Politics

The Retreat from Globalism

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In the wake of liberal globalism’s failings, a nationalist tide is rising today, not only in China and Russia but also throughout the West. It is a dynamic eerily similar to 100 years ago  read more »

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How America’s ‘Big Sort’ Will Upend Politics

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The world may not be turning upside down, but it’s certainly tilting. In the long shadow of the pandemic, with war on the European continent and the West and China entering a new cold war, the “new economy” of bits and bytes that was supposed to connect and shape the world has hit a rough patch. Meanwhile, the much disdained “old” economy of manufacturing, agriculture and energy is thriving.  read more »

Big in Japan

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Well, it’s big in Japan.

That is what proponents of California’s high speed rail project say when asked about the whys and wherefores of the system. In other words, if it works somewhere else it will work here.  read more »

The Philanthropy Threat

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Throughout history, excess wealth has been used to salve society’s problems, funding hospitals, food banks, and building libraries to develop minds and cathedrals to lift the spirits.  read more »

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The Future of Cities: The Future of the Big American City Is Not Bright

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As COVID-19 begins to wane and become endemic, the question for policymakers, theorists, and Americans at large is: What is in store for our nation's big cities?  read more »

Upward Mobility: Improving Conditions, Not Just Opportunities

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I’m old enough now to have grandnieces and nephews, and almost all of them have lower living standards and worse working conditions than their parents.  read more »

Vehicle Miles Traveled Gets a Killer Boost

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It seems as if anything can be done – truly anything – if it is in the name of safety.  read more »

How the California Dream Became a Nighmare

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For Americans, California once looked like the future. It was a state defined by risk-taking and utopian dreaming. Yet for most Californians today, the upward mobility so central to the state’s ethos is rapidly disappearing.  read more »

The Rise of the Single Woke Female

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Unmarried women without children have been moving toward the Democratic Party for several years, but the 2022 midterms may have been their electoral coming out party as they proved the chief break on the predicted Republican wave.  read more »

California's Budget Surplus Has Vanished; Its Economy is Facing a Harsh Reality

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The much-celebrated California boom is facing a harsh reality.

Everything was looking good, based on enormous growth in capital gains in tech stocks and property, and some in Sacramento assumed the bounty would last — until it didn’t.  read more »