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Bananas for Capitalism: History of United Fruit Chronicles Innovation, Creativity
By IRA STOLL, Special to the Sun
May 25, 2012
Americans puzzling over the role of today’s powerful corporations — Bain Capital, Goldman Sachs, Google — may profit from considering the example of the United Fruit Company. It seems almost quaint to think that a company specializing in bananas might…
Why Cory Booker Spoke Out on Negative Campaigning
By SHMULEY BOTEACH, Special to the Sun
May 23, 2012
For a moment, let me remove my hat as a Republican candidate for public office and speak only wearing my yarmulke, as a Rabbi who has known Cory for twenty years and has had the blessing throughout that time of an intimate, brotherly friendship. Many…
Schumer’s Bid To Tax a Founder of Facebook Ignites Discussion of a Law Used by Nazis
By IRA STOLL, Special to the Sun
May 21, 2012
Call it the return of the Reichsfluchtsteuer. The president of Americans for Tax Reform, Grover Norquist, did not use the term. That is what Mr. Norquist was talking about, though, when he spoke to The Hill newspaper about the legislation proposed by…
A Fell Swoop Is Sought by Boehner on Debt-Limitation and Tax Cuts — in Advance of November
By LAWRENCE KUDLOW, Special to the Sun
May 17, 2012
House Speaker John Boehner is playing a heroic role right now. In his efforts to prevent the Bush tax cuts from expiring, Mr. Boehner is aggressively taking on President Obama’s leadership ineptitude on the economy. In essence, Mr. Boehner is pushing…
Big Romney Fundraiser in New York Backed Not by Big Banks But by New Breed of More Nimble Financiers
By IRA STOLL, Special to the Sun
May 14, 2012
The Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, will visit New York City May 22 for a large fundraiser featuring many members of the financial industry, and on the face of it, it couldn’t be worse timing. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman…
Danger Sign for GOP Emerges as Romney’s Margin Among Investors Likely To Vote Turns Out To Be Razor Thin
By LAWRENCE KUDLOW, Special to the Sun
May 8, 2012
While President Obama is out on the campaign trail talking about how bad things were four years ago and how we have to go “forward” to his second term to see just how great things are going to be in the next four years, the biggest problem he’s got is…
Weak Presidential Nominees Pose a Bleak Choice for Voters in Both France, U.S.
The Two Democracies Must Choose Between 'Apparently Incorrigible Wafflers'
By CONRAD BLACK, Special to the Sun
April 28, 2012
In last Saturday’s edition, I reviewed the French election. And the first round came out largely as I expected. The second round in May, between François Hollande and incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy, right now seems too close to call. Closer to home, the…
Geithner Crosses the Line Into the Political Fray as a Particularly Partisan Treasury Secretary
Calls Dean of Columbia Business School a‘Hack’
By LAWRENCE KUDLOW, Special to the Sun
April 27, 2012
Is Secretary Geithner the most politically partisan treasury secretary in history? Certainly sounds like it these days. As the government’s chief financial officer, he’s spending a lot of time firing campaign barbs at various Republicans and their…
Romney’s Economic-Approval Rating Soars Over President’s, New Polls Show
By LAWRENCE KUDLOW, Special to the Sun
April 20, 2012
Wall Street headlines are full of fears of a springtime stall for the already subpar economic recovery. If that weren’t bad enough for President Obama’s reelection chances, a spate of new polls show Governor Romney’s economic-approval ratings are far…
Guarded Optimism Voiced on Measure in Congress To Narrow Scope of the Federal Reserve
An End to Era of Humphrey-Hawkins Is Seen
By JOHN V. BENNETT, Special to the Sun
April 20, 2012
NEW YORK — The main sponsor in Congress of legislation to narrow the mandate of the Federal Reserve expressed guarded optimism about the bill’s prospects at a monetary parley here today. Representative Kevin Brady was speaking of his “Sound Dollar…
Obama’s Radio Address Leaves Him Exposed To a GOP Challenge Over Taxes
By IRA STOLL, Special to the Sun
