The Atlantic Monthly

Forty years ago, the steel mills and factories south of Chicago were known for their sooty smokestacks, plumes of steam, and throngs of workers. Clean-air laws have since gotten rid of the smoke, and labor-productivity initiatives have eliminated most of the workers. What remains is the steam, billowing up into the sky day after day, just as it did a generation ago.

The U.S. economy wastes 55 percent of the energy it consumes, and while American companies have ruthlessly wrung out… more

It was an ordinary soccer pitch: sparse tufts of grass and reddish soil surrounded by cinder-block homes. The two candidates stood on opposite sides of the field as the people of Yelwa, a town of 30,000 in central Nigeria, lined up behind them one May morning in 2002 to vote. Whoever had more supporters would lead the town’s council. And whoever led the council would control the certificates of indigeneship: the papers certifying that Yelwa was their home, and that… more

In the next eight years, medical schools intend to increase enrollment in order to accommodate the medical needs of aging baby boomers and replace retiring doctors from that generation. But Shannon Brownlee, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, writes that adding more doctors does not necessarily mean better care.

The Association of American Medical Colleges, which advises the federal government on how many medical residents to support, says that the country will be 100,000 doctors short by 2025… more

When we look back on the health-care plans of the 2008 campaign, we may wonder that no one chose to face up to one of the most troubling recent developments in American medicine. Yes, various presidential hopefuls have put forth plans containing detailed provisions to cover the uninsured, bring down costs, and improve the astonishingly uneven quality of health care. But no candidate has discussed the most dramatic change now under way in our medical system, a change that may… more

At some point -- whether sooner or later -- U.S. troops will leave Iraq. I have spent much of the occupation reporting from Baghdad, Kirkuk, Mosul, Fallujah, and elsewhere in the country, and I can tell you that a growing majority of Iraqis would like it to be sooner. As the occupation wears on, more and more Iraqis chafe at its failure to provide stability or even electricity, and they have grown to hate the explosions, gunfire, and constant war,… more

When you fly over the icy peaks of the Hindu Kush, which march in serried ranks toward the Himalayas, dividing Central Asia from the Indian subcontinent, you get a sense of the scale of the problem: Osama bin Laden may be hiding somewhere out there. Wherever he is, bin Laden continues to give substantial ideological direction to jihadist movements around the globe -- and so American forces are scouring the Hindu Kush to find him.

The conventional wisdom now,… more

We have become accustomed to thinking that taxes, like hemlines, can only go up or down. This isn't true. Over the centuries changes in the form of U.S. taxes have been at least as dramatic as changes in the rate of taxation.

For instance, most federal revenues now come from personal and corporate income taxes, and from the payroll taxes that fund Social Security and Medicare. But most government revenues originally came from excise taxes on luxury items such as… more

Are We Still a Middle-Class Nation? Michael Lind, Whitehead Senior Fellow

America's "Suez Moment" Sherle R. Schwenninger, Co-Director, Global Economic Policy Program and Director, Fellowship Program

The Tuition Crunch Jennifer Washburn, Fellow

Insurance Required Laurie Rubiner, Director, Universal Health Insurance Program

Information, Please … more

Despite its unchallenged military might, the United States has an Achilles' heel: its economy depends on foreign capital. Though hardly anyone acknowledges this publicly, China and Japan already hold so much American debt that, theoretically, each could exert enormous leverage on American foreign policy. So far, the economic dependence of these countries on American consumers has kept them from exercising such power. But what would happen if, for instance, Washington changed its one-China policy and officially recognized Taiwan? Or if… more

A four-year college degree has become all but a necessity for getting ahead in the information age. Since the 1980s the average real income of workers with only a high school diploma has fallen, while salaries among those with at least a college degree have risen: they now earn 75 percent more than high school graduates. At the national level, having a highly educated work force is critical in order to sustain our technological edge in the global economy.

America's… more