McChrystal: Afghanistan war spins out of America’s control
UPDATE: This post has been re-published as an article in spiked (here).
President Obama fired General Stanley McChrystal from his post as commander of US military forces in Afghanistan today, and replaced him with General David Petraeus, who led ...
Razing Detroit: nothing but flowers?
There are those who claim that we’ve experienced too much economic growth. There are those who complain about the impact of industrialization. And there are those who say there are too many people. But, if you want to see what a world of negative growth, deindustrialization and depopulation looks like, check out ...
China to let yuan rise, all the world’s economic problems solved
Or so you might think, based on what China’s critics have been claiming up until China’s latest announcement.
For nearly the past two years, China peg its currency, the yuan (also called the renminbi), to the US dollar. On Saturday the Chinese central bank revealed that it would end this ...
This week’s articles of note
“Can Obama shut down the internet?” Daily Beast, by Philip Shenon
“The strange and consequential case of Bradley Manning, Adrian Lamo and WikiLeaks,” Salon, by Glenn Greenwald
“Inside the dire financial state of the states,” Time, by David Von Drehle
“Iran nuclear deal exposing the shifting distribution of power,” Axis ...
Obama: the Gulf between words and deeds
Instead of all the dithering, lofty rhetoric and tough talk, the US president should be honest about the need to keep on drilling.
Read my spiked article in full here.
Debating nuclear power
In this TED video, Stewart Brand and Mark Jacobson debate the need for ...
Unfinished business (2): European banks
The latest quarterly review of the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) compares today’s European sovereign debt crisis with the 2007-2009 financial crisis. The BIS understands the European crisis as similar to the early phase of the credit crunch, in 2007.
Unfinished business (1): US banks
In a perceptive “Heard on the Street” column, the Wall Street Journal notes that credit continues to contract, despite government stimulus and Federal Reserve monetary expansion. The Journal says that a more thorough restructuring is needed if the US is to avoid a Japan-style “lost decade”.
Bank loans and leases have ...
Democrats can’t count on Obama’s support in mid-terms
The Democrats look like they have a tough time ahead of them for the congressional mid-term elections in November.
In the Sunday New York Times Magazine, Matt Bai raised the question of whether President Obama will provide leadership and support for his fellow Democrats. Bai, an astute observer, writes:
Obama ...
