AMERICAN.COM: A Magazine of Ideas, Online
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Confusing Cause and Effect in the Fiscal Policy Debate
Our debate should not be about income redistribution or debt reduction but rather about how to achieve broadly shared growth — because when we achieve that, history shows that the deficit and the middle class will benefit.
Lessons from a Feminist Paradise on Equal Pay Day
Sweden seems to be an egalitarian, feminist utopia. So why are American women ahead of their Swedish counterparts in breaking through the glass ceiling?
North Korea's Bluffing Blowhard
Should we still be worried even if North Korea’s Kim Jong-un is only bluffing? The best policy may be to humor him.
Financial Innovation — Illusory and Real
Some ‘innovations’ are merely new names for ways of lowering credit standards, running up leverage, and increasing risk. How do we know what’s real and what’s not?
Grow the Economy through Small Businesses
The majority of private sector job growth is from small businesses, and reforming licensing requirements is a promising route to increased business formation.
Cuba Sees an Opening
The State Department is reportedly considering dropping Cuba’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism. Doing so would hand Havana a major – and unmerited – diplomatic victory.
The Next Real Estate Bubble: Farmland
Farmers have been taking on mounting debt, creating an unsustainable increase in land prices and risking a crash that would ripple through our economy.
Latins Rally to Restore Human Rights Panel
Latin American countries have finally rallied and rejected a bid by leftist regimes to silence the region’s human rights watchdog. Now regional democracies must restore the organization’s credibility after years of yielding to Chavistas.
Cyprus’s Imminent Collapse
Any calm bought by the IMF-EU bailout package for Cyprus will be short-lived. Cyprus is all but certain to experience an economic collapse over the next two years, and the country will again question whether it should remain in the euro.
The Shrinking Health Gap
When considering trends in equality, income is important, but health is arguably a prerequisite for all other measures of well-being.
Expecting the Unexpecting
Jonathan Last’s recent book gives an incisive analysis of the plummeting U.S. birth rate's key economic effects.
Two Budgets, One Point of Agreement, and a Third Way
The Senate and House budgets agree that this economy needs more growth and both predict the same growth levels — yet the Senate budget proposes higher spending, taxes, and debt than the House budget. Therein lies an opportunity for the GOP.
Accelerated Learning Would Add Trillions of Dollars in Wealth
If students could complete their education a year faster, the many benefits would include increased personal wealth, decreased government spending, and more sustainable entitlement programs.
March Sanity
For a long while we have not been seeing college basketball at its best — the coaches are unpleasant and the most talented college-age players aren’t playing college ball. Still, I’ll be watching a goodly share of March Madness.