PLAIN DEALER OPINION

Our Views and Yours: Editorials, Columns and Letters

Great Depression buff tries to stave off a sequel

by Carlos Lozada

Thursday November 20, 2008, 5:00 AM

Carlos Lozada is the Washington Post's national security editor.

WASHINGTON -- It was the annual conference of the American Economic Association in January 2000, and the well-regarded Princeton professor was explaining why he had always loved macroeconomics. What made his chosen field so compelling, he said, were the "extreme and dramatic events" it covers, such as hyperinflation, depressions and financial crises.

"This dramatic aspect always appealed to me," Prof. Ben Bernanke told fellow economist Brian Snowdon in an interview.

If economic turmoil really fascinates him, the Federal Reserve chairman must now be having the time of his life. The global economy is in the midst of the most extreme and dramatic financial trauma since the Great Depression, when markets crashed, prices plummeted, banks collapsed and jobs vanished, leaving a legacy of breadlines, Joads and Hoovervilles.

Continue reading "Great Depression buff tries to stave off a sequel" »

Great Depression buff tries to stave off a sequel

by Carlos Lozada

Thursday November 20, 2008, 5:00 AM

Carlos Lozada is the Washington Post's national security editor.

WASHINGTON -- It was the annual conference of the American Economic Association in January 2000, and the well-regarded Princeton professor was explaining why he had always loved macroeconomics. What made his chosen field so compelling, he said, were the "extreme and dramatic events" it covers, such as hyperinflation, depressions and financial crises.

"This dramatic aspect always appealed to me," Prof. Ben Bernanke told fellow economist Brian Snowdon in an interview.

If economic turmoil really fascinates him, the Federal Reserve chairman must now be having the time of his life. The global economy is in the midst of the most extreme and dramatic financial trauma since the Great Depression, when markets crashed, prices plummeted, banks collapsed and jobs vanished, leaving a legacy of breadlines, Joads and Hoovervilles.

Continue reading "Great Depression buff tries to stave off a sequel" »

Secretary of state deck has wild card

by Trudy Rubin

Thursday November 20, 2008, 5:00 AM

Trudy Rubin is a columnist and editorial-board member for the Philadelphia Inquirer.(McClatchy-Tribune)

With the election of a president who emphasizes the need for tough diplomacy, his choice for secretary of state becomes especially important.

Yet in conversations with current and former diplomats and foreign-policy experts, I've found a surprising lack of excitement about the names bandied about as potential choices, including Hillary Rodham Clinton. That also goes for Sens. John Kerry (Democrat), Dick Lugar and Chuck Hagel (Republicans); New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson; and retired diplomat Richard Holbrooke. (There is one possible wild card whom I'll get to below.)

Indeed, the name that arouses the most enthusiasm in foreign-policy circles is a member of the Bush team who isn't even being considered to head the State Department: Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

Continue reading "Secretary of state deck has wild card" »

Secretary of state deck has wild card

by Trudy Rubin

Thursday November 20, 2008, 5:00 AM

Trudy Rubin is a columnist and editorial-board member for the Philadelphia Inquirer.(McClatchy-Tribune)

With the election of a president who emphasizes the need for tough diplomacy, his choice for secretary of state becomes especially important.

Yet in conversations with current and former diplomats and foreign-policy experts, I've found a surprising lack of excitement about the names bandied about as potential choices, including Hillary Rodham Clinton. That also goes for Sens. John Kerry (Democrat), Dick Lugar and Chuck Hagel (Republicans); New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson; and retired diplomat Richard Holbrooke. (There is one possible wild card whom I'll get to below.)

Indeed, the name that arouses the most enthusiasm in foreign-policy circles is a member of the Bush team who isn't even being considered to head the State Department: Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

Continue reading "Secretary of state deck has wild card" »

Building an Obama urban agenda

by Joe Frolik

Thursday November 20, 2008, 2:04 AM

The CEO of CEOs for Cities -- a Chicago-based organization that brings together corporate executives, mayors and urban university presidents to develop new strategies and leaders for the nation's biggest cities -- visited Cleveland Tuesday to speak at the annual meeting of University Circle Inc.

Like a lot of Chicagoans, Carol Coletta is still buzzing about the election of one of their own as the 44th president of the United States.

