The Ripon Forum

Economic Diversification

adminn — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 10:23:00 -0500

Harry Markowitz’s 1952 essay Portfolio Theory broke new ground in developing ways to diversify financial portfolios. By the time he won the Nobel Prize nearly four decades later, countless financial innovations to help spread risk had been introduced, making the risks associated with investing more acceptable -- particularly to the American middle class. Sure the markets are taking a hit now, but those with diversified portfolios are certain to weather this downturn better than those without.

U.S. economic public policy would benefit from a similarly innovative approach to managing risk. The economy is facing growing pains that go deeper than just… more

Bloomberg Tackles Poverty

Articles — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 11:40:00 -0400

Even for public servants with the best of intentions, the seeming intractability of poverty in America can be awfully discouraging. Its causes are complex and past efforts have met with limited success. Until Hurricane Katrina hit land, poverty had been absent from the public agenda for so long that there was little consensus among policymakers in how to respond. Not only was the toolbox of effective antipoverty proposals empty but partisan gamesmanship often seems to block innovative, good faith efforts to address it.

Yet persistent, concentrated, and intergenerational poverty remains a scourge upon our prosperous society, an enduring challenge… more

Navigating America's China Challenge

Articles — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 00:00:00 -0500

When he served as Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, Harvard President Lawrence Summers frequently stitched into his opening remarks an excessively hubris-laden assessment of American power. At one such speech, he asserted that the "world has never seen a nation such as the United States that possesses such unrivaled economic might...that the world has never seen a country such as the United States of America that had such a degree of global military power and global reach that a serious rival can not even be imagined."

Summers believed that a more integrated and efficient Europe as well as a… more

Dealing with the Deficit

Articles — Mon, 01 Aug 2005 00:00:00 -0400

With structural budget deficits stretching indefinitely into the future, the mounting national debt and few meaningful budget rules left in place, the chances of the deficit disappearing on its own are about as likely as finding a quick fix for health care. It is no wonder fiscal conservatives are in such a state of despair. Despite numerous warnings from the Congressional Budget Office, the Government Accountability Office, the Federal Reserve and the International Monetary Fund, the past four years have seen a solid deterioration in the nation's fiscal state of affairs. If nothing is done, it may… more