Now that lawmakers in Sacramento have raised California’s gas tax to pay for infrastructure repairs, the Golden State Poll asked voters what repairs they’d prefer. Having just paid their income taxes, Californians assessed their financial well-being – their finances vs their parents’, their hopes for their children, their confidence in retirement. Voters also weighed in on altering Proposition 13, the Trump presidency's prospects and its effect on California’s economy. This survey was released in conjunction with the May 2017 Issue of Eureka.
Linda Darling-Hammond, smart as she is, doubtless has many fresh thoughts and insights. In her new book series on “empowered educators,” however, after bringing in a sizable body of information on how other countries go about it, she and a number of colleagues recycle many of their sturdiest old thoughts and insights. Subtitled “how high-performing systems shape teaching quality around the world,” they—under the aegis of a Stanford policy center and Marc Tucker’s National Center on Education and the Economy—describe in depth (via a 280-page overview treatise and multiple supplemental volumes) “how seven international educational systems create a coherent set of policies designed to ensure quality teaching in all communities.”
About half of the population in Europe and the United States seems to want to go back to the world that existed before the 1980s, when local communities had more control of their own destinies and traditions. The Czech Republic, to take one example, joined the European Union in 2004. But it has not yet adopted the euro and cannot decide whether the EU is wisely preventing wars of the past from being repeated or is recklessly strangling freedom in the manner of the old Soviet Union — or both. In places devastated by globalization — such as southern Michigan or Roubaix, France – underemployed youth in their mid 20s often live at home in prolonged adolescence without much hope of enjoying the pre-globalized lifestyles of their parents.
In the past, when Arab governments joined forces it was against another common enemy — Israel. Nowadays, President Trump is expected to lay out a plan to create a so-called "Arab NATO", a force that might even have room for Israel in a later stage. In a press conference with President Donald Trump upon his visit to Washington, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, "For the first time in my lifetime, and for the first time in the life of my country, Arab countries in the region do not see Israel as an enemy, but, increasingly, as an ally".
On agriculture, China reiterated a promise that it has broken in the past to let in more beef. Previously, we, as reciprocity, had been withholding publication of a permissive rule on Chinese poultry, but we have now relented. Advantage China.
interview with Condoleezza Ricevia Pacific Council on International Policy
Wednesday, May 24, 2017
Hoover Institution fellow Condoleezza Rice discusses her book Democracy: Stories From the Long Road to Freedom, as well as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, cooperating with Russia, the crisis in Venezuela, democracy in China, trade and populism, and more.
Hoover Institution fellow Adam White discusses the fate of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is currently in the hands of a Washington appeals court.
Hoover Library & Archives has received a never before published cache of letters written between Hoover fellow and Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman, his wife and collaborator Rose Friedman, and New York publisher William Jovanovich of Harcourt, Brace, and Jovanovich, Inc.
The Hoover Institution Working Group on Intellectual Property, Innovation, and Prosperity (Hoover IP²) is pleased to announce that it is partnering with the London-based Global Competition Review to co-host GCR Live IP and Antitrust at Stanford University on May 25, 2017.
Victor Davis Hanson amplifies and elaborates on the contribution of the mainstream media angle in his long, indispensable NRO column “A coup by any other name?” We are thinking along the same lines; one section of Dr. Hanson’s column is headed “Trump agonistes.” Here is the salient point regarding the media: “The effort to remove the president is conducted by the New York Times, the Washington Post, the wire services, and the major networks. And we have seen nothing like it in our time. In the last six months, Americans have been told quite falsely so many untruths about the Trump administration by their news agencies that for all practical purposes, there is no such thing as a media as we once knew it.”
When, a few weeks ago, Timothy Garton Ash suggested that I present the laudatio on the occasion of his receipt of the Charlemagne Prize, we could not have predicted that our ceremony would be held in the atmosphere of grief and rage because of a certain tragic event. Yet another crime perpetrated by Islamic terrorists seems to confirm the view that we have found ourselves at the very heart of a global civil war. However, the dominant feeling we have is, first of all, the feeling of solidarity with the victims' families and with the UK. And who knows better the meaning of “solidarity” than our laureate ? Timothy, we are with you today, in our hearts and our thoughts, in Manchester.
According to Japan’s GDP figure for the first quarter of 2017 (released on May 18), the Japanese economy has grown by an annualized real rate of 2.2%. Most welcome this as the country's longest economic expansion in 11 years. Don't be fooled by this figure. It is actually a warning sign for Japan’s policymakers. Why? Because the nominal GDP has been shrinking slightly. The gap between growing real GDP and slightly shrinking nominal GDP is, of course, deflation. GDP deflator has declined by 0.6%.
Repealing the whole of Obamacare in the American Health Care Act was never an option, according to House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La. Virtually every Republican has run on a full repeal of Obamacare since 2010 — not the half-assed repeal that is the American Health Care Act. And yet …
A new report from the Hoover Institution written by Senior Fellow Joshua Rauh and entitled "Hidden Debt, Hidden Deficits: How Pension Promises Are Consuming State And Local Budgets," does a masterful job illustrating the true severity of America's public pension crisis, a topic to which we've dedicated a substantial amount of time over the past couple of years.
The fate of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and its chief, Richard Cordray, is in the hands of a Washington appeals court that will hear arguments Wednesday. The CFPB asked the court to reconsider its 2016 decision involving the agency’s punishment of New Jersey mortgage company PHH Corp. The outcome could take months. It’s expected to provide ammunition for one side or the other in the years-long tug of war over the agency’s existence.
Allan Meltzer, the internationally renowned economist and esteemed Carnegie Mellon University professor, died on May 8 at the age of 89. Meltzer was a pioneer for policy reform, a prolific author, a teacher, and a leader in his profession.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is the kind of person you wouldn't mind hanging out with for hours and shooting the breeze about this and that. And reading her books feels like that too. She is transparent about everything. How she expected buses to crash when she finally took off the headscarf, on account of drivers being driven mad with desire. And was rather disappointed when "nothing happened."
