Forbes

The Plug-In Paradox

Articles — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 13:56:00 -0500

With its quirky vintage cars and grease-stained floor, pat's garage looks like a typically hip San Francisco auto repair shop. Until you notice that the street outside is overweighted in Toyota Priuses and inside, against the wall, stands a stack of $10,000 batteries made by A123 Systems. Drop one of these 185-pounders into the spare tire well of the Prius, get garage owner Patrick Cadam and partner Nicholas Rothman to tinker with it overnight, and you've got a hybrid that can be plugged into any outlet for maxing your gas mileage. Rothman, fluent in Japanese and a certified Prius technician, says he's performed more than 100 upgrades and is… more

Chinese Largesse

Articles — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 10:08:00 -0400

The financial crisis is raising serious questions about the future of American power. Can the United States sustain the burdens of global leadership while we dust ourselves off from what looks like a near-knockout blow to our economy?

As Zachary Karabell has argued, we are now seeing a globalization of finance that parallels the globalization of manufacturing that began in earnest in the 1970s. Wall Street is no longer the center of the financial world as wealth flows from our shores to the Gulf and Asia's rising states. The sharp increase in the quantity and quality of consumption, which we owe to a combination of Wal-Mart (i.e.,… more

A National Party No More?

Articles — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 14:14:00 -0400

Does Sarah Palin represent the future of the Republican Party? Well, yes and no.

First, Palin speaks to the right constituencies. For the Republican Party to flourish, it needs to speak to the aspirations of working-class voters in general and to women in particular.

You might say that John McCain is the candidate of the first half-hour of the Today Show--the hard-news gruel that most viewers simply endure as they wait for light entertainment--while Palin represents the softer focus of the rest of the program. That is the same terrain occupied by Mike Huckabee, who spoke more forcefully and intelligently about fighting obesity than about fighting radical jihadists, and… more

Covered Bonds Can Rebuild America

Articles — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 09:58:00 -0400

Monday's embrace of covered bonds by U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and senior representatives of the Fed, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the country's largest banks to help thaw the U.S. mortgage market is a laudable step, appealing to market proponents and skeptics alike. Introducing covered bonds to the U.S. is a great idea. In fact, covered bonds can help more than just the mortgage market. At its most basic, a covered bond is a bond issued by a bank and backed by a dedicated group of loans kept on the issuing bank's balance sheet. While the introduction of covered bonds in the U.S. is… more

Len Nichols in Forbes | 'Lackluster Legacy On Health Care'

Communications — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 15:11:00 -0500

New America in the News:
Lackluster Legacy On Health Care (Forbes)

"There's going to be a lot of fallout over the decisions they made on SCHIP," says Len Nichols, a fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based think tank New America Foundation and a health care adviser to seven Republican and Democratic presidential campaigns. "[The president's veto] will play out over and over again in Congressional districts, and Republicans will lose seats over it."

Len Nichols in Forbes | 'Health Care's Champions of Change'

Communications — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 08:28:00 -0500

New America in the News:
Health Care's Champions Of Change (Forbes)
"There's no question that every member of Congress and every Senator is acutely aware of the importance of small-business community," says Len Nichols, a fellow at the New America Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, and a health care adviser to seven Republican and Democratic presidential campaigns. "And there's no question that [small-business lobbying groups] are among the more organized forces."

Maya MacGuineas in Forbes on Budget Deficits

Communications — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 06:00:00 -0400

New America in the News:

The Bush administration trumpeted its improved forecast for the federal budget deficit on Tuesday, but budget experts were unimpressed given the bleak long-term picture.

"The economic growth fueled by tax relief has helped send our tax revenue soaring," said President George W. Bush.

During the presidential race, Bush vowed to halve the deficit from a projected high of $521 billion, or 4.5% of gross domestic product, by 2009. Going by the new estimates, he will make good on his pledge one year ahead of schedule, thanks to an unexpected surge in tax receipts.

The administration's budget office now projects a budget gap of $188 billion, or 1.3% of GDP, in 2008. For the current fiscal year, which ends in September, it forecasts a shortfall of $296 billion, or 2.3% of GDP, down from the $423 billion it projected back in February, and from last year's $318 billion deficit, or 2.6% of GDP.

But critics on the left and the right agree that the news is underwhelming in light of the sharp deterioration in the deficit under Bush and a looming fiscal crunch that will make General Motors (nyse: GM)' woes look like a dream...

For the entire article, please visit the Forbes web site.

Eclipse of the City

Articles — Mon, 04 Jul 2005 00:00:00 -0400

The history of modern capitalism has been the story of great cities. By the very need to harbor goods and process information, business has tended to concentrate primarily in urban centers, from Venice and Florence in the Renaissance to early modern Antwerp, Amsterdam and London and, in this century, New York and Tokyo.

Today this long dominance by global cities may be ending. Instead of clustering increasingly in "world cities," economic power is now declustering away from the primary urban centers to a host of smaller cities as well as to the sprawling suburban periphery.

Such a notion violates the… more