Copyright 2008 The New York Sun Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:43:01 -0400 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Robert J. Samuelson :: Stories from The New York Sun http://www.nysun.com/authors/Robert+J.+Samuelson istoll@nysun.com (Ira Stoll) webmaster@nysun.com en-us ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/greenspans-tranquility/62990/ Wed, 19 Sep 2007 00:00:00 EST Alan Greenspan has called his memoir "The Age of Turbulence," but a more accurate title might have been "The Age of Tranquility." During his long tenure as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board (from August 1987 to January 2006), the American economy suffered only two modest recessions — those of 1990-91 and 2001 — totaling 16 months. Otherwise, here's what happened: • The economy (gross domestic product) grew 70% from 1987 through 2005. • The number of non-farm jobs increased 31.4 million, or... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/shore-thing/54530/ Wed, 16 May 2007 00:00:00 EST Remember the great "offshoring" debate? It was all the rage a few years ago. Modern communications allowed white-collar work to be zapped around the world. We faced a terrifying future of hordes of well-educated and poorly paid Indians and Chinese stealing the jobs of middle-class engineers, accountants and software programmers in the United States and other wealthy nations. Merciless multinational companies would find the cheapest labor and to heck with all the lives ruined in theprocess. What... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/tall-order/37730/ Fri, 11 Aug 2006 00:00:00 EST A prominent journalist wrote in 1947, "The basic power determinant of any country is its steel production, and what makes this a great nation above all is the fact that it can roll over 90 million tons of steel ingots a year, more than Great Britain, prewar Germany, Japan, France, and the Soviet Union combined." Well, that was then. In 2005, America ranked third in world raw steel production. Its output (95 million metric tons) was behind Japan's (113 million tons) and less than a third of... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/real-risks/36775/ Wed, 26 Jul 2006 00:00:00 EST Could there be an oil "bubble?" Well, yes. In early 2002, oil sold for roughly $20 a barrel; now it's close to $75. The main cause lies in tightening supply and demand — and the fact that supply (as the present Middle East fighting reminds us) could be interrupted at any time. Old-fashioned speculation may also have played a role, and that raises the possibility of a bubble. But any bubble would be a peculiar beast, and if it burst and prices dropped significantly, we shouldn't delude ourselves... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/balancing-the-budget/36284/ Wed, 19 Jul 2006 00:00:00 EST To those who believe our leading politicians are utterly shameless, there was dreary confirmation last week. President Bush publicly bragged about the federal budget. Here's the objective situation that inspired the president's self-congratulation: With the unemployment rate at 4.6% (close to "full employment" by anyone's definition), the White House and Congress still can't balance the budget. For fiscal 2006 (ending in September), the administration projects a $296 billion deficit; for fiscal... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/engineering-problem/35459/ Wed, 5 Jul 2006 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON - Al Gore calls global warming an "inconvenient truth," as if merely recognizing it could put us on a path to a solution. That's an illusion. The real truth is that we don't know enough to relieve global warming, and - barring major technological breakthroughs - we can't do much about it. This has long been obvious. Let me explain. From 2003 to 2050, world population is projected to grow from 6.4 billion people to 9.1 billion, a 42 percent increase. If energy use per person and... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/mexican-subtext/35223/ Wed, 28 Jun 2006 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON - The subtext for the United States' immigration debate is Mexico. Why doesn't its economy grow faster, creating more jobs and higher living standards? That's the question that inevitably confronts the winner of this Sunday's Mexican presidential election, but it is also a critical question for Americans. A more prosperous country would not be sending so many of its poorest citizens north. Since 1990, about 20 percent to 25 percent of U.S. immigrants have come from Mexico. Here is an... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/falsely-alarming/34834/ Wed, 21 Jun 2006 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON - If the Federal Reserve raises interest rates at the end of June, as seems probable, it will likely be criticized for making a fetish of inflation and, in the process, risking an American or global recession. There are already signs that the U.S. economy is slowing. Stock markets around the world have declined sharply. Why should the Fed make matters worse by nudging up rates even a tad? This is a sensible-sounding complaint. Based on what we now know, it's also wrong. We have an... