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Financial Times The big winner in this week’s bizarre presidential election is Alan Greenspan, the venerable chairman of the US Federal Reserve Board. Mr Greenspan won because the next president – regardless of whether it is George W Bush or Al Gore – will go into office without authority to do much of anything. To […]

New York Times I do not believe that it is politically feasible to insulate such huge funds from a governmental direction,” Alan Greenspan told the House Ways and Means Committee last week, one day after President Clinton proposed investing a portion of Social Security funds in the stock market. Mr. Greenspan was equally forthright in […]

The Wall Street Journal As America mobilizes for war, Washington must think more clearly about what it wants from American industry. K Street is ablaze with proposed subsidies, loan guarantees, tax breaks, and regulatory relief for industries termed “vital” to the anti-terrorist effort. In war-fevered Washington, politicians of all stripes may be too eager to […]

In the status hierarchy of my profession, the Wall Street economist holds a strangely prominent role. Typically, though not always, he lacks academic standing, analytical achievement, or significant publication. Research is foreign to him; independent thought unknown. His job is mainly to get his name into the papers. At this he works exceptionally hard. And […]

Following the Supreme Court’s dramatic 5 to 4 ruling striking down Nebraska’s partial birth abortion ban in Stenberg v. Carhart, George W. Bush got caught without a thesaurus. Condemning the decision, Bush proclaimed that states should be allowed to enact laws “particularly to end the inhumane practice of ending a life that otherwise could live.” […]

Word came out recently that Dan Kennedy, the talented press critic, will soon be leaving his post at The Boston Phoenix to work on a book about dwarfism. Just in time: A recent article suggests media watchers of Kennedy’s caliber may want to turn their guns on the Phoenix itself, whose sense of journalistic duty […]

Retailers are not expecting a great Christmas season this year. Shoppers have less money in their pockets and more worries about their economic future. The very act of shop-til-you-drop, always a little bizarre as a form of Yuletide expression, feels especially unseemly in wartime, even when rationalized as a patriotic act of economic stimulus. It […]

Broadcast December 14, 2001 One of the things we’re hearing a lot these days from political leaders is “We need to try to get our lives back to normal.” None of us can go back to exactly what we were doing before September 11th, of course, and no one’s suggesting we should stop grieving for […]

Asia | Europe and Russia | Middle East and Africa | The Americas The World Responds Column Archive Asia Fears of Anarchy Amid Taliban Ruins It has been nearly two weeks since the Afghan power sharing agreement was reached in Bonn, Germany, and almost one week since Hamid Karzai, the man designated as Afghanistan’s transitional […]

Broadcast November 16, 2001 We hear a lot about a stimulus package coming out of Congress, eventually. Regardless of what combination of tax cuts and spending increases finally emerges, almost everyone agrees that the government has to spur the economy right now. Alan Greenspan and company can’t do it alone. Cuts in short-term rates are […]