Andy Kessler
9/28/2010

The financial industry has certainly seen slow periods of stock and bond trading and sparse banking before, especially after the dot-com bust. But banks made up for it by inventing high-margin products like collateralized debt obligations, says Kessler. Now it’s hard to imagine mortgage-backed derivatives will add much to Wall Street’s bottom line for many years. There are too many traders, bankers, and salesmen to support the new level of business. Rising interest rates will be the cure for what ails the US economy by driving the dollar higher, commodities back toward their extraction values, and encouraging commitments of capital based on market mechanisms, not the wishes of the government and the Federal Reserve. But that will not be good news for Wall Street, which doesn’t thrive in a rising interest-rate environment.

Kessler, a former hedge fund manager, is the author most recently of “Grumby” (Vigilante, 2010).

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Michael Gerson
9/28/2010

The liberal establishment claims it is anti-Washington, weary of a city that betrays its idealistic aspirations. Yet this same establishment is expanding the role of the very government it claims to dislike, turning to the supposedly-hated Washington for answers to multiple social issues. Demonizing Washington eliminates the need for the administration to explain itself and make concessions, and the American people are sensing contempt from those in leadership who see government as superior to the people. Both conservatives and liberals engage in ironic inconsistencies, but ultimately, insulting the American people is not a fruitful political strategy.

Gerson writes about politics, global health and development, religion and foreign policy.

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David Brooks
9/28/2010

Brooks looks back on what good government looked like in California, where from 1911 to the 1960s its governors were pro-market and pro-business progressive reformers. In addition to their accomplishments in education, business, and public works, they focused on the middle class to build prosperity. But the model is abandoned, and Brooks says California is now in crisis. He cites declines in infrastructure spending and the interests of the coastal affluent trumping those of the inland middle class, to name a few. The solution is a return to the pro-market progressivism that built modern California with a focus on supporting immigrant entrepreneurs, averting state bankruptcy, and unleashing the state’s industrial and agricultural base.

Brooks is a New York Times columnist.

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Anatole Kaletsky
9/27/2010

Asian nations are interested in American politics because Asian leaders believe that the era of American hegemony is ending and polarized politics symbolizes its inability to adapt to global capitalism after the financial crisis. Kaletsky says Chinese economic policy is now serving as a model for other Asian countries. Japan recently chose to follow China in its currency valuation at the cost of irritating America. Instead of obsessing over China’s currency manipulation, America must understand that the rules of global capitalism have been changed for good since Lehman Brothers collapsed. The market is not always right. Sometimes it can be trusted and sometimes government intervention in needed. Kaletsky looks at other world market models and says if we continue to opt for nostalgia and ideology when it comes to economics, “the new model of capitalism will probably be made in China, like so much else in the world these days.”

Kaletsky, the chief economist of a Hong Kong-based investment advisory firm, is the author of “Capitalism 4.0: The Birth of a New Economy in the Aftermath of Crisis.”

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Rufus Phillips
9/27/2010

The administration should be in no doubt that unless corruption in Afghanistan is curbed at the national and local level, we are going to lose the war. Association with the CIA has given some Afghan officials a sense of impunity, which threatens Gen. Petraeus’s hearts-and-minds effort. Fighting corruption doesn’t mean publicly shaming Karzai or dramatically arresting his top officials. Backroom persuasion and pressure by Gen. Petraeus and Karl Eikenberry, the US ambassador, would be more effective.

Phillips is the author of “Why Vietnam Matters: An Eyewitness Account of Lessons Not Learned” (Naval Institute Press, 2008).

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Edward Lazear
9/27/2010

Limiting spending increases to inflation minus 1% would balance the budget in less than a decade, writes Lazear. The inflation-minus-one rule would allow us to grow our way out of our fiscal problems without taxing a higher proportion of GDP. Eventually the deficit would vanish and with taxes remaining at historic levels, there would be no impediment to economic growth. Calling for a rigid rule may seem wishful thinking, but the alternative is a dangerous false choice between high deficits and high taxes. Failing to take a stand now, Lazear argues, will condemn subsequent generations to lower living standards and fewer opportunities.

Lazear, chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers from 2006-2009, is a professor at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business and a Hoover Institution fellow.

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Thomas L. Friedman
9/22/2010

Friedman praises China’s progress and infrastructure not because he wants America to emulate their system but because he is worried about America. He wants us to invest in our future and quit abusing our system. Toxic partisanship and a money-corrupted political class are keeping America from getting things done so that it can remain powerful. We should look at China’s successes objectively and look at ways to cooperate with them while also finding a way to pull ourselves together and find a way to get things done.

Friedman is a New York Times columnist.

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Kathleen Parker
9/22/2010

A new electoral ad, “Mourning in America,” plays smartly off Reagan’s classic “Morning in America” ad. Rather than continue to raise the volume on partisan shouting, the ad taps into the fundamental sadness of a nation stressed and broken by the difficulties of the past few years. Financial crises and the increasingly combative tone over health care, immigration, and other legislative issues have left Americans uncertain and spiritually exhausted. The ad seeks to place responsibility for the current malaise squarely at the feet of the president.

Parker started her column in 1987 when she was a staff writer for The Orlando Sentinel.

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Mortimer Zuckerman
9/21/2010

Zuckerman considers how American families are confronting the decline in the value of their homes and the broader effects of this on the economy. It is not too difficult to understand why demand for housing has declined and will not revive anytime soon given that home ownership is no longer seen as the great, long-term buildup in equity value. This is a disturbing development for those who believe that housing is going to lead America to an economic recovery as it did during the Great Depression and every recession since. Zuckerman argues that the more the government tries to prevent prices from finding an equilibrium, the longer it will take for the economy to begin growing again.

Zuckerman is chairman and editor in chief of US News & World Report.

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