Forbes.com

To understand America's economic future, it helps to look at some of our largest trading partners. Will we move towards a smaller state, a more egalitarian economy or both?

Let's say all goes well and we manage to reform our health care system so that the number of uninsured Americans falls close to zero. Given the political constraints facing the Obama administration, assume we do this through some slapdash approach that temporarily preserves job-based coverage while subsidizing coverage for millions of poor and near-poor families who do not currently receive coverage through their employers. To placate private insurers, assume that an individual mandate also goes into effect. How long might this new health care

On the first night of Operation Desert Storm, American military forces launched a ferocious air attack that overwhelmed Iraq's defenses. It was the start of one of the most brilliant and decisive military campaigns in modern history, one that promised to cement a long era of American leadership.

For the last few months, the Obama White House has focused its attention on health care, and for good reason: Rising medical expenditures really do threaten to cripple the federal government and crowd out the investment we need to build a flourishing economy.

As we mourn the loss of Walter Cronkite, perhaps the world's most celebrated television journalist, we're also mourning the death of a common culture. After a long and successful career as a print journalist, most notably as a correspondent covering the final phase of the Second World War in Europe and North Africa, he emerged as one of the first of the television news stars, covering everything from national political conventions to celebrity fluff. And as anchor of the CBS Evening News, he set a pattern that… more

Could Colin Powell run against Barack Obama as a Republican and win? The idea is more than a little fanciful. Alma Powell, Colin Powell's wife, has long opposed her husband's political forays. And of course a presidential campaign would be an ordeal for a man Powell's age, his robust health notwithstanding. It doesn't help that there is no clamor for a Powell presidential campaign.

Of all the reactions to Sarah Palin's Friday morning press conference, the most common by far is bafflement followed by gentle and not-so-gentle mockery.

A generation of American activists was inspired by the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, which promised moral clarity amid the cruel compromises of the cold war. As Barack Obama vividly explained in Dreams from My Father, he was one of them. Given the foreign policy dilemmas that the president will face in the years ahead, it's worth thinking through the lessons of the South African transition.