This week’s articles of note
“Can Rick Perry govern?” Texas Observer, by Dave Mann
“The shape of the global economy will fundamentally change,” Foreign Policy, by Mohamed el-Erian
“The dollar-store economy,” New York Times Magazine, by Jack Hitt
“Is the SEC covering up Wall Street crimes?” Rolling Stone, by Matt Taibbi
“Eco-fads: feel-good policies ...
Volatile stock markets
American and global stock markets fell again yesterday. The US indexes declined by about 5 percent, which is pretty steep for one day. There were hopes that last week’s turmoil was an aberration, but yesterday’s falls showed that was not the case. It’s not 2008, but it’s not good either.
Here are ...
State takes kids from parents found with small amounts of marijuana
A disturbing story in today’s New York Times:
Hundreds of New Yorkers who have been caught with small amounts of marijuana, or who have simply admitted to using it, have become ensnared in civil child neglect cases in recent years, though they did not face even the least of criminal ...
What’s happened to the liberal arts?
The liberal arts at American colleges “have been radically altered, both in format and function… What is being taught is no longer attuned to undergraduates looking for a broader and deeper understanding of the world.” So write Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus in an interesting op-ed in the Los ...
This week’s articles of note
“What happened to Obama?” New York Times, by Drew Weston
“American tinderbox,” The American Interest, by Walter Russell Mead
“Liberals’ strange retreat on government spending,” The New Republic, by John Judis
“Leap of faith: the making of a Republican front-runner,” The New Yorker, by Ryan Lizza [on Michele Bachmann]
A BS lesson for America: “Tea Party will bring London riots to the US”
Richard Sennett (sociology professor at NYU and LSE) and Saskia Sassen (sociology professor at Columbia) have an op-ed in the New York Times this week that purports to explain the causes of the riots in London and the lessons from them for the US. It is muddle-headed, and indicative ...
This week’s articles of note
“President Obama’s big drags,” Politico, by Jim Vandehei and Mike Allen
“The progressive crisis,” The American Interest, by Walter Russell Mead
“Politics’ fatal therapeutic turn,” Dissent, by Zelda Bronstein
“Health now: a provocation,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, by Mark Edmundson
“Why the gender gap won’t go away. Ever,” ...
Calling the Tea Party “terrorists”
As the debt ceiling negotations were heading down to the wire, the liberal criticisms of the Tea Party representatives in Congress got more heated. By the end, there was little holding back.
Democrat representative Mike Doyle, in a meeting attended by Vice-President Joe Biden, referred to the Republicans as “terrorists” (Biden ...
The real cause of the US debt crisis? Slow growth
The pantomime political debate about the debt ceiling is distracting attention from the parlous state of the productive economy.
Read my spiked article in full here.
Weak GDP: an economy on edge
The latest gross domestic product (GDP) data shows the US economy’s recovery has come to a virtual stop.
GDP grew at an annual rate of less than 1 percent in the first half of 2011. Revised ...
ABOUT SEAN COLLINS
I write about American current affairs for Spiked, the online magazine. I am a native New Yorker, and I divide my time between New York City and upstate New York.
In addition to articles for Spiked, The Australian and other publications, I contributed an essay, "BDS: Demonizing Israel, Destroying Free Speech," for the book Unsafe Space: The Crisis of Free Speech on Campus (2016). I also wrote a chapter on New York City's economy for the book London After Recession: A Fictitious Capital? (2012).
My writings have been cited in American Conservative, Arts & Letters Daily, the Financial Times, Fox News, the Huffington Post, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, the New York Times, Real Clear Politics, and the Times of London, among other media.
For more about The American Situation site, go here.
