THURSDAY THINK TANK ROUND-UP: THE SECOND COMING: Told you this would be a recurring feature.
- An Economy That Puts Families First: "In only a few decades," writes Heidi Hartmann, Ariane Hegewisch, and Vicky Lovell, "we have experienced a revolution in how we raise our children." But public policy has not kept up. The paper is part of the Economic Policy Institute's Shared Prosperity program, and so it's heavy on solutions and international comparisons. Particularly interesting is the section on reducing the number of hours Americans have to work, which is a topic that's rather important, but generally considered outside the bounds of respectable discussion.
- Al Qaeda Strikes Back: Bruce Riedl is a 29-year veteran of the CIA specializing in counter-terrorism and, as of last year, a senior fellow at Brookings. In other words, he's exactly the kind of guy you wish wasn't saying, "Al Qaeda is a more dangerous enemy today than it has ever been before...thanks largely to Washington's eagerness to go into Iraq rather than concentrate on hunting down al Qaeda's leaders, the organization now has a solid base of operations in the badlands of Pakistan and an effective franchise in western Iraq. Its reach has spread throughout the Muslim world, where it has developed a large cadre of operatives, and in Europe, where it can claim the support of some disenfranchised Muslim locals and members of the Arab and Asian diasporas." And that's only from the first paragraph. Of particular note here is Riedl's contention that al Qaeda views American and Iran as something akin to Russia and Germany, and will try to kill two birds with one stone by triggering a war between us.
- Feasible Globalizations (pdf): This is actually an academic paper rather than a think tank report, but when you write the round-up, you can make the rules. Feasible Globalizations is a 2002 paper from heterodox Harvard economist Dani Rodrik, and it's particularly notable in this context for Rodrik's defense -- from the left! -- of temporary guest worker programs, and his very incisive discussion explaining why the politics of immigration favor importing goods rather than labor.
- Back to Muzak?: As a quick warning, I'm going to use this feature to link to rightwing think tank reports as well. Know thy enemy and all that. In this paper, James Gattuso and Thomas Roe from The Heritage Institute argue against the return of the Fairness Doctrine. "Arguments that the Fairness Doctrine is needed because certain types of media are too conservative, too negative, too partisan, or too anything actually strengthen the case against the regulation," the write. "Any law that is targeted at media based on the content of what is being said raises greater constitutional concerns and is much less likely to pass constitutional muster."
- China: Rebalancing Economic Growth (pdf): Writing at the Institute for Internal Economics, Nicholas Lardy examines the gap between the Chinese government's promises to move the country towards consumption-driven growth and their actual efforts to pursue such a path. Currently, China relies on an export model, which is far more problematic for the rest of the world's workforce than a development strategy that relies on the creation and strengthening of larger internal markets. According to Lardy's survey of the evidence, it's likely to remain that way, government rhetoric notwithstanding.
--Ezra Klein
