National Review Online

Flynt Leverett in National Interest Online | Inside Track: Pole Dancing

Communications — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 11:17:00 -0400

New America in the News:

National Interest Online | Inside Track: Pole Dancing

. . . Next to speak was Flynt Leverett of the New America Foundation, who focused on the economic foundation of the world without the West: developing countries are nationalizing their natural resources and converting them into political leverage, with startling success. Leverett maintained that the dramatic increase in energy prices since 2000 tips the geopolitical scales in the direction of oil-and-gas producing powers. The “strategic consequence” of these developments is a huge redistribution of wealth and economic power. Energy exporters like the GCC states and Russia gain; other beneficiaries include manufacturing powerhouses like China, Germany and Japan. Most ominously, the losers from high energy prices—the United States, Great Britain and the European Union—are ringing up large current-account deficits, putting them at the mercy of China and the energy exporters who finance their fiscal shortfalls.

Like Gvosdev and Weber, Leverett saw a huge disconnect between the foreign-policy rhetoric of the U.S. presidential candidates and the actual situation, going so far as to say that Obama, Clinton and McCain must be talking about “some other planet.” . . .

Fitting the Bill?

Articles — Wed, 13 Apr 2005 00:00:00 -0400

One sidelight of President George W. Bush's recent trip to Rome for the funeral of the pope was the apparently warm interaction between Presidents Bush and Clinton. In particular, Bush praised Clinton's thinking in the area of Social Security. This praise focused the public eye on an underappreciated fact. President Clinton devoted an enormous amount of effort to the study of Social Security reform. It may well be the case that Social Security reform would have been accomplished if impeachment had not taken over the agenda.

With that in mind, it is instructive to wind back the clock and look… more

Promises, Promises

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

If somebody owes you $10, the next best thing to having the cash itself is probably having a written IOU. After all, the IOU will make it harder to forget the liability, and also might give you evidence to use in court should the borrower attempt to shortchange you.

The Social Security system is loaded with a confusing mishmash of IOUs, both implicit and explicit. Reforms tend to rearrange the liabilities in this crazy quilt. Do the labels on the IOUs matter?

Social Security faces an unfunded liability of $4 trillion over the next 75 years. The liability is $11.1 trillion… more

Hung Up on Words

Articles — Fri, 18 Mar 2005 00:00:00 -0500

The discussion over how to fix Social Security is filled with words that are getting too much attention. Privatization is one. Focus groups apparently don't like that word, and supporters of private accounts have taken to using the words "personal accounts." Why get so hung up on what you call it? The issue is whether individual ownership of Social Security savings is a good idea or not.

Crisis is another. Crisis is a relative term so there is no right or wrong here, but all serious policy experts believe Social Security has over-promised what it can deliver and that changes… more

Social Security in Your Mailbox

Articles — Fri, 11 Mar 2005 00:00:00 -0500

Companies considering new product launches often try out different beta versions of their products on focus groups. The practice is a sound one. No matter how attractive a concept may be, there is no telling whether you have a winner until it takes the form that the customer will see.

With such a process in mind, it is useful to pause for a moment to consider the practical appearance of the product that Social Security reformers are advocating. If optional personal accounts are available, they present choices and possibilities to citizens. How will these be conveyed? What will workers see?… more

Our Pregnant Soldiers

Articles — Mon, 05 Mar 2001 00:00:00 -0500

News of a pregnant woman choosing to live in barracks and continue her military training at VMI is by now barely noteworthy, a "reasonable accommodation" in a nation committed, above all, to the ideal of civic equality. … more

The Washington Post, Abortion, & the Left

Articles — Mon, 12 Feb 2001 00:00:00 -0500

The Washington Post had a very clever editorial last Friday on abortion -- with the very clever title, "Not aCrushing Burden." The "burden" referred to is Virginia's new law requiring that women receive information … more

Jesse Jackson, Postmodern Moralist

Articles — Fri, 26 Jan 2001 00:00:00 -0500

The revelation that Jesse Jackson fathered an illegitimate child with a member of his Rainbow Coalition staff reveals him -- yet again -- for the fraud that he is. For 30 years, Jackson has claimed to speak for the black … more