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/promise-and-peril/34495/ Thu, 15 Jun 2006 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON - It is too early to say whether the recent declines in global stock markets signal anything out of the ordinary. Though large, they are hardly unprecedented: 7.3 percent for the Dow, 15.5 percent for Japan's Nikkei, 20 percent for Brazil's Bovespa (all changes are measured from recent highs, in April or May, until June 12). But the fact that they've occurred simultaneously suggests herd behavior. Spoiled by years of cheap credit, global investors seemed to be reacting to the... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/paulson-takes-charge-sympathy-for-the-departed/34025/ Wed, 7 Jun 2006 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON - It's hard not to feel some sympathy for departing Treasury Secretary John Snow. He worked tirelessly for President George W. Bush, trudging all over the country to plug the administration's policies. In 2005 Snow spoke at the Detroit Economic Club, the Omaha Chamber of Commerce and the Sony Technology Center in Mount Pleasant, Pa. For all his trouble, Snow earned only perfunctory public gratitude from the president and was subjected to repeated rumors that the White House was... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/on-senate-bill-selective-journalism/33638/ Wed, 31 May 2006 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON - The Senate last week passed legislation that Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., hailed as "the most far-reaching immigration reform in our history." You might think that the first question anyone would ask is how much it would actually increase or decrease legal immigration. But no. After the Senate approved the bill by 62 to 36, you could not find the answer in the news columns of The Washington Post, New York Times or Wall Street Journal. Yet, the estimates do exist and are fairly... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/chief-part-of-happiness/33316/ Wed, 24 May 2006 00:00:00 EST President Putin has inadvertently spotlighted one of today's momentous mysteries: collapsing birthrates in industrialized countries. Putin proposed that Russia pay women to have children to remedy a "critical" population outlook. Actually, he might have said "desperate." In 2000, Russia's population totaled almost 147 million; Putin says it's declining by 700,000 a year. With plausible assumptions, the U.S. Census Bureau projects it at 111 million in 2050. The median age (half the population... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/post-affluent-society/32508/ Wed, 10 May 2006 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON - You hear the refrain all the time: the economy looks good statistically (4.7 percent unemployment), but it doesn't feel good. Although the United States is the wealthiest nation in history, our quarrels and quibbles with our prosperity are unending. Why doesn't ever-greater wealth promote ever-greater happiness? It is a question that dates at least to the appearance in 1958 of "The Affluent Society" by John Kenneth Galbraith, the ex-Harvard economist who died recently at 97. "The... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/taxpayer-friendly/30911/ Thu, 13 Apr 2006 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON - Almost everyone agrees we could make the income-tax system simpler, friendlier and more economically sane. But we haven't, and we probably won't. Getting from here to there is just too exhausting politically. We'd first have to overcome the opposition of most senators and members of Congress who derive much power and pleasure from inventing and defending the tax code's complexities: all the special breaks for favored voting blocs and fashionable public crusades. Then we'd have to... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/french-frenzy/30099/ Thu, 30 Mar 2006 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON - To anyone who cares about Europe's future, the French demonstrations and street riots protesting the government's new labor law must be profoundly disturbing. It's the French against France - a familiar ritual that mirrors Europe's larger predicament. Hardly anyone wants to surrender the benefits and protections of today's generous welfare state, but the fierce attachment to these costly and self-defeating programs prevents Europe from preparing for a future that, though it may be... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/build-the-wall/28777/ Wed, 8 Mar 2006 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON - It's time to build a real fence or a wall along every foot of the 1,989 miles of the U.S.-Mexican border. There can be only two arguments against this approach to keeping out illegal aliens: (1) it won't work - possible, but we won't know unless we try; or (2) we don't want it to work - then, we should say so and open our borders to anyone but criminals and terrorists. Either way, we need more candor in our immigration debates. Now is the time, because Congress is considering its... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/critical-juncture/28381/ Wed, 1 Mar 2006 00:00:00 EST We may be close to a critical economic juncture. It's the moment when America's frenzied consumers relinquish their role as "locomotive" for the rest of the world. All that spending and borrowing have juiced the U.S. economy and, through swelling trade deficits, the global economy. We know this buying binge can't continue forever. Families and nations can't indefinitely overspend their incomes by ever-increasing amounts. Spending and income must ultimately move closer together, not farther... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/bushs-budget-balancing-act/27251/ Wed, 8 Feb 2006 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON - Our annual budget debates, begun anew with President Bush's proposed $2.77 trillion budget for 2007, have increasingly become exercises in political theater. They certainly aren't intended to bridge the gap between Americans' huge appetite for government services and their fierce distaste for taxes. Someone has to choose - higher taxes, lower spending or some combination. But American politicians are loath to choose. So we get an outpouring of partisan blab that does little to... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/after-greenspan/26870/ Wed, 1 Feb 2006 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON - No man's reputation is safe at his retirement, and so it is with Alan Greenspan's. History's verdict will await subsequent events that reveal the long-term consequences of his 18 years as chairman of the Federal Reserve. But until then, it's silly to discount (as The Economist recently did) his apparent accomplishments. Doubters should consult standard economic statistics covering his tenure since 1987: * The U.S. economy (gross domestic product) has expanded 72 percent, and its... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/health-care-paradox/26481/ Wed, 25 Jan 2006 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON - Almost everyone agrees that we ought to "fix the health care system" - a completely meaningless phrase despite its popularity with politicians, pundits and "experts." Indeed, it is popular precisely because it is meaningless. The people who proclaim it rarely tell you the discomforting choices it might involve. Instead, they focus on a few specific shortcomings of our $1.9 trillion health-industrial complex and imply that, if we correct these often-serious flaws, we'll have "fixed"... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/church-of-gdp/25709/ Wed, 11 Jan 2006 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON - What's the dominant religion of the past 100 years? The answer isn't Christianity with its 2.1 billion followers or Islam with its 1.3 billion. It's the idea of economic growth, the Church of GDP. Countless countries have embraced rapid growth as a cure to their ills. Getting richer is now an almost universal craving. And yet, the worship of growth inspires enormous ambivalence. It is widely seen - especially in wealthy societies - as morally corrupting: the mindless pursuit of... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/what-could-go-wrong/25330/ Wed, 4 Jan 2006 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON - At the year-end, I usually scan a stack of economic reports to see what lies ahead. Well, folks, according to most forecasts we're headed for a swell year - though a boring one. Typical is the forecast from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris. In 2006 the American economy should grow 3.5 percent (about the same as in 2005), it says. Unemployment drops from today's 5 percent to 4.8 percent. Inflation remains tame, at 2.5 percent. The world economy also... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/unwind-unworkable-promises/25061/ Wed, 28 Dec 2005 00:00:00 EST As noted by recent cover stories in Newsweek and Business Week, the first of the roughly 77 million baby boomers turn 60 in 2006. J. Walker Smith of the polling firm of Yankelovich Partners told Newsweek that many boomers "think they're going to die before they get old" - a reference to one survey in which boomers defined old age as starting around 80. Business Week asserted that fifty-and sixty-somethings consider their "middle age a new start on life" to indulge hobbies, begin new careers or... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/good-stuff/24810/ Wed, 21 Dec 2005 00:00:00 EST WASHINGTON - It's not the president, stupid. We Americans play the simplistic game of personalizing the economy's success or failure. The president is a hero or a bum. He creates or destroys prosperity. This, of course, is make-believe. In a $12 trillion economy, the president's influence - for good and ill - is usually modest. Still, the game suits Republicans and Democrats, the press and the public. We constantly replay it, no matter how much ignorance and misinformation it generates. In the... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/globalizations-best-opponents/24450/ Wed, 14 Dec 2005 00:00:00 EST "No country gets rich by keeping its people in agriculture." - David Orden, agricultural economist Few economic laws are so clear. Cheap and efficiently produced food relieves poverty. As farming becomes more productive, people eat better; workers move into better-paying industrial and service jobs. In 1820, about 70 percent of the U.S. labor force was in farming; in 2003, that was 1.7 percent. Comparable figures for France, Britain and Japan were 3.6 percent, 1.2 percent and 4.6 percent. Farms... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/unending-mystery/24104/ Wed, 7 Dec 2005 00:00:00 EST The price of gold passed $500 an ounce last week, its highest level since the late 1980s. This is either an ominous development - or it isn't. You can make the case that higher gold prices (up 23 percent from 2004's average) warn of worsening inflation. Gold has long served as an inflation hedge, and when U.S. inflation reached double-digit levels in the late 1970s, gold hit a record high of about $850 in early 1980. But you can also argue that the present run-up has little to do with inflation... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/general-malaise/23720/ Wed, 30 Nov 2005 00:00:00 EST In 1927, "The Jazz Singer" - the first movie with sound - opened. In 1931, Charlie Chaplin, a silent-movie star, said: "I give the talkies six months more." A similar frame of mind now haunts General Motors, which recently announced nine factory shutdowns and 30,000 job cuts by 2008. Granted, GM is burdened with costly labor contracts and huge numbers of retirees. But GM also inherits a self-defeating management style formed during its glory days. It presumed that superior managers could always... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/medicare-muddle/23478/ Wed, 23 Nov 2005 00:00:00 EST Good policy can make for good politics, and bad policy can make for bad politics. Republicans may be about to discover this truism with their Medicare drug benefit, passed by Congress in 2003 and scheduled to take effect in January. As policy, the drug benefit is a calamity. It worsens one of the nation's major problems (paying baby boomers' retirement costs) while addressing a nonexistent "crisis" (allegedly oppressive drug costs for retirees). Its purpose was mostly political: to bribe the... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/american-illusion/23119/ Wed, 16 Nov 2005 00:00:00 EST Dear Robert J. Samuelson, Our records show that you haven't yet registered for the benefits of AARP membership, even though you are fully eligible. ... I look forward to your joining us. Sincerely, William D. Novelli, Executive Director Among AARP's 36 million members, there must be many decent people who benefit from the 5 percent to 50 percent discounts offered on car rentals, hotel rooms and airline tickets. But I won't be joining, because the AARP has become America's most dangerous lobby... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/unexpectedly-resilient/22757/ Wed, 9 Nov 2005 00:00:00 EST One puzzle these days is why Americans are so confident at the shopping mall and so glum in opinion polls. By many measures, the country's prosperity is broad-based. Families are buying and renovating homes at a ferocious pace. Sales of existing homes in 2005 are expected to reach a record 7.1 million units. Since mid-2003, the number of payroll jobs has increased by 4.2 million. The unemployment rate of 5 percent is low by historic standards. But in polls, Americans are downbeat. The... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/phony-reformers/22494/ Thu, 3 Nov 2005 00:00:00 EST The scramble by congressional Republicans and White House officials to show they're serious about dealing with the budget recalls the classic 1950s novel "The Catcher in the Rye," whose main character, Holden Caulfield, denounces almost everyone as a "phony." Well, on the budget, most Republicans are phonies. So are most Democrats. The resulting "debates" are less about controlling the budget than about trying to embarrass the other side. Anyone who's serious about curbing federal spending and... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/inflation-exaggeration/22107/ Wed, 26 Oct 2005 00:00:00 EST We have all the telltale signs of an inflation breakout: a big jump in oil and energy prices; an increase in the price of gold, often an inflation hedge; a low unemployment rate (5.1 percent in September, despite Katrina) that could push up wages. To anyone old enough to remember, the situation seems eerily reminiscent of the 1970s, when oil prices soared and inflation reached peaks of 12.3 percent in 1974 and 13.3 percent in 1979. Well, folks, it ain't gonna happen this time. Here are three... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/oracles-at-delphi-on-the-bankruptcy-of-delphi/21702/ Wed, 19 Oct 2005 00:00:00 EST The question posed by the bankruptcy filing of Delphi Corp. - the largest U.S. auto parts company- is whether manufacturing in America has a future. Or is it sliding toward extinction? Viewed historically, the question is misleading. It's true that manufacturing employment now accounts for only one in nine jobs, down from one in three in 1950. But the decline mostly reflects higher efficiency. Americans make more things with fewer people. From 1990 to 2000, for example, manufacturing output... