By Paolo von Schirach May 19, 2013 WASHINGTON – Much is said about the magic powers of well crafted federal public policy to “create jobs”. Yet, the record is not so good. Plenty of honest attempts; modest results. But how about the opposite? How about a mix of bad policies that tend to depress job creation?
By Paolo von Schirach May 17, 2013 WASHINGTON – The most telling evidence of Obama’s weakness is that B or C category ”scandals” have monopolized the attention of most media and commentators. We have the resurfacing of the once dead Benghazi terror attack story. This is something that seemed to have legs during the political campaign [...]
By Paolo von Schirach May 3, 2013 WASHINGTON – I wonder whether the elected leaders of perennially weak and now impoverished Southern Europe really grasp what is going on in their own countries. They routinely talk about their totally indigenous economic troubles as if they were unexpected calamities imposed on them by insensitive and selfish Northern European partners [...]
By Paolo von Schirach April 30, 2013 WASHINGTON – Economists Kenneth Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart came up with a major book, (This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly), in which they pointed out how very large levels of structural public debt undermine economic vitality. Well, it turns out that some of the calculations used [...]
By Paolo von Schirach April 29, 2013 WASHINGTON – Recently The Economist had a story pointing out that the humble automobile is experiencing some kind of a technological rebirth. There are new fuel efficiencies and new technologies that will transform our use of the car. Soom enough, (look at Google’s experimentations), cars will drive themselves, [...]
By Paolo von Schirach April 24, 2013 WASHINGTON - Recently the WSJ provided a lengthy insight into Germany’s role in determining how the long and painful fiscal crisis affecting Southern Europe has been and will be handled. But, in fact, we already know the issues. The weak countries at Europe’s periphery, (Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy and [...]
By Paolo von Schirach March 10, 2013 TRAVELING BETWEEN EMERGING MARKETS – In the developing world, a few decades ago the cry was for “Independence” and “Freedom”, and then “Justice”. Now it is mostly about the more prosaic yet far more tangible issue of “Good Governance”. Governance is a catch-all term that encompasses quite a few things: [...]
By Paolo von Schirach February 24, 2013 LUSAKA, Zambia - As Africa is moving forward, South Africa, the Continent’s historic economic power house, seems to be falling behind, having lost its ability to modernize. The huge South African mining industry, the country’s main economic driver, is in trouble. Plenty of recent stories about violent labor unrest, in a few instances punctuated by violence and [...]
By Paolo von Schirach February 19, 2013 WASHINGTON – The “birth defect” of Obama’s Affordable Care Act, (universally known as Obamacare), is that it tackles the almost impossible topic of US health care coverage and out of control spending from the wrong end. It tries to reduce spending by reapportioning the bill. The problem is [...]
By Paolo von Schirach February 17, 2013 WASHINGTON – The usually sober The Economist, after providing a scathing indictment of the Italian society and its ruling elites, (Who can save Italy?, Feb. 16 – 22, 2013), engages in the worn –and in this case almost silly– wishful thinking whereby a major challenge (fixing Italy) is [...]