New York Times (January 16)
“Intent on reversing America’s decline in the world’s production of cutting-edge semiconductors, the federal government has begun what is arguably the government’s largest foray into the private sector since World War II.” This “more muscular approach to industrial policy” is “pockmarked with risks. On balance, the record of government trying to improve the functioning of the private sector is poor, and particularly in complex sectors like semiconductors, the challenges are great.”
Tags: Complex, Cutting edge, Decline, Government, Industrial policy, Intent, Private-sector, Production, Reversing, