Europe
Unquiet Flows the Don
Maurice Bowra: A Life By Leslie Mitchell (Oxford University Press, 385 pp., $50) READ MORE >>
Mark Lippert, Dedicated Reservist
Mark Lippert READ MORE >>
Yes, There Are Muslim Terrorists In America, No Doubt About It
A few years ago The New Republic published an article denying that there were Muslim terrorists in the United States. It explained why the Muslim immigrants were different from those in Europe and also why America was different from Europe. I once heard this piece being quoted in an argument about the perils of Islamic terrorism at a Cambridge restaurant. "Oh my," I said to myself and to the folk with whom I'd been eating. "Magazines can be dangerous, too." READ MORE >>
The Forest and the Trees
Landscape and Memory by Simon Schama (Knopf, 652 pp., $40) READ MORE >>
Cutting Carbon's Dirt Cheap--If The Whole World's Involved
Aquacalypse Now
G20: "In The Medium Run We're All Retired"
It looks like the G20 on Friday will emphasize its new “framework” for curing macroeconomic imbalances, rather than any substantive measures to regulate banks, derivatives, or any other primary cause of the 2008-2009 financial crisis. This is appealing to the G20 leaders because their call to “rebalance” global growth will involve no immediate action and no changes in policy--other than in the “medium run” (watch for this phrase in the communiqué). When exactly is the medium run? READ MORE >>
U.S. Strategy for the G20: You Cannot Be Serious.
According to the WSJ this morning (top of p.A1), the U.S. is pushing hard for the G20 to adopt and implement a “Framework for Sustainable and Balanced Growth,” which would amount to the U.S. saving more, China saving less, and Europe “making structural changes to boost business investment” (and presumably some homework for Japan and the oil exporters, although that is not stressed in the article). This is pointless rhetoric, for three reasons. READ MORE >>
