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61. Obama Turns FDR Upside Down

Author:
Lawrence B. Lindsey
Publication Date:
06-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
Two AEI scholars have recently assessed the merits of Senator Barack Obama's approach to fixing the Social Security system's problems. In a March On the Issues, Andrew G. Biggs argued that the senator's plan would not fix the system's long-term problems and would impose significant costs on the economy as a whole. To read Biggs's article, visit www.aei.org/publication27704/. In June, Lawrence B. Lindsey wrote that requiring higher-end workers to pay additional taxes without getting additional benefits linked to their extra contributions would be “a big step toward turning Social Security from a contributory pension scheme into just another welfare program.” Below, Lindsey spells out the details.
Topic:
Economics, Political Economy, and Politics
Political Geography:
United States

62. Let's Stop Being Gloomy About Europe

Author:
Paul De Grauwe
Publication Date:
05-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
Pessimism has been rampant in many EU-countries over the past decade, largely fed by lagging productivity growth in the EU since the late 1990s and a perception that the US has a superior economic model. This perception has led to the view that the only way to restore higher levels of productivity growth is by introducing deep structural reforms in the EU, making goods and labour markets more flexible. This paper presents the argument that such pessimism is excessive: a significant part of the productivity growth differential between the US and the EU is cyclical, and is already turning around. In addition, there are areas in which the EU is structurally better prepared than the US to face the challenges of globalisation.
Topic:
Political Economy
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

63. Tipping Point

Author:
John H. Makin
Publication Date:
08-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
The annual report of the Bank of International Settlements (BIS)—the central bankers' central bank—which appeared in late June, was somewhat schizophrenic. On the one hand, the BIS called for world interest rates to rise in order to deal with a “clear and present threat” from global inflation while, on the other hand, it warned that the global economy may be close to a “tipping point” into a “slowdown severe enough to transform the current period of rising inflation into a period of falling prices.” The simultaneous rise in oil prices and the fall in yields in government securities occurring as the BIS released this ambivalent statement captured well the tensions inherent in the stagflationary crosscurrents facing the global economy. Against this ominous background, the release of the BIS report coincided with the onset of a global bear market in equities.
Topic:
Economics, Markets, Oil, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
United States

64. More Panic

Author:
John H. Makin
Publication Date:
10-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
Over the past several months as central banks and treasuries have struggled to manage a financial panic and avoid or diminish its soon-to-appear devastating impact on the global economy, I have often thought about the efforts of two great economists to understand the lessons of the Great Depression. John Maynard Keynes's monumental General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, published in 1936, showed how a failure to understand the nature of the demand for money contributed to the Great Depression. “The importance of money essentially flows from being a link between the present and the future,” Keynes said.
Topic:
Economics, Markets, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
United States

65. Print Money and Cut the Payroll Tax

Author:
John H. Makin
Publication Date:
12-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
President-elect Barack Obama faces the most difficult economic challenge confronting an incoming American president since the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt seventy-six years ago in 1932. When he assumes office on January 20, Obama will need to act decisively with heretofore unprecedented fiscal policy steps, in conjunction with measures by the Federal Reserve to increase the money supply and lower long-term interest rates. All of this must be done to help contain and reverse the accelerating global slowdown by halting the rapidly deepening American recession. We can only hope that other national leaders and central banks will follow suit.
Topic:
Economics, Markets, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
United States and America

