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Ten Factories that Changed the World
As the U.S. lurches into a fourth year of depressed economic conditions and high unemployment, manufacturing has once again become a hot topic. As M.I.T. President Faith Hochberg has noted, the U.S. is good at inventing things – think Silicon Valley – but companies consistently look overseas for the advanced manufacturing processes needed to put them together [...]
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August, 2001
They were, truly, the dog days. Me, living in a shack behind a shack on the Jersey Shore, commuting to the city 80 miles away, deeply regretting my decision three months earlier, upon the collapse of my marriage, to “do what I always wanted to do and get a beach house.” The country, as insular [...]
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Turko-phobia? Get Over It
History rarely presents us with ironies as rich as those that preceded the death of Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaida chief who dealt a devastating blow to the United States and, indirectly, drove infidel troops from Saudi land nearly a decade ago. The terrorist leader lived just long enough to witness an almost complete repudiation [...]
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2012 and the Last Chance Saloon
Yes, S&P’s credibility is somewhat lacking. Yes, it’s a bit grating to hear China lecturing the U.S. on economics. And yet … you think and act below par, then you live below par. In fact, the real problem is that we, as a nation, vote below par. We don’t bother to show up, as a [...]
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What China Sees In Facebook?
(This is my piece today on Globalpost.com) NEW YORK — Sometime in early 2013, if current trends hold steady, the number of Facebook users worldwide should exceed the population of China. Call it a coincidence, but now it seems China wants a piece of the action. Last month, analysts who monitor China’s gargantuan sovereign wealth [...]
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Lost in Space
The end of the U.S. manned spaceflight program (yes, wo-manned, too) has everyone looking back, including me. Here’s a post from one of my other venues, The Txchnologist, in which I lay out my choices for the 10 Greatest Astronauts (sic) of all time. Even the headline grates a bit: the 10 greatest on my [...]
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Much Ado About Space Shuttles
Nostalgia hit hard today as the space shuttle Atlantis touched down in Florida and, if you believe the hype, put an end forever to mankind’s efforts to glean what lay beyond the moon. This is all nonsense, of course, because the demise of the U.S. manned space flight program really only marks the beginning of [...]
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Good Reads for a Hot Gotham Monday (July 18, 2011)
ECONOMY Consumption Junction: Excellent summary of U.S. economic reality by David Leonhardt – ‘We’re Spent.’ House Afire! Good summary of last week’s Fed minutes Penta-Nomics: DIA Software Predicts Greek Default DIPLOMACY AND WAR India’s New Air Force: A bit behind the curve on this one, but Carnegie’s Ashley Tellis relates the true tale of why India’s [...]
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Sick as a BRIC
First of all, its Friday, and even a chronicler of superpower decline is due a break on Friday. Secondly, yes, I said four. I know – South Africa’s been added to the BRICs to make them BRICS. I don’t buy it. I can name four better candidates than South Africa in terms of economic potential [...]
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Good Reads, Early July edition
MOST IMPORTANT PIECE OF THE WEEK NYT’s Damien Cave on the Collapse of Mexican Immigration to the US (Not Due to “Patriots” or Walls, btw, but prosperity at home) ECONOMY The Good News … It’s Friday — The Bad News … The Housing Crisis isn’t Nearly Over (Dan Alpert) Facebook should be worried about Google+ INTERNATIONAL [...]