What’s the main value in a free press? To hear the press tell it -- as in many of the 350-plus editorials published in coordination last week in response to the president’s anti-press rhetoric -- the answer is factual, objective coverage of events.　But that’s not what the framers of the constitution thought, or what Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes had in mind when he crafted modern free-press jurisprudence during World War I. It also doesn’t match how most newspaper writers thought of themselves u

Viewpoints Aug. 21, 2018

The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission wants to help the elderly enjoy their golden years in comfort. With the world’s fastest-aging population and a pension system beset by shortfalls, China is turning to a staple of late-night television commercials -- reverse mortgages -- to help out retirees. It just might work.　Outside of Beijing and Shanghai, China’s real estate market is nearly moribund after years of spiraling values drove home ownership beyond the reach of many people. In

Viewpoints Aug. 21, 2018

Humanities education in the US is in free fall. And the decline probably shows that the nature of what American students want out of college education is changing -- more young people are in it for the money.　University of Washington history professor Benjamin Schmidt recently wrote a long blog post in which he showed, very convincingly, that the number of American undergraduates majoring in the humanities has dropped in the last decade. Five years ago, Schmidt thought that it might be a tempora

Viewpoints Aug. 19, 2018

Sadly, the proposal for a new US Space Force has become a punchline on late-night TV. It is being battered as a needless new bureaucracy, a competitor for the private sector, and an idea that will lead to a vicious militarization of space. None of these arguments is correct.　Many of those denigrating the idea are under-informed and spring-loaded to dislike the idea because it is proposed by President Donald Trump. I have plenty of policy disagreements with the Trump administration, but on this i

Viewpoints Aug. 19, 2018

Latin America’s judiciaries are engulfed in corruption scandals. In Colombia a former Supreme Court member was arrested on charges of corruption and bribery. In Peru multiple judges stand accused of trading favorable rulings and shortened sentences for money and perks. In Guatemala, lawyers and justices face charges of rigging Supreme Court appointments. And in Mexico the attorney general’s office fired one of its own for delving too deep into alleged bribes to the former head of the national oi

Viewpoints Aug. 19, 2018

If you are a believer in free markets, you might be tempted to be pleased by some of the more positive policies of the Trump administration: Lxower corporate tax rates, more market-friendly judges, a greater emphasis on deregulation. Resist (the temptation, if not the administration). When it comes to ideas, the lifeblood of capitalism, the influence of President Donald Trump isn’t nearly so benign.　In fact, even without considering its policy on free trade, advocates of dynamic capitalism shoul

Viewpoints Aug. 16, 2018

It sounds like a spy novel. A former CIA case officer joins a cabal of pro-Russian rebels attempting to kill the prime minister of a small Balkan country. The coup fails, the officer returns to the US -- and now authorities in the Balkans want the former spy for questioning.　Last week Montenegro announced it is seeking extradition of the retired US spy, Joseph Assad, for his role in an attempted coup there in 2016. If the allegations are true, this story has a twist worthy of an airport-bookstor

Viewpoints Aug. 15, 2018

I might be the only person on Earth feeling sorry for the big boys of technology. Jack Dorsey from Twitter, Mark Zuckerberg from Facebook, all those Google nerds: They’re monumentally screwed, because they have no idea how to tame the monsters they have created.　The way I see it, these guys -- and they are mostly guys -- were arbitrarily chosen. They started with some good ideas, some luck, great timing, got lots of people to believe in their rosy vision, and they won the unicorn lottery. Little

Viewpoints Aug. 15, 2018

What makes really smart people tick? Why do some end up earning so much more than others? And how much do these disparate outcomes have to do with their personalities? A new study by Miriam Gensowski, at the University of Copenhagen, sheds fascinating light on these and other questions.　Gensowski revisits a data set from all schools in California, grades 1-8, in 1921-1922, based on the students who scored in the top 0.5 percent of IQ distribution. At the time that meant scores of 140 or higher.

Viewpoints Aug. 15, 2018

Some social problems are blatantly obvious in daily life, while others are longer-term, more corrosive and perhaps mostly invisible. Lately I’ve been worrying about a problem of the latter kind: the erosion of personal ownership and what that will mean for our loyalties to traditional American concepts of capitalism and private property.　The main culprits for the change are software and the internet. For instance, Amazon’s Kindle and other methods of online reading have revolutionized how Americ

Viewpoints Aug. 14, 2018

China is not just another front in President Donald Trump’s war on trade. Unlike Mexico, Canada, Europe and other targets of the president, China will be a source of economic conflict for years to come, long after the tariff level on soybeans has been settled. Like the rivalry with the Soviet Union, economic competition with China may form a Cold War that shapes American politics and economic policy for a generation or more.　Until now, through flukes of timing, Americans have largely been distra

Viewpoints Aug. 14, 2018

There are only two ways that the diplomatic rift between the US and Turkey can end: a compromise that salvages the relationship as best possible, or a complete rupture with devastating consequences both for Turkey’s economy and America’s regional strategic interests. Either way, there is no going back to the way things were.　The arrest in Turkey of American pastor Andrew Brunson nearly two years ago has led to a diplomatic spat that threatens a full-blown economic meltdown in Turkey. Brunson, al

Viewpoints Aug. 14, 2018