66. A Postcolonial-Feminist Alternative to Neoliberal Self/Other Relations

Author:
L.H.M. Ling
Publication Date:
03-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The New School Graduate Program in International Affairs
Abstract:
The neoliberal 'good life' demands one, unequivocal condition: convert or be disciplined. Conversion requires wholesale integration of the neoliberal Self's policies, practices, and institutions at all sites of public policy-making for the Other, regardless of local histories, cultures, or desires. Discipline comes through economic, political, and sometimes military 'conditionalities' from the Self to the 'non-compliant' Other. That both conversion and discipline mean a kind of annihilation for the Other is, for the neoliberal Self, a necessary risk. This includes the rise of rival camps of hypermasculinity that lead, invariably, to perpetual cycles of competition and conflict. A 'borderlands' approach offers an alternative. Similar to 'traveling' theory from feminists of color, this notion of 'borderlands' also draws from pre-colonial experiences such as the ancient Silk Roads where peoples, societies, languages, religions, and ways of life mixed, merged, and moved. 'Borderlands', in short, exemplifies a multiple worlds ontology to world politics. Three cases illustrate the pitfalls of neoliberal Self/Other relations and why we need to move to the 'borderlands': (1) the Asian financial crisis (1997-1998), (2) US corporate corruption (2001-2002), and (3) the 9/11 Commission Report (2004).
Topic:
International Relations, Gender Issues, Political Economy, Post Colonialism, and Political Theory
Political Geography:
United States

67. U.S.-China Cooperation on Clean and Efficient Transportation

Publication Date:
05-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
Because of their significant contribution to global demand for improved living standards, meaningful actions by the United States and China on transportation and energy will be important in any effort to reduce global consumption of traditional energy sources. Together the United States and China consume 40% of the world's energy and are responsible for 50% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. Given their economic size and impact on global markets, it is imperative that the U.S. and China join in a mutually beneficial process.
Topic:
Energy Policy, Environment, International Cooperation, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
United States and China

68. Der kollektive "Buddenbrooks-Effekt"

Author:
Christoph Deutschmann
Publication Date:
05-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
Abstract:
The paper views the current financial crisis in light of long-term structural socioeconomic changes in advanced industrial societies. In Western Europe, the United States and Japan, the period of economic prosperity after the Second World War led to a remarkable accumulation of wealth among the middle class that had surprisingly little effect on the substantial fortunes of the wealthiest upper class. This affluence gave rise to pension and investment funds emerging as a new type of collective actor in global financial markets, while the economy was marked by increasing instability, declining growth rates and financial crises. The paper tries to clarify the interconnections between these phenomena using the framework of a multilevel analysis that culminates in a model I call the “collective Buddenbrooks effect” (“Buddenbrooks” being a family saga by Thomas Mann): Structural upward social mobility will lead to an increasing imbalance in capital markets, since the volume of financial assets looking for profitable investment will rise as the social reservoir of solvent debtors and promising investment opportunities decline. Advanced industrial economies are thus characterized by a bias towards capital export and excessive financial liquidity, with the well-known consequences of low economic growth rates and the danger of speculative bubbles on global capital markets. The middle class that originally benefitted from postwar prosperity is negatively affected, too. I argue that the current crisis cannot be understood sufficiently without taking this structural socioeconomic background into account.
Topic:
Economics, International Political Economy, International Trade and Finance, Political Economy, and Political Theory
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, and Europe

69. Energy Interests and Alliances: China, America and Africa

Author:
Danila Bochkarev, Angelica Austin, and Willem van der Geest
Publication Date:
08-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
EastWest Institute
Abstract:
In the strategic policy communities of both the United States and China, there has been a knee-jerk blurring between competition in commerce between U.S. and Chinese energy firms and the potential for strategic competition by one country to deny resources to the other. A senior State Department official has described this sort of reaction as “exaggerated”. But the suspicion is there and it is ill-founded. It serves the interests of neither country. On the contrary, as this EWI Policy Paper suggests, energy security can become a rallying point in an otherwise difficult relationship. The two countries are now intensifying their interest and activities not just in each other's domestic energy sector but also in each other's role in a system of global energy security.
Topic:
Emerging Markets, Energy Policy, Political Economy, and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, and China

70. The “People” in the PLA: Recruitment, Training, and Education in China's 80-Year-Old Military

Author:
Justin Liang
Publication Date:
01-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:
On September 28, 2007, more than 60 leading experts on China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) convened at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, for a 2-day discussion on “The 'People' in the PLA: Re¬cruitment, Training, and Education in China's 80-Year-Old Military.” The 2007 PLA Conference, conducted by The National Bureau of Asian Research and the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College, sought to investigate the 80-year-old military's human infrastructure, identifying trends in PLA recruitment, education and training, demographics, and historical perspectives.
Topic:
International Relations and Political Economy
Political Geography:
United States and Asia