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/wealth-effect/21394/ Wed, 12 Oct 2005 00:00:00 EST Ours is a wealth-driven era, when huge increases in home values and (before that) stock prices make people feel richer and cause them to buy more. They spend more of their regular incomes, borrow more or sell something, most likely stocks. You can imagine this "wealth effect" as a powerful afterburner that's boosted the economy for roughly 20 years. While everyone is now worrying about the economic impact of Katrina and Rita - on consumer confidence, energy prices, inflation and the federal... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/judgment-day-ahead/21129/ Thu, 6 Oct 2005 00:00:00 EST George W. Bush entered the White House preaching "compassionate conservatism," but he may leave known for cynical conservatism. By this, I don't mean that his presidency will fail. The judgment of history, I suspect, will rest heavily on the outcomes of the struggle against terrorism and the war in Iraq, subjects about which I know no more than ordinary readers. For all the administration's miscalculations and setbacks, the ultimate results could still be more good than bad. But compassionate... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/perpetuating-myths/20355/ Wed, 21 Sep 2005 00:00:00 EST We Americans are now supposedly discovering poverty for at least the fourth time since World War II. The first occurred in 1962 when Michael Harrington's classic "The Other America" appeared. To a nation generally dazzled by its newfound suburban prosperity, Harrington described the grim realities of West Virginia shanties and inner-city slums. Then there was Lyndon Johnson's "war on poverty" and later what was often described, rightly or wrongly, as Ronald Reagan's war against the poor. Now... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/grand-illusion/19490/ Thu, 1 Sep 2005 00:00:00 EST JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. - He is the dour optimist. Alan Greenspan, completing 18 years as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board and the world's most influential economic figure, flew here last week for a conference to celebrate and criticize his record. There wasn't much criticism. Economists Alan Blinder (a former Fed vice chairman) and Ricardo Reis of Princeton concluded that Greenspan has a "legitimate claim to being the greatest central banker who ever lived." Economist Allan Meltzer of Carnegie... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/saving-race/18733/ Wed, 17 Aug 2005 00:00:00 EST Every so often the government spits out some factoid that seems crammed with special significance. The Commerce Department did just that recently when it reported that Americans' personal savings rate had dropped to zero. As a society, we seem unwilling to devote even a penny to the future. How could this be, considering all our huge contributions to retirement accounts? There are two possible answers. One is alarming: A low savings rate reflects national character - an addiction to immediate... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/scour-the-world/18355/ Wed, 10 Aug 2005 00:00:00 EST A nation's economic power could once be judged by tons of steel or megawatts of electricity. But we have moved beyond these simple indicators or even updated versions, such as computer chips. All advanced societies now depend so completely on technology that their economic might is often measured by their number of scientists and engineers. By that indicator, America's economic power is waning. We're producing a shrinking share of the world's technological talent. China and India are only the... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/hugely-significant-story/18004/ Wed, 3 Aug 2005 00:00:00 EST We in the news business often miss big stories because they aren't announced by a corpse, scandal, invasion, or controversy. One important story we're missing today is the absence of sharply higher inflation. Look at the numbers. For the past 12 months, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) is up only 2.5 percent; since 1997, annual increases have averaged 2.4 percent. So-called core inflation - stripped of volatile food and energy prices - has behaved even better. In 2004, core inflation was 2... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/pegs-and-balances/17622/ Wed, 27 Jul 2005 00:00:00 EST Let's be clear. The central problem of the exploding trade imbalances between China and the United States - and China and the rest of the world - is not the exchange rate. It is the addiction of China, following the pattern set by Japan and other Asian countries, to export-led economic growth. As long as this export dependency continues, Asian countries will pursue undervalued currencies, because a cheap currency aids exports and punishes imports. China's decision last week to revalue the yuan... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/think-locally-act-globally/17282/ Wed, 20 Jul 2005 00:00:00 EST One of the unheralded contrasts of our time is this: Everywhere we see the increasingly powerful effects of globalization; and yet, the single most important reality for the economic well-being of most people is their nationality. The idea that we're all being swept along by the impersonal forces of globalization seems intuitively logical and instinctively menacing. The older and less-noticed truth is that the nations usually remain, for better or worse, the decisive force in determining the... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/america-over-housed/16999/ Thu, 14 Jul 2005 00:00:00 EST We Americans seem to be in the process of becoming wildly over-housed. Since 1970, the size of the average home has increased 55% (to 2,330 square feet), while the size of the average family has decreased 13%. Especially among the upper crust, homes have more space and fewer people. We now have rooms specialized by appliances (home computers, entertainment systems, and exercise equipment). The long-term consequences of this housing extravaganza are unclear, but they may include the overuse of... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/seeing-demons/16553/ Wed, 6 Jul 2005 00:00:00 EST We cannot decide whether China is a threat or an opportunity, and until we do, every discussion of our relations seems to slide into confusion and acrimony. The latest example is the noisy controversy over the bid by CNOOC (the China National Offshore Oil Corp.) to buy the American oil company Unocal. There are some real issues here, but they're lost amid all the political clamor. We're being told (to cite one congressional resolution) that CNOOC's victory might "impair the national security"... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/respectable-charade/16236/ Wed, 29 Jun 2005 00:00:00 EST Almost a decade ago, I suggested that global warming would become a "gushing" source of political hypocrisy. So it has. Politicians and scientists constantly warn of the grim outlook, and the subject is on the agenda of the upcoming G-8 summit of world economic leaders. But all this sound and fury is mainly exhibitionism - politicians pretending they're saving the planet. The truth is that, barring major technological advances, they won't do much about global warming. It would be nice if they... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/greenspans-judgement-fed-back-on-the-beam/15874/ Wed, 22 Jun 2005 00:00:00 EST If economics were a boat, it would be a leaky tub. The pumps would be straining, and the captain would be trying to prevent it from capsizing. Which is to say: our ideas for explaining trends in output, employment and living standards - what we call "macroeconomics" - are in a state of disarray. If you're confused, you're in good company. Only recently Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan confessed again that he doesn't understand why interest rates on long-term bonds and mortgages have... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/going-out-of-business/15479/ Wed, 15 Jun 2005 00:00:00 EST Europe as we know it is slowly going out of business. Since French and Dutch voters rejected the new constitution of the European Union, we've heard countless theories as to why: the unreality of trying to forge 25 EU countries into a United States of Europe; fear of ceding excessive power to Brussels, the EU's capital; an irrational backlash against globalization. Whatever their truth, these theories miss a larger reality: unless Europe reverses two trends - low birth rates and meager economic... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/sputnik-moment/14390/ Wed, 25 May 2005 00:00:00 EST Americans are having another Sputnik moment: one of those periodic alarms about some foreign technological and economic menace. It was the Soviets in the 1950s and early 1960s, the Germans and the Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s, and now it's the Chinese and the Indians. To anyone old enough, there's no forgetting October 4, 1957, when the Soviets orbited the first space satellite. It terrified us. We'd taken our scientific superiority for granted. Foolish us. Soon there were warnings of a... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/back-to-the-future-2005-05-18/14014/ Wed, 18 May 2005 00:00:00 EST Our Social Security problem is just one aspect of a larger retirement revolution - an upheaval in medicine, life expectancy, and work. Since Social Security's creation in 1935, life spans have increased dramatically. Someone who now reaches 65 can expect to live almost another 20 years. Meanwhile, government has constantly made Social Security and Medicare more generous. The result is "middle-aged retirement," as Eugene Steuerle of the Urban Institute calls it. If people retired for the same... ROBERT J. SAMUELSON http://www.nysun.com/opinion/deficit-of-seriousness/13658/ Wed, 11 May 2005 00:00:00 EST Every two years, the Congressional Budget Office publishes a fact-filled report called "Budget Options." This year's version is 343 pages, and flipping through it gives a quick tour of the federal government's far-flung activities. The Army Corps of Engineers spends about $800 million annually to maintain and improve the inland waterways, the Office of National Drug Control Policy buys about $100 million in anti-drug ads and the Department of Transportation provides about $100 million in...