In a widely-read statement in his annual foundation letter, Bill Gates took an unabashedly optimistic approach to the world this week. Not only did he tout the massive material progress evident everywhere in the world over the past decades, but he also predicted that as more countries accelerate their transformation from rural poverty to urban middle class societies, poverty as we know it will disappear within the next two decades. “By 2035, there will be almost no poor countries left in the world,” Gates wrote. “Almost all countries will be what we now call lower-middle income or richer.”
Read moreThe Future of U.S. Manufacturing: More Hubs, Fewer Workers
Few topics have been more fraught than the fate of U.S. manufacturing. The sharp loss of manufacturing jobs since 2008 has triggered legitimate concern that America’s best days may have passed.
Read moreThe Real Future of U.S. Manufacturing
Few topics have been more fraught than the fate of U.S. manufacturing. The sharp loss of manufacturing jobs since 2008 has triggered legitimate concern that America’s best days may have passed.
Read moreWhy Do So Many People Hate Optimists?
Over the past four weeks, we’ve had a run of undeniably good news: the U.S. economic system appears to be on firm ground; more people have the pace of overall activity as measured by GDP is at the highest level in two years. And yet, an aura of unease still seems to hover over us.
Read moreWhy Washington's growing irrelevance is good for the country
After three years of sclerosis, Congress is poised to at last pass an actual budget. We’ve been so consumed with the dysfunction of the parties on Capitol Hill that this feat appears significant. In fact, it should be routine. Yet in the context of the past few years, it is anything but.
Read moreThe real issues behind the minimum wage debate
In his speech at the Center for American Progress this week, President Obama devoted considerable time to an issue suddenly much in discussion: the minimum wage. This is not a new debate. In fact, it neatly echoes the last time Congress raised the minimum wage, in 2007, which echoed the debates before that.
Read moreThe Youth Unemployment Crisis Might Not Be a Crisis
There’s no doubting that worldwide, kids are out of work. In the United States alone, the unemployment rate for 15 to 24-year-olds is about 16 percent, nearly twice the national average. In parts of Europe, the figures are much worse, with a whopping 56 percent youth unemployment rate in Spain alone — representing about 900,000 people. But do these high numbers represent a global labor market crisis that imperils future growth, as the headlines warn? Maybe not. Maybe instead, they’re evidence of a generation of college graduates determined not to settle, which bodes well for our future.
Read moreColumn: Tweeting our way forward
Twitter's initial public offering last week was everything that Facebook's botched offering a year and a half ago was not: the stock was reasonably priced; management wooed investors; and the company neither promised the moon nor the stars, and was rewarded with a substantial amount of cash raised, a stock that went up more than 75 percent, and a valuation of $25 billion.
Read moreColumn: Healthcare.gov is just the beginning
The Obamacare blame game is in full swing, and without other news to fill pages andairtime, it's likely to continue for some time. Attention is shifting from the myriad problems with the official website Healthcare.gov, and toward the health plans that are being canceled, even though President Obama promised that they would not be.
Read moreA Mayor is Only as Good as His City
The New York City mayoral race is entering its final days, and it seems all but certain that Bill de Blasio will be the new master of City Hall. That’s prompted anxiety among some in New York, best encapsulated by an ad run by Republican challenger Joseph Lhota warning that the city would revert to a 1970s crime-ridden cesspit if de Blasio is elected.
Read moreCanceling the debt ceiling apocalypse
Before we begin, let it be said that the looming possibility of the U.S.'s default on its own debt is a not-insignificant issue. Let it also be said that the U.S. government may be unwilling to pay interest on its multi-trillion dollar publicly-held debt as of mid-October, and that this carries substantial risks. And, finally, let it be said that this is something we should most definitely avoid.
Read moreAlibaba Looks West
Washington may once again be careening toward an abyss of its own making. It makes good theater, but for now we don't know how or if it will fundamentally shape our lives. So what will? Half a world away, a Chinese company is considering a public offering.
Read moreFed Tells Markets: There is No Certainty
So the Federal Reserve did not taper after all, as we know from its mini-bombshell of an announcement on September 18th. Having signaled in May and June that the central bank was likely to pare back its monthly purchases of $85 billion in mortgage and treasury bonds, the bank and its chairman Ben Bernanke essentially said “Never mind,” and decided that now was not the time after all.
Read moreThe Upside: Fed's Non-Decision Means Brace for Volatility
Reuters Columnist Zachary Karabell looks at what the Fed decision to hold off on tapering says about the dysfunction in Washington.
Read moreA recovery without a home
Five years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the onset of the 2008-2009 financial crisis, the U.S. housing market is at last starting to thrive. It has, in fact, been steadily improving over the past years, and that trend has only accelerated of late. Housing is widely perceived as a key ingredient to a healthy economy, and so the revival in the housing market has been heralded as a positive step for an American system that has been sluggish at best. Similar trends in the United Kingdom and parts of the EU are greeted as positives as well.
Read moreObama, Syria, and the decline of the imperial presidency
In 1973, Arthur Schlesinger wrote about the tendency in American history for the president to assume sweeping powers in times of war and crisis. The balance of power established by the Constitution gets upended; Congress and the courts take a back seat; and the executive makes decisions about life and death largely unchecked. He called this "the imperial presidency." Today, with President Obama turning to Congress to endorse a military strike on Syria, the imperial presidency is beginning to wane.
Read moreOur imperial disdain for the emerging world
August this year has been exceptionally unkind to the emerging world. We know that Egypt has been plunged into political and economic turmoil, yet that is only the most extreme case. Elsewhere, stories proliferate about economic slowdowns in Peru and China, and protests in Brazil and Turkey (among others).
Read moreColumn: Fannie, Freddie and our flawed 'Ownership Society'
More than four years ago, President Obama assumed office promising dramatic reform to the housing market. After all, it was the housing market that triggered the financial crisis, and the vast proliferation of low-quality loans that had fueled the housing bubble. But politics delayed those reforms, and now the president is reopening the issue with a call to wind down the two main federal mortgage agencies,
Read moreThe Upside: NYC needs entrepreneurs, foreign investors-Hidary
Reuters Columnist Zachary Karabell talks to entrepreneur & New York City mayoral candidate Jack Hidary about how the country's largest city can grow its economy by welcoming tech startups from abroad.
Read moreWhat difference does it make who runs the Fed?
As this week's release of government numbers on unemployment and jobs highlight, the American economy is puttering along in the slow lane. And while few things in life are more frustrating than being stuck in the passenger seat of that car, it certainly beats crashing.
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