The Great Debate UK
Glass-Steagall Lite, brewed by Volcker, served by Obama
- Laurence Copeland is a professor of finance at Cardiff University Business School and a co-author of “Verdict on the Crash” published by the Institute of Economic Affairs. The opinions expressed are his own. -
Let me say at the outset that I am far from enthusiastic about either of President Barack Obama’s major policy initiatives: healthcare reform and the banking reform plan announced on Thursday.
But both cases are truly momentous, because both are tests of whether America is an imperfect democracy (like all the others) where government by the people eventually works, more or less, or a totally dysfunctional oligarchy.
Each initiative involves a confrontation with powerful vested economic interests whose lobbyists will no doubt fight long and hard in public and even longer and harder behind closed doors to block the changes.
from The Great Debate:
Obama’s good war goes bad
In the protracted Washington debate over the war in Afghanistan, the most concise analysis so far has come from America's top soldier: "If we don't get a level of legitimacy and governance (there), then all the troops in the world aren't going to make any difference."
Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was speaking two days after Hamid Karzai was declared the winner, by default, in August elections so massively rigged that a U.N.-backed electoral complaints committee threw out about a million Karzai votes. That forced a run-off from which his challenger, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah withdrew, saying the second round would be just as fraudulent as the first.
from The Great Debate:
The lucrative business of Obama-bashing
-- Bernd Debusmann is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own. --
Four days before Barack Obama was sworn into office, a prominent radio talk show host, Rush Limbaugh, told his conservative listeners that a major American publication had asked him to write 400 words on his hopes for the Obama presidency.
Obama risks South-American style economic decline
- Richard Wellings is Deputy Editorial Director at the Institute of Economic Affairs. The opinions expressed are his own.-
Argentina should be an object lesson for the U.S.
A century ago, it was one of the richest countries in the world. Today, it has fallen far behind Europe and North America, after a hundred years marked by long periods of recession.
from The Great Debate:
Obama and the wrong side of history
---Bernd Debusmann is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.---
Ringing words, smoothly delivered: "To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist."
