The Smithian

May 9th, 2013

We’ve created a global financial and manufacturing system that has come to control and concentrate the world wealth and power into the hands of a small elite. The only difference it that it is no longer the crowned heads of Europe setting policy, but the technocrat managers of large corporations, financial institutions, and the political class. The rising concerns about inequity—shown in Occupy Wall Street, the Arab Spring, and the rewriting of the constitution in Iceland—are an echo of the early rise of anticolonial insurgents. Populist groups will argue against the entrenched power of the the global financial order, and will ultimately elect governments that take control back, and decrease the sway of global neoliberalism.

Stowe Boyd, at Fast Company

May 6th, 2013

thesmithian

I do not believe that partisan polarization makes dysfunctional gridlock likely. It’s not partisan polarization that’s the problem; it’s the broken, radical Republican Party. Essentially, party polarization isn’t nearly as important as the array of problems within the GOP—antagonism to compromise as an organizing principle; a closed information loop dominated by the Republican-aligned press; a conservative marketplace which blunts the electoral incentive for much of the party; and loss of interest in and capacity for public policy. Without those internal dysfunctions, even an extremely conservative Republican Party would be able to cut deals and allow the political system to function relatively smoothly even with divided government…

Jonathan Bernstein

September 11th, 2012

thesmithian

The Complete Guide To America's Jobs Crisis And The Failure Of Monetary Policy Using Animated Gifs

August 3rd, 2012

thesmithian

…the overriding story of the past few years is not Mr. Obama’s mistakes but the scorched-earth opposition of Republicans, who have done everything they can to get in his way—and who now, having blocked the president’s policies, hope to win the White House by claiming that his policies have failed.

Paul Krugman, at the NYT.

March 29th, 2012

thesmithian

'Conservatives have come to see the majority's threatening ability to shape economic policy not merely as an impediment but as a dire existential threat.'

March 27th, 2012

thesmithian

Zoom

…contains over 100 projects from around the world that…offer design solutions for problems ranging from shelter and disaster reconstruction to health care and cultural gathering spaces. From smog-eating concrete to a coed skate park in Afghanistan, the book highlights the work of people in the design, planning, policy and citizen communities…who are striving to make the world a …more sustainable place…

more.

…contains over 100 projects from around the world that…offer design solutions for problems ranging from shelter and disaster reconstruction to health care and cultural gathering spaces. From smog-eating concrete to a coed skate park in Afghanistan, the book highlights the work of people in the design, planning, policy and citizen communities…who are striving to make the world a …more sustainable place…

more.

March 7th, 2012

thesmithian

'In 2008 and in 2011, the world was rocked by riots and by revolutions coinciding with spikes in food prices. Now researchers are projecting that by 2013, food prices will soar to unparalleled heights, causing widespread hunger in the most vulnerable populations and social unrest, with an enormous potential for loss of human life.'

January 22nd, 2012

thesmithian

That’s what Newt Gingrich promises them…

In order to survive without moderating their policies, they must subscribe to the belief that if only they eliminate every program that helps poor people (including minorities), minorities will suddenly wake from a deep sleep and learn to embrace conservatives through the power of tough love. That’s what Newt Gingrich promises them. He is their answer to Barack Obama, their Savior, their Great Racial Uniter. He speaks not ignorantly, schizophrenically nor in code. He and his base have leaped into this ideological gamble with open eyes, and are attempting to take the rest of the country with them.

more.

January 12th, 2012

thesmithian

'...But there’s a deeper problem in the whole notion that what this nation needs is a successful businessman as president: America is not, in fact, a corporation. Making good economic policy isn’t at all like maximizing corporate profits. And businessmen — even great businessmen — do not, in general, have any special insights into what it takes to achieve economic recovery.'

December 21st, 2011

thesmithian

After a year of the tea party House, Mr. Obama and Senate Democrats have had to make no major policy concessions beyond extending the Bush tax rates for two years. Mr. Obama is in a stronger re-election position today than he was a year ago, and the chances of Mr. [Mitch] McConnell becoming Majority Leader in 2013 are declining.

from the Wall Street Journal’s “The GOP’s Payroll Tax Fiasco: How did Republicans manage to lose the tax issue to Obama?”

more.

December 4th, 2011

thesmithian

“Nation-building” is in bad odor these days, among the foreign policy cognoscenti and the general public alike. Weariness with the long struggles in Afghanistan and Iraq has produced a grand opposition alliance of isolationists, realists, populists and left-liberal anti-interventionists, who all agree it is past time to give up the hopeless dream.

more.

“Nation-building” is in bad odor these days, among the foreign policy cognoscenti and the general public alike. Weariness with the long struggles in Afghanistan and Iraq has produced a grand opposition alliance of isolationists, realists, populists and left-liberal anti-interventionists, who all agree it is past time to give up the hopeless dream.

more.

November 22nd, 2011

thesmithian

'...I’ve been a Republican all my adult life. I have worked on the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal, at Forbes magazine, at the Manhattan and American Enterprise Institutes, as a speechwriter in the George W. Bush administration. I believe in free markets, low taxes, reasonable regulation, and limited government. I voted for John McCain in 2008, and I have strongly criticized the major policy decisions of the Obama administration. But as I contemplate my party and my movement in 2011, I see things I simply cannot support.'

November 19th, 2011

thesmithian

Barack Obama achieved more significant change in domestic policy during the first two years of his presidency than any president since Richard Nixon has over the course of four or eight. That’s because in 2010 Obama signed into law the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. We don’t know how this story will end, but there’s now a law on the books that, for all its many shortcomings and unpopularity, will extend health coverage to most of this country’s uninsured…

more.

November 6th, 2011

thesmithian

Conservatives rely on the government all the time, most importantly in structuring the market in ways that ensure that income flows upwards. The framing that conservatives like the market while liberals like the government puts liberals in the position of seeming to want to tax the winners to help the losers. This “loser liberalism” is bad policy and horrible politics. Progressives would be better off fighting battles over the structure of markets so that they don’t redistribute income upward.

more.

Conservatives rely on the government all the time, most importantly in structuring the market in ways that ensure that income flows upwards. The framing that conservatives like the market while liberals like the government puts liberals in the position of seeming to want to tax the winners to help the losers. This “loser liberalism” is bad policy and horrible politics. Progressives would be better off fighting battles over the structure of markets so that they don’t redistribute income upward.

more.