By Paolo von Schirach May 4, 2012 WASHINGTON – A really lousy jobs report. Only 115,000 new jobs created in the US in the month of April. And the unemployment ticked down to 8.1% just because 300,000 Americans dropped out, and so they are no longer counted as unemployed. But the really scary item is the percentage of Americans [...]
By Paolo von Schirach Related story: http://schirachreport.com/index.php/2012/05/02/obama-did-not-need-to-fly-to-kabul-to-announce-new-afghanistan-policy-this-was-a-cheap-publicity-stunt-osamas-death-changed-little-in-this-conflict/ May 3, 2012 WASHINGTON – I stated (see link above) that President Obama is trying to get way too much mileage out of the (otherwise totally appropriate) killing of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan (Operation Neptune Spear) on May 1, 2011. While an important event that allowed some closure with the 9/11 attacks [...]
By Paolo von Schirach May 2, 2012 WASHINGTON – The connection between the killing of Osama bin Laden and the conflict in Afghanistan today exists only in the mind of Obama’s pollsters hoping to score something here at home on the almost forgotten notion that “9/11 started there and Obama brought it to a close”. Of course, [...]
By Paolo von Schirach May 1, 2012 WASHINGTON - In the never ending Greek fiscal debacle saga, everybody’s focus has been on the unfolding drama. Will this Eurozone-IMF rescue package work? Or will it be the next one, until finally something that would stick is cobbled together? But, while not unreasonable, this focus on crisis management and related countermeasures took all [...]
By Paolo von Schirach April 26, 2012 WASHINGTON - Trying to minimize the Secret Service Colombia prostitution scandal, as President Obama did on a TV show (“just a couple of knuckleheads”) may be politically expedient, just a few months before the elections. But it is not a good way of disposing of an egregious episode revealing a surprising level [...]
By Paolo von Schirach April 14, 2012 WASHINGTON – Sebastian Mallaby, (The Buffettt rule is a sorry excuse for tax reform, The Financial Times, April 13, 2012), correctly points out that President Obama’s insistence in pushing the idea of tax increases for the rich (the “Buffett rule”) is bogus tax reform. Surely we could and probably [...]
By Paolo von Schirach April 10, 2012 WASHINGTON – By dropping out of the Republican Party nomination process, Rick Santorum did the only sensible thing he has done in a campaign founded mostly on preposterous, sentimental and hopelessly archaic themes. The scary part is not that another out of step with the modern world politician wanted to run on family [...]
By Paolo von Schirach April 8, 2012 WASHINGTON – The Wall Street Journal editorial page wonders why the Obama administration is so timid regarding the ongoing repression in Syria. The WSJ is puzzled by how long it took for Washington to publicly state that president Bashar Assad has to go and is even more surprised [...]
By Paolo von Schirach April 3, 2012 WASHINGTON – After primary wins in Maryland, the District of Colombia and Wisconsin, it appears that Mitt Romney has turned a corner. It seems now that the Republicans are finally getting the message that this acrimonious and bitterly contested primary season is not advancing their objective of creating a compelling anti-Obama [...]
By Paolo von Schirach March 25, 2012 WASHINGTON- The following is an excerpt from a The Financial Times article, (Once more over a barrel, March 24-25, 2012), that discusses in detail the economic impact of higher oil prices and what governments can do and have done about them.