Debate how to hire, not fire, teachers
With thousands of teachers’ jobs on the chopping block across the country, there is a vigorous debate over how to implement layoffs in a “fair” way.
At issue in New York and other states is the policy of LIFO, “last in, first out”. Seniority is the determining factor. There are calls from ...
This week’s articles of note
“Are America’s best days behind us?” Time, by Fareed Zakaria
“Are Americans ready for democracy?” Big Think, by Firouz Folani
“How Rumsfeld misleads and ducks responsibility in his new book,” Foreign Policy, by Bob Woodward
“Broke town, USA,” The New York Times Magazine, by Roger Lowenstein
“Twitter was Act ...
Are state pensions in crisis?
Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin and other Republicans have said that the cost of pensions to state employees is unaffordable, and a central reason why collective bargaining needs to be virtually eliminated.
However, as I noted in my article on Wisconsin, it is understandable why the pensions appear under-funded today:
This situation ...
Republicans make Wisconsin their battle ground
My op-ed on Wisconsin has been published in The Australian, the country’s biggest-selling national newspaper. You can read it here.
European banks “in far greater danger than people realize”
The Eurozone economic crisis has been relatively quiet for some time, taking a back seat to other world events. But, in an interview in Der Spiegel, US economist Barry Eichengreen reminds us that all is still not well:
The present bailout attempts have never made sense. Essentially, all Germany and ...
Patronizing talk of “non-violent” Middle East protests
In yesterday’s New York Daily News, Stanley Crouch wrote that uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya were a “victory for non-violence”:
Now that Black History Month is ending and the Middle East has shown a fresh ...
A faux war in Wisconsin
This is not a return of class war to America. It’s a clash between nervous-nellie Republicans and trade unions that can only play the victim card.
Read my spiked article in full here.
This week’s articles of note
“How Chris Christie did his homework,” New York Times Magazine, by Matt Bai
“What the census tells us about America’s future,” Forbes, by Joel Kotkin
“The Madoff tapes,” New York, by Steven Fishman
“Business as usual: the next Wall Street collapse,” Boston Review, by Jonathan Kirshner [Review of four ...
This week’s articles of note
“Wanted: a grand strategy for America,” Newsweek, by Niall Ferguson [on “Obama’s Egypt debacle”]
“The politics of the new middle America,” The American Prospect, by E.J. Dionne
“Why isn’t Wall Street in jail?” Rolling Stone, by Matt Taibbi
“Daniel Bell, master builder,” New York Times Book Review, by Sam ...
Finance and the real economy
The Lex column in yesterday’s Financial Times picks up on the International Monetary Fund’s recent self-evaluation, in a piece entitled “Ignorant economists”. Specificially, Lex notes that one of the IMF’s self-confessed shortcomings was an “inadequate understanding of how finance influences the real economy”:
The greatest challenge for all economists is to understand the dynamics of ...
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.
