Opinion Articles

How to Save (Or Destroy) Earth

Michael Specter, The New Yorker — 2012-05-15T19:45:00-04:00

Excerpt: "For geophysical scientists, though, Mt. Pinatubo provided the best model in at least a century to help us understand what might happen if humans attempted to ameliorate global warming by deliberately altering the climate of the earth."

Can science reverse climate change? (photo: Urial Sinai/Getty Images)

This week on The New Yorker Out Loud, Michael Specter and Elizabeth Kolbert consider geoengineering solutions to climate change. -- smg/RSN

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Money Unlimited

Jeffrey Toobin, The New Yorker — 2012-05-14T18:18:00-04:00

Toobin writes: "When Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission was first argued before the Supreme Court, on March 24, 2009, it seemed like a case of modest importance. The issue before the Justices was a narrow one."

Supreme Court Justice John Roberts. (photo: AP)

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FOCUS: Colonized by Corporations

Chris Hedges, Truthdig — 2012-05-14T13:45:00-04:00

Hedges writes: "A change of power does not require the election of a Mitt Romney or a Barack Obama or a Democratic majority in Congress, or an attempt to reform the system or electing progressive candidates, but rather a destruction of corporate domination of the political process..."

Truthdig columnist Chris Hedges. (photo: TruthDig)

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Why We Regulate

Paul Krugman, The New York Times — 2012-05-14T11:28:00-04:00

Intro: "One of the characters in the classic 1939 film 'Stagecoach' is a banker named Gatewood who lectures his captive audience on the evils of big government, especially bank regulation - 'As if we bankers don't know how to run our own banks!' he exclaims. As the film progresses, we learn that Gatewood is in fact skipping town with a satchel full of embezzled cash."

Portrait, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, 06/15/09. (photo: Fred R. Conrad/NYT)

Why We Regulate

By Paul Krugman, The New York Times

14 May 12

One of the characters in the classic 1939 film "Stagecoach" is a banker named Gatewood who lectures his captive audience on the evils of big government, especially bank regulation - "As if we bankers don't know how to run our own banks!" he exclaims. As the film progresses, we learn that Gatewood is in fact skipping town with a satchel full of embezzled cash.

As far as we know, Jamie Dimon, the chairman and C.E.O. of JPMorgan Chase, isn't planning anything similar. He has, however, been fond of giving Gatewood-like speeches about how he and his colleagues know what they're doing, and don't need the government looking over their shoulders. So there's a large heap of poetic justice - and a major policy lesson - in JPMorgan's shock announcement that it somehow managed to lose $2 billion in a failed bit of financial wheeling-dealing.

Just to be clear, businessmen are human - although the lords of finance have a tendency to forget that - and they make money-losing mistakes all the time. That in itself is no reason for the government to get involved. But banks are special, because the risks they take are borne, in large part, by taxpayers and the economy as a whole. And what JPMorgan has just demonstrated is that even supposedly smart bankers must be sharply limited in the kinds of risk they're allowed to take on.

FOCUS | Cornel West: "I Want to Be Like Jesus"

Lisa Miller, New York Magazine — 2012-05-13T15:55:00-04:00

Miller writes: "West has said that his Christian beliefs form the most fundamental part of who he is. Earlier, I asked him which of Jesus' disciples he most emulates. 'None of them, really. Nah. 'Cause I want to be like Jesus, I don't want to be like those disciples.'"

Princeton University professor Cornel West speaks in Norfolk, Virginia. (photo: AP)

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Easy Useless Economics

Paul Krugman, The New York Times — 2012-05-11T11:25:00-04:00

Excerpt: "So now we're in another depression, not as bad as the last one, but bad enough. And, once again, authoritative-sounding figures insist that our problems are 'structural,' that they can't be fixed quickly."

Portrait, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, 06/15/09. (photo: Fred R. Conrad/NYT)

Easy Useless Economics

By Paul Krugman, The New York Times

11 May 12

A few days ago, I read an authoritative-sounding paper in The American Economic Review, one of the leading journals in the field, arguing at length that the nation’s high unemployment rate had deep structural roots and wasn’t amenable to any quick solution. The author’s diagnosis was that the U.S. economy just wasn’t flexible enough to cope with rapid technological change. The paper was especially critical of programs like unemployment insurance, which it argued actually hurt workers because they reduced the incentive to adjust.

O.K., there’s something I didn’t tell you: The paper in question was published in June 1939. Just a few months later, World War II broke out, and the United States — though not yet at war itself — began a large military buildup, finally providing fiscal stimulus on a scale commensurate with the depth of the slump. And, in the two years after that article about the impossibility of rapid job creation was published, U.S. nonfarm employment rose 20 percent — the equivalent of creating 26 million jobs today.

So now we’re in another depression, not as bad as the last one, but bad enough. And, once again, authoritative-sounding figures insist that our problems are “structural,” that they can’t be fixed quickly. We must focus on the long run, such people say, believing that they are being responsible. But the reality is that they’re being deeply irresponsible.

FOCUS: Barack Obama Has Evolved!

Frank Rich, New York Magazine — 2012-05-10T13:33:00-04:00

Excerpt: "That's always been the rationale for Obama's dawdling. Don't rock the boat in North Carolina - or Florida or Virginia or Colorado - by speaking out on gay marriage until after November 6 has passed."

President Obama came out in support of same-sex marriage yesterday. (photo: Kristoffer Tripplaar-Pool/Getty Images)

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Why Obama Couldn't Wait

Richard Socarides, The New Yorker — 2012-05-10T11:27:00-04:00

Excerpt: "Even though the waiting was frustrating, President Barack Obama's announcement that he fully supports marriage equality for gay and lesbian Americans is historic."

President Obama tells ABC News he supports same-sex-marriage. (photo: ABC/New York Magazine)

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Choosing Sides in North Carolina

Amy Davidson, The New Yorker — 2012-05-09T17:16:00-04:00

Davidson writes: "In the days before the vote in North Carolina on Amendment 1, which would ban same-sex marriages and civil unions, people on both sides came to believe that they could win."

The passage of North Carolina's may marriage ban has angered many. (photo: Current TV)

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The People's Bishop

Chris Hedges, Truthdig — 2012-05-07T19:05:00-04:00

Hedges writes: "Retired Episcopal Bishop George Packard was arrested in Vietnam Veterans Memorial Plaza in New York City last Tuesday night as he participated in the May 1 Occupy demonstrations. He and 15 other military veterans were taken into custody after they linked arms to hold the plaza against a police attempt to clear it."

Bishop George Packard was one of the first protesters to climb over the fence and occupy the Duarte lot. (photo: Osvaldo Ribeiro Filho)

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