April 16, 2012
If there were some kind of award for the most misleading statements in a single four-minute speech, President Obama would have earned it with his weekly address this weekend, timed for tax day. “We can’t afford to keep spending more money on tax cuts…
America’s Decline Turns Out To Be Real But Reversible
By CONRAD BLACK, Special to the Sun
April 14, 2012
Prominent public intellectuals in the United States are becoming increasingly vocal in their protestations that their country is not in decline. Robert Kagan militates in his latest book that the United States is still by far the most powerful country…
A New Definition of Chutzpah Emerges as Obama Seeks To Use Reagan as Cover for Attacks on Romney
By LAWRENCE KUDLOW, Special to the Sun
April 13, 2012
In President Obama’s latest class-war, tax-the-rich gambit, he has stooped to a new low with misleading and out-of-context quotes from Ronald Reagan. Apparently, the president is now trying to use the Gipper for cover while he attacks Mitt Romney with…
President Bush, Governors Due in New York for Tax Parley, As State v. State Tax Competition Looms
By IRA STOLL, Special to the Sun
April 9, 2012
The big news over the long holiday weekend, which is resonating in the stock market, was the national employment and unemployment number. The national unemployment number for March was 8.2%, down just slightly from the 8.3% reported in February. The…
Americans Will Have To Wait Until After the Election for a 5% Growth Rate
By LAWRENCE KUDLOW, Special to the Sun
April 9, 2012
Despite the disappointing jobs report for March, it’s difficult to make a realistic case that the economy is falling off a cliff or that some kind of double-dip recession is on the way. Or that a Ben Bernanke QE3 is likely. Sure, the 120,000 gain in…
Misconception on Health Care Law Could Be Key To Decision of Supreme Court
By BETSY McCAUGHEY, Special to the Sun
April 6, 2012
If the Supreme Court upholds the health law’s mandatory insurance, the ruling will likely turn on a misconception rather than constitutional principle. During the oral argument on March 27, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli told the packed courtroom…
Clouds of a (Real) Culture War Are Scudding as Santorum Nears the End of His Quest
By CONRAD BLACK, Special to the Sun
April 5, 2012
Now that the Santorum campaign — the last and most durable of the non-Mitt efforts — is finally fading, a little analysis of it is warranted before it vanishes from mind. It didn’t flame out absurdly like the Bachmann, Perry, Cain, and Gingrich…
One of Biggest ‘Tax Cuts’ in History Seen in Collapse of Natural-Gas Prices
Romney Would Be Big Winner If Supreme Court Voids Health Insurance Mandate
By LAWRENCE KUDLOW, Special to the Sun
March 29, 2012
If the Supreme Court overthrows the individual mandate, doesn’t Mitt Romney say “I told you so” and emerge as the big political winner? All along he’s been arguing that only states have mandate power, and that the federal government under the commerce…
Supreme Court Ruling on Plea Bargains Is Occasion for Rejoicing
By CONRAD BLACK, Special to the Sun
March 29, 2012
Every resident of or frequent visitor to the United States should rejoice at the Supreme Court’s decision last week expanding the rights of defendants to effective counsel in plea-bargain negotiations. As Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority…
Ryan Budget May Be Best GOP Can Produce, But It Would Increase National Debt and Share of GDP That Government Takes From Taxpayers
By IRA STOLL, Special to the Sun
March 26, 2012
The burst of attention devoted to Congressman Paul Ryan’s 2013 federal budget seems to have passed, at least momentarily, but don’t be deceived: the plan rolled out last week by the Republican chairman of the House Budget Committee is going to be…
The Crisis of Peter Beinart
By RICK RICHMAN, Special to the Sun
March 24, 2012
On March 19, the New York Times published an excerpt -- covering almost half the op-ed page — from Peter Beinart’s new book, “The Crisis of Zionism,” in which Mr. Beinart proposed boycotting Jewish communities in the disputed territories of the West…
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