The Great Debate UK
from The Great Debate:
Washington’s next challenge
By James Pethokoukis
The opinions expressed are his own.
Reuters invited leading economists to reply to Larry Summers' ope-d on his reaction to the debt ceiling deal. We will be publishing the responses here. Below is Reuters Breakingviews columnist James Pethokoukis’ reply. Here are responses from Laura Tyson, James Hamilton, Robert Frank, Russ Roberts, Benn Steil and Donald Boudreaux as well.
Like Larry Summers, I have a “multifaceted reaction” to Washington's debt ceiling and budget deal. In fact, I have the exact same multifaceted reaction, except driven by completely different rationales.
1. Like Summers, I feel relief -- but not because the agreement averted default and avoided harsh austerity. While the package doesn't fundamentally change America's fatal fiscal trajectory, it keeps the legislative momentum headed in the right direction with a focus on reducing debt via spending cuts rather than tax increases.
Nor do I think the process was some sort of “shabby spectacle.” The democratic process is always messy, and frequently driven by a sense of crisis. But it was designed to prevent tyranny; not to promote efficiency. And the recent House ban on earmarks ensured much of the haggling revolved around policy rather than political favors.
from The Great Debate:
We need a new Pakistan-U.S. relationship
By Farhana Qazi
The opinions expressed are her own.
For the United States, Bin Laden is history. He is an after-thought. And it is almost certain that the Central Intelligence Agency has moved onto its next target. But for Pakistan, the death of the terrorist kingpin is not over as U.S policy makers debate Islamabad’s role in the war on terrorism.
Since the news of Bin Laden’s death, Islamabad’s elites are being attacked and accused of harboring a famed terrorist leader. In his latest piece for The Daily Beast, Salman Rushdie boldly stated that Pakistan should be declared a terrorist state for playing a “deadly game” with America unless Pakistan’s intelligence apparatus, or the ISI, can offer “satisfactory answers.” Rushdie is right to demand an answer but wrong to insist that Pakistan be isolated for protecting proxies and pariahs.
from Breakingviews:
Japan reminds strapped officials they need buffer
By James Pethokoukis
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.
WASHINGTON -- When your credit card is nearly maxed out, dealing with emergencies can be tricky. A massive rebuilding effort may stretch Japan to its financial limits. Politicians in Washington and other overspending capitals should take note of the warning.
from The Great Debate:
Japan shows another side of the press
By Anya Schiffrin
The opinions expressed are her own.
Sitting in Japan in the days after the Friday earthquake and watching the official broadcaster NHK cover the disaster has been an unusual experience. There has been the typical blanket television coverage of this tragedy but the flavor of the reporting is different than it would be in the U.S. “Restrained” is how one friend described it. Over and over we’ve seen the same awful footage of the enormous dirty wave sweeping up cars and houses as it inches slowly along the land.
There are the inevitable interviews with displaced people and experts in their offices. But there are very few graphics or charts, no catchy logos and certainly no dead or injured on the screen. Just as U.S. presidents take off their ties when they visit the troops, Japanese officials appearing on television wear the blue uniforms of someone doing physical labor but with their logo of their ministry or office sewn on their pocket. “It’s theatre” a Japanese friend said dismissively as we watched television last night. But the purposefulness and determination of the government officials were evident — and even my skeptical friend agreed that this commitment would be well-received by the electorate.
from The Great Debate:
Digital media and the Arab spring
By Philip N. Howard, author of "The Digital Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Information Technology and Political Islam," and director of the Project on Information Technology and Political Islam at the University of Washington. The opinions expressed are his own.
President Obama identified technology as one of the key variables that enabled and encouraged average Egyptians to protest. Digital media didn’t oust Mubarak, but it did provide the medium by which soulful calls for freedom have cascaded across North Africa and the Middle East. It is difficult to know when the Arab Spring will end, but we can already say something about the political casualties, long-term regional consequences and the modern recipe for democratization.
from Chrystia Freeland:
Why emerging market countries have an edge
Tony Hsieh and Sanjay Madan wrote the program to create LinkExchange over a weekend. Before the following weekend, they had more than a dozen websites participating in their ad-sharing network. Over the next several weeks they worked frantically on the project. They refined their business in real time, learning—quickly!—from their mistakes. Less than a year later, the Harvard grads were offered $1 million (U.S.) for the company. Less than a year after that, they sold it for $265 million.
That was 1996. Since then, this story of development on the run has become commonplace. Hacker culture is now part of the broader culture: “beta test” is in the dictionary, and we accept innovative, albeit imperfect, beta releases even from multibillion-dollar global behemoths such as Google. We’re prepared to accept flaws because the tech revolution is progressing so quickly that it is usually better to be fast, and possibly wrong, than to try to be perfect and end up being slow. By the time your flawless product is released, it will likely be obsolete.
from The Great Debate:
Why economists are part of the problem
Charles Ferguson is the director of Inside Job, a documentary about the financial crisis. The opinions expressed are his own.
Both Glenn Hubbard and Laura Tyson (pictured above, left to right) have played major roles in American economic policy, and both also, unfortunately, exemplify the disturbing, opaque conflicts of interest that pervade the economics discipline.
