By Paolo von Schirach May 12, 2012 WASHINGTON - A Fox TV interview by John Stossel with Luis Fortuno, the Governor of Puerto Rico, made me curious to learn more. This boysh (just 51 years old, and looking more like 31) Republican has had the courage to meet head on the challenge of a gigantic state debt [...]
By Paolo von Schirach May 7, 2012 WASHINGTON – Watching on C-SPAN, (the meritorious public affairs TV channels), a session of the US House Budget Committee was quite depressing. There was no real debate on the issues aimed at getting to some constructive policy outcome. I heard only prepackaged slogans and a lot of predictable posturing.
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 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 Related story: http://schirachreport.com/index.php/2012/04/08/why-is-obama-so-timid-about-syria-because-there-is-no-more-money-to-get-into-a-confrontation-that-might-escalate-into-another-conflict-pentagon-already-on-a-cost-cutting-path-this-dog-wont-bite/ April 25, 2012 WASHINGTON – Fouad Ajami is a keen observer of key developments in the Middle East and US policy towards them. He just wrote a compelling piece in The Wall Street Journal, (America’s Syria Abdication, April 25, 2012), in which he deplores US lack of leadership in [...]
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 9, 2012 WASHINGTON – Professor Walter Russell Mead believes that all this talk about “American decline” is incorrect. (The Myth of America’s Decline, The Wall Street Journal, April 9, 2012). The real issue –he claims– is the decline of the Trilateral System, ( the US, Europe and Japan), that shaped the [...]
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 [...]