Opinion News Review

March Madness gone wild (The Christian Science Monitor)

admin — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 05:10:09 +0000

Hurrah for the city of Detroit: The beleaguered car capital gets to polish up its chrome for a national TV audience this weekend as it hosts college basketball’s Final Four and the national championship game.

Assessing Obama’s First Trip

admin — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 23:00:10 +0000

But even at a moment of great crisis, summits and state visits tend to be more about taking pictures than making policy. Whatever agreements will be reached have probably already been worked out by lower-level officials, and will be expressed in diplomatic statements that are vague enough to let everyone declare victory.

Too much power

admin — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 17:11:27 +0000

Too much power

Editorial: Quinn’s plan offers extravagant holiday

admin — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 16:00:07 +0000

One of the reasons Gov. Pat Quinn wants to boost the Illinois income tax is that the state is not bringing in enough money. His various recommendations would capture more than $4 billion in extra funds next year, helping to close a big fiscal deficit. Given the state’s alleged shortage of cash, it’s hard to understand why the governor would also cheerfully give up revenue it is already getting. But that’s exactly what Quinn wants to do.

His idea is a back-to-school sales tax holiday every August—exempting clothing and shoes that cost less than $100 per item, as well as school supplies. It has been tried in several other states, including Texas and Massachusetts, and parents and retailers both like it.

Quinn thinks forgoing sales taxes makes particular sense during the current recession, since it would not only “make life easier for struggling Illinois families,” it would “help spur the state’s economy.”

Although parents will definitely save some cash, it’s not clear the state’s economy will gain much. Most of the sales, after all, would take place sooner or later anyway, since kids outgrow clothes and require new notebooks. The tax break will just move a lot of these purchases into one 10-day period.

Snip and duck

admin — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 07:20:12 +0000

A couple of decades ago, the trend in Western medicine was to discourage parents from having their newborn sons’ penises circumcised, a dramatic turnaround from the trend of a couple of millennia ago. But trend cycles have a way of speeding up, and we’re already back to doctors saying biblical Abraham might have had the right idea after all, though he undertook the procedure at a more advanced age.

What can the G20 achieve?

admin — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 23:40:09 +0000

Thousands of people have been protesting in London, Berlin and Frankfurt ahead of next week’s G20 summit. What do you think are the most pressing issues facing the world’s economy?

In London the Put People First alliance of 150 charities and unions marched from Embankment to Hyde Park for a rally to demand action on poverty, climate change and jobs.

In the run up to the summit, the BBC World Service and World TV are hosting an edition of Global Questions. On the panel are businessman Victor Chu, founder member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee DeAnne Julius, Russian politician Alexander Lebedev, economist Adam Posen, and the Archbishop of York John Sentamu.
Find out more about the BBC programme, Global Questions

The G20 will meet on Thursday and some of the options the leaders may discuss include further interest rate cuts and government spending, stronger international regulation of banks and financial institutions, and preventing a slide towards protectionism.

What do you think is the point of the summit? Is this the best way to resolve the worldwide economic crisis? What is the most important thing governments can do? How have you been personally affected by the economic crisis?

Read the full story

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Systemic Task

admin — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 15:50:10 +0000

“HAPPY FAMILIES are all alike,” Tolstoy wrote. “Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” And so it is with financial booms and busts. The prosperity we enjoyed until last year looked like previous upswings: easy credit, rapid financial innovation, appreciating asset prices and — finally and fatally — a certain blindness to risk. The current crash, however, has presented U.S. policymakers with original problems. Just as the Panic of 1907 highlighted the need for a Federal Reserve System and the Great Depression called forth federal deposit insurance, the burning issue today is what to do about institutions — such as American International Group, Bear Stearns or Lehman Brothers — that are not banks but are so large and so intertwined with other institutions that their collapse would threaten the entire system.

Rev up the small-business engine (The Christian Science Monitor)

admin — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 06:50:53 +0000

Next week, leaders of the Group of 20 nations will focus on big issues – more stimulus, more regulation, easier credit – to end a world recession. If they really want to create jobs, though, they need to think small, as in small business.

Small companies crank out jobs for workers and revenues for governments. They have produced 70 percent of net new American jobs over the last decade. Globally, 80 percent of governments take in a majority of their revenues from such enterprises.

“Economic recovery will be driven in large part by America’s small businesses,” the White House said in a statement last week – as it announced plans to increase access to government-backed loans to small businesses and reduce loan fees.

No doubt, the world’s corner retailers and restaurateurs, suppliers and service companies depend on credit access to manage their cash flow and grow their businesses. Relieving the worldwide crunch on credit has to be a top priority for the G-20, which is made up of the world’s leading industrialized and emerging markets.

But the G-20 must also be mindful that the road leading to start-ups and small-business recovery has to be paved with more than credit. Literally, it must consist of modern highways, rails, and ports that speed goods to market (the US has considerable catching up to do here). It must avoid the potholes of crime and corruption, which discourage business investment (ask Russia about this).

Investment in research and development encourages innovation that spawns new businesses. A G-20 country such as India is benefiting from this, though the US – with its geographic clusters of universities, businesses, and venture capital firms – is still the innovation leader. Meanwhile, flexibility in hiring and firing keeps small businesses nimble (France, take note).

Another factor is how much red tape an entrepreneur has to battle in order to turn an idea into a going concern, and keep it going. The World Bank, through the International Finance Corporation, actually tracks this battle.

Its latest survey, “Doing Business 2009,” shows that governments are moving in the right direction, steadily removing unnecessary regulatory barriers.

Among the large emerging markets, China leads in red-tape reforms, making it easier to enforce contracts, pay taxes, and get credit.

But the gap between leaders and laggards is still wide. Among the G-20 countries, the US is at the top (No. 3 in the World Bank’s survey of 181 countries), while Indonesia ranks near the bottom (No. 129).

Two countries that will be at the London meeting illustrate the growth that can come when governments clear regulatory weeds that choke start-ups.

In 2002, Mexico passed a law reducing the number of procedures required to start most kinds of business from 15 to 2. The result, according to a 2008 World Bank study, was a flow of new businesses that increased jobs by 2.8 percent.

Not long ago, Saudi Arabia required start-ups to have at least $100,000 in capital – the highest mandated level in the world. It recently abolished the requirement, and the number of start-ups nearly doubled.

Freeing up credit will help small businesses grow. But their health depends on so much more.

But Where’s the Exit Strategy?

admin — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 23:30:10 +0000

Obama insisted that the commitment to Afghanistan isn’t open-ended: “Going forward, we will not blindly stay the course. Instead, we will set clear metrics to measure progress and hold ourselves accountable. We’ll consistently assess our efforts to train Afghan Security Forces, and our progress in combating insurgents. We will measure the growth of Afghanistan’s economy, and its illicit narcotics production. And we will review whether we are using the right tools and tactics to make progress towards accomplishing our goals.”

Voice of the people, part 2, march 28

admin — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 15:20:26 +0000

Paying the Medicaid bills

The Illinois nursing home community commends Gov. Pat Quinn for his plan to continue the current level of funding for facilities plus setting a 30-day Medicaid payment schedule in his proposed budget.

This will protect the health care of more than 52,000 elderly Medicaid-dependent residents. We thank him for promising that the state will pay its bills on time.

Many Illinois nursing homes have not received Medicaid payments for the last six months and it has been difficult to keep the doors open.