By Paolo von Schirach May 14, 2012 WASHINGTON – An item in the May 14 News Hour on PBS caught my attention, for two reasons. The first one was the issue itself: long term unemployment in America, something that is becoming a real tragedy, with millions of people out of a job for so long that [...]
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 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 February 14, 2012 WASHINGTON – General Electric is hosting a major event in Washington, DC, titled American Competitiveness: What Works. Given GE’s convening power, lots of interesting people from industry, government, the media and think tanks are attending and speaking. And mostly the panelists and speakers talk about the right things. [...]
By Paolo von Schirach February 3, 2012 WASHINGTON – Famed Harvard economist and co-author, with Carmen Reinhart, of “This Time is Different“, a major work on financial crises, writes that America needs voters who understand economic policy. In his The Financial Times contribution, (Our ignorance will yield more crises in capitalism, February 2, 2012), to [...]
By Paolo von Schirach January 26, 2012 WASHINGTON – It is quite depressing to observe Washington total political paralysis, accompanied by cheap and openly divisive populism. Admittedly, it is difficult to govern when the two parties are so deeply divided. But the president has to try. This is what he was elected to do and what he gets paid [...]
By Paolo von Schirach January 6, 2012 WASHINGTON – So what is it going to be? Do we cut Medicare or the Pentagon budget? Says president Barack Obama: First we cut defense, and then we shall see. America is voting in a few months and there are more votes for me in keeping Medicare as is. No national [...]
By Paolo von Schirach January 3, 2012 WASHINGTON – All the Republican would be presidents promise vigorous pro-growth policies that will unleash old fashioned, time tested Yankee ingenuity. The campaign narratives are that, after having been constrained by anti-business policies pushed by closet socialist Barack Obama, with proper leadership, American enterprise will burst once more into the [...]
By Paolo von Schirach December 18, 2011 WASHINGTON – The topic of the ABC News Sunday morning talk show today was the size of the US Government: “Is it too big, or not big enough?” Supposedly this is the focus of “The Great National Debate” in America, and the leading theme of the forthcoming 2012 national elections. [...]