Jobs expanded in April, with the American private sector back with a vengeance. But medium-term risks abound, especially regarding very weak public finances at the federal, state and local levels due to the massive economic rescue enacted last year. Governments at every level in this country must put forward credible deficit-reduction plans, albeit cautiously, or this […]
Though I now reside in the Rockies, I grew up in New Jersey and get back to the area as often as possible to both visit relatives and indulge in one of my major passions; going to see musicals and plays on Broadway in neighboring New York City. A couple of years ago I had […]
I’ve noticed a couple arguments recently that use the same logic to disprove a causal relationship. The first one comes from Alan Dershowitz: [J Street’s] Executive Director, Jeremy Ben-Ami, has joined the off key chorus of those who falsely claim that Israel, by refusing to make peace with the Palestinians, is placing the lives of […]
My post earlier this week drew attention to the nuclear weapons assistance that Iran almost certainly obtained from China via Pakistan, and the astonishing possibility that China actually tested Pakistan’s first atomic bomb for it at Lop Nur in May 1990. First, on the general question of Chinese nuclear weapons assistance to Pakistan, there’s not […]
A bad problem grows worse: ransom money moves abroad as pirates and Islamists jostle for influence. Members of Hizbul Islam took over the Somali town of Haradhere earlier this week, pushing out the town’s previous pirate rulers. Everything happened without a shot being fired: the pirates gathered their TVs and trucks and simply moved north […]
Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Article 1: “Each nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to transfer to any recipient whatsoever nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or control over such weapons or explosive devices directly, or indirectly; and not in any way to assist, encourage, or induce any non-nuclear-weapon State to manufacture or otherwise […]
Pakistan’s short-sighted foreign policies and military spending will not lead to long-term regional stability.
As a follow-up to my previous post about the Armenian Genocide, I’ll add that Julian Ku of Opinio Juris wrote last week about the broken campaign promise aspect of the issue. As Ku notes, Obama’s campaign website states: The facts are undeniable. An official policy that calls on diplomats to distort the historical facts is […]
April 24 is the date traditionally used to commemorate the Armenian genocide, as it was that day in 1915 that Ottoman officials arrested over 200 Armenians in Constantinople, jump-starting a cascade of atrocities that resulted in countless deaths. However, it wasn’t until last night that I was able to check out the exhibit, “The Armenian […]
Countries with divided democratic government that have to pay off constituencies to hold together coalitions often run up government debt and put at risk not only sovereign creditworthiness, but also economic performance. I have in mind Italy, Japan, Israel and Brazil. India, alas, is the posterchild of this phenomenon. By contrast, governments which alternate between parties or at […]
I’ve been pondering the similarities between the Arizona immigration law and the new Israeli policy of forcefully removing from the West Bank Palestinians who lack appropriate documentation. Apparently, so has Juan Cole. He wrote earlier this week: The Israeli law resembles the one recently enacted in Arizona in one respect. Recently-arrived European Jews are demanding […]
Government debt is mounting all across the developed world. While Emerging Market countries such as China have low debt levels, and Brazil and India are beginning to grow out of their debts, the next crisis (or even the second half of this one) could be a fiscal shock — perhaps even a government bond default — in the industrialized […]
Bill Maher gave some sound advice to the Tea Partiers over the weekend. If you really care about the deficit, he said to them, you’ll start talking about cutting our country’s largest jobs program: defense spending. This advice should also have been considered by the group from the Industrial College for the Armed Forces that […]
In today’s CSFB column on China (see below), Dong Tao and Christiaan Tuntono report that PBoC Governor Zhou Xiaochuan commented that China would like greater monetary policy flexibility in order to combat inflation. Not that inflation is so high in China, but the Asian giant’s return to breakneck rates of growth (11.9% growth year-on-year in 1Q10) may push prices higher. […]