And, like a lot of other people who care about cities, she thinks Barack Obama will be good for urban America.

Continue reading "Building an Obama urban agenda" »

Strickland should put away the veto pen on tax credits for the film industry

by The editors

Wednesday November 19, 2008, 5:31 PM

There's a hard-boiled scene in "The Hustler," the greatest movie ever made about pool hall primates, where Fast Eddie Felson, played by Paul Newman, begs a backer for a final shot at the big money.

"Maybe I'm not such a high-class piece of property right now," Fast Eddie admits. "[But] a 25 percent slice of something big is better than a 100 percent slice of nothing."

That line of dialogue from the 1961 Oscar-winning flick should resonate as a bill to entice the $60 billion film industry to Ohio with a 25 percent tax incentive makes its way through the lame duck session of the state legislature.

Continue reading "Strickland should put away the veto pen on tax credits for the film industry" »

No idle hands with MyCom

by The editors

Wednesday November 19, 2008, 5:27 PM

MyCom, the snazzy new name for Cuyahoga County's new youth development effort, stands for "my commitment, my community," but it embraces a wise aphorism: Idle hands are the devil's workshop.

There won't be many if the city of Cleveland, the county, the Cleveland Foundation and other sponsors are successful with plans to fill youngsters' days with rewarding after-school programs, business internships and leadership roles. The $5 million MyCom plan proposes to cast a huge net to catch youth before their talents are wasted by teen pregnancy, dope-dealing or gun-slinging.

Many of MyCom's ideas are aimed at providing parents with easier access to information. And Kent State University will be asked to provide accountability by evaluating how MyCom works. But expectations should be tempered. MyCom won't improve wretched schools. And it won't fix broken homes. But it could help a child in need of some adult guidance stay on the right and narrow path.

A G-20 summit missing a ringmaster

by Elizabeth Sullivan

Wednesday November 19, 2008, 5:18 PM

Leaders of the world's most important economies dropped their other plans so they could fly in to Washington last weekend for President Bush's financial summit.

That was fitting: Wall Street policy and U.S. buying power still guide the fates of virtually every other big nation's business.

So why was France's Nicolas Sarkozy claiming much of the credit for the Group of 20 summit and its broad agenda?

And why are Sarkozy and Britain's Gordon Brown now stage-managing the next steps? Sarkozy hosts a January conference in Paris with other financial experts, while a follow-up G-20 meeting next spring probably will be held in Britain.

In fact, what was most notable about the Saturday summit was how irrelevant President Bush has made himself on world economic policy -- and how devalued his financial team has become in the eyes of many U.S. allies.

Continue reading "A G-20 summit missing a ringmaster" »

The United States isn't center-right anymore

by Tod Lindberg

Wednesday November 19, 2008, 10:11 AM

Tod Lindberg is a fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution and the editor of Policy Review. He was an informal foreign policy adviser to the McCain campaign. (Washington Post)

Here's the main thought Republicans are consoling themselves with these days: Notwithstanding President-elect Barack Obama, a nearly filibuster-proof Democratic majority in the Senate and the largest Democratic majority in the House of Representatives since 1993, the United States is still a center-right country. Sure, voters may be angry with Republicans now, but eventually, as the Bush years recede and the GOP modernizes its brand, a basically right-tilting electorate will come back home. Or, in the words of the animated rock band the Gorillaz, "I'm useless, but not for long/The future is comin' on."

Thus Rich Lowry, the editor of National Review, in Outlook last week: The United States "is indeed, as conservatives have been insisting in recent days, a center-right country." On election night, former Bush guru Karl Rove opined on Fox News, "Barack Obama understands this is a center-right country, and he smartly and wisely ran a campaign that emphasized it." And it's not just conservative pundits and operatives singing this song. Take Newsweek editor Jon Meacham, who wrote an Oct. 27 cover essay titled "America the Conservative," which argued that Obama will have to "govern a center-right nation" that "is more instinctively conservative than it is liberal."

The only problem: It isn't true. Or at least, not anymore. If you'd asked me a year ago whether the United States is really a center-right nation, I would have said yes -- after pausing for a second to contemplate the GOP's big congressional losses in 2006. At the time, Republicans cheered each other up by assuring ourselves that the worst was over: If you were running for Congress and survived 2006, you could hold your seat forever.

Continue reading "The United States isn't center-right anymore" »

Time for perspective on election's numbers

by Jonathan V. Last

Wednesday November 19, 2008, 5:00 AM

Jonathan V. Last is a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer. (McClatchy-Tribune)

Political myths take hold as quickly as urban legends, and often with even less supporting evidence. Someone stands in a particularly long line on Election Day and decides that it signals a once-in-a-generation eruption of civic engagement.

But anecdotes are not data. We now have enough exit-poll data from Edison Media Research/Mitofsky International to put last week's election in context. Let's examine some of the already established myths:

Continue reading "Time for perspective on election's numbers" »

Connie Schultz: People turn to high-fat Spam in lean economic times

by Connie Schultz/Plain Dealer Columnist

Tuesday November 18, 2008, 8:30 PM

We all know these are tough economic times, and it seems like every day the news just gets worse, but boy, I never saw this one coming.

The New York Times reported last week that Hormel workers are producing record numbers of canned Spam.

And here's the kicker: People are eating it.

Wow. Talk about sacrifice.

There are two kinds of people when it comes to canned Spam.

Offer a slab of the pink brick of pork to those who've never tasted it, and chances are they'll recoil as if you'd just asked them to eat a slice of their own liver.

Make the same offer to those who grew up with Spam, and they may flinch, but those flashbacks pass and before you know it, they're reciting a recipe or two from childhoods that tend to have working-class roots.

Oh, the memories, and they only begin with Spam slathered with mustard and wedged between two slices of Schwebel's white bread. There's Spam burgers, and fried Spam and eggs. Spam kebobs are big, too, and don't forget to soak those wooden spikes in water before sticking them in the oven. The smoke alone will kill you, not to mention what your father's going to do when he sees flames shooting out of the oven. Whew. Some memories do haunt.

And who can forget the first time we sliced into Spam Upside Down Pie?

(Line an 8-inch mold with Spam slices and fill with baking powder biscuit dough well-laced with tiny cubes of Spam. Bake 40 to 45 min. at 425 degrees . . . . )

Continue reading "Connie Schultz: People turn to high-fat Spam in lean economic times" »

Paulson ducking answers on how Treasury upended National City

by The editors

Tuesday November 18, 2008, 5:31 PM

Dr. Henry Paulson's economic prescriptions are beginning to have the scent of quackery about them. That's a major cause for concern.

Treasury Secretary Paulson tries to pretend the "patient" is stabilized and just needs therapy. Unfortunately, his "patient" seems restricted to the financial institutions he wants to win. Everyone else, from homeowners to automakers to banking losers, might as well get in line at the poorhouse.

Continue reading "Paulson ducking answers on how Treasury upended National City" »

Capri Cafaro's rise to Senate minority leader is good news for both Democrats and Northeast Ohio

by The editors

Tuesday November 18, 2008, 5:29 PM

Ohio Senate Democrats picked suburban Youngstown Sen. Capri Cafaro as their new leader last week. Cafaro is young, smart, hardworking and rich. She seems to be a good choice and may bring needed dynamism to what has been a lethargic caucus. Democrats last ran the Senate in 1984.

Since then, Democrats have never held more than 15 seats in the 33-seat Senate. They hold 12 now. Democratic drift has let Republicans enjoy the longest one-party monopoly of Ohio's Senate since the Civil War -- maybe ever.

Continue reading "Capri Cafaro's rise to Senate minority leader is good news for both Democrats and Northeast Ohio" »

A land bank is necessary for Cleveland's future

by Becky Gaylord

Tuesday November 18, 2008, 10:41 AM

Gaylord is a former associate editor and member of The Plain Dealer Editorial Board.

Cleveland's decline has dragged on for years. It has been nearly four decades since pollutants sparked a fire atop the river. Babies born during the default are entering their 30s.

By some measures, however, those disasters came during what were comparatively good days for this city. Back then, Cleveland had many more residents, big employers and jobs.

Now, despite the fairy tale of the Comeback City -- which proved to be Cleveland's version of the emperor who had no clothes -- things seem worse than ever.

Continue reading "A land bank is necessary for Cleveland's future" »