondiscrimination provisions.　The exemption is supported by, among others, socially conservative organizations such as the Family Research Council and the Family Leader. Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, has said of the president and the exemption, “He gets it. They will have to fix it and they will. I am confident they wil

Feb. 8, 2017

[David Ignatius] Arab Spring, six years later

The Arab Spring may seem like a distant memory, but a new report by a team of Arab and American analysts argues that across the Middle East people still feel the same yearning for better governance and rule of law that motivated protesters in Cairo’s Tahrir Square.The persistence of this vision of more modern and just government is important to remember, especially at a time when the Trump administration is so focused on the threatening image of Islamist extremism. The study is a reminder that m

Feb. 8, 2017

[Jacek Rostowski] Trump’s chaos theory of government

In the weeks since Donald Trump’s inauguration as president of the United States, it has become clear that he intends to roll back the progressive-egalitarian agenda that is commonly associated with “political correctness” to the starting block -- not just in the United States, but globally. Stephen Bannon, Trump’s White House Svengali and former CEO of the extreme right Breitbart News, has long pursued this ideological project, and we now know that what he or Trump says must be taken both serio

Feb. 8, 2017

[Other View] Guns for the mentally incompetent

Of all the measures to improve gun safety, background checks are among the most reasonable and popular. House Republicans lost no time this week in voting to weaken them.　A bill approved on a mostly party-line vote in the House would rescind a rule on gun background checks that was initiated by the Barack Obama administration in 2012 and finalized in December. President Donald Trump is expected to sign the bill after its likely passage by the Senate.　The rule requires the Social Security Adminis

Feb. 7, 2017

[Stephen Mihm] How big government has outlasted US presidents for a century

Donald Trump’s recent flurry of executive orders mandates that for every new regulation issued by any agency, two must be eliminated. This comes on top of a federal hiring freeze and vows to reduce administrative bloat and otherwise force the government bureaucracy to conform to the kinds of expectations that govern private business.While Trump sees himself as an outsider president bringing new ideas to Washington, these particular ideas would be painfully familiar to his predecessors. For the p

Feb. 7, 2017

[Chicago Tribune] The rising Islamic State threat in Central Asia

America has fixed coordinates for the geography of the Islamic State, the West’s deadliest terror threat. There’s Mosul, now in the midst of a US-backed bid by the Iraqi military to eradicate Islamic State militants from the northern Iraqi city. There’s also North Africa and northern Syria, where the Islamic State inflicts its barbarism on Syrian civilians and blueprints attacks on the West.But there’s another part of the world where Islamic State is rising, a region few Westerners know: Deadly

Feb. 7, 2017

[Bloomberg] China’s factories don’t fear Trump

President Donald Trump seems determined to start a fight with China over trade. He’s appointed notable China skeptics to his economic team, badgered companies like Apple Inc. to stop making products on the mainland, and threatened tariffs of 45 percent on Chinese goods.He hopes to get companies to move their manufacturing operations back home and create jobs in American factories. It won’t work. In fact, it’s likely to hurt the very voters he’s promised to protect.China’s factories now compete l

Feb. 7, 2017

[Other Veiw] One way for Trump to help small business

At a meeting with small-business leaders last week, President Donald Trump pledged to do “a big number” on the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, which he blamed for cutting off the bank lending needed for growth. “It’s almost impossible now to start a small business and it’s virtually impossible to expand your existing business,” he said.　Trump is wrong about small-business starts. Since early 2010, new business creation has rebounded.　But he’s right, albeit with a whiff of exaggeration, that it’s harder to

Feb. 6, 2017

[Conor Sen] Unbiased news? There’s one reliable source

Democrats trust only Democratic-approved media sources, and Republicans trust only Republican-approved media sources. Perhaps the only medium that both Democrats and Republicans will accept as a valid source of information is … the stock market.　With the stock market, there is a price at which one can buy or sell. And that’s that. No alleging that Fox News peddles “alternative facts,” or MSNBC spins.　Additionally, for anyone with their wealth in financial assets, movement in the stock market aff

Feb. 6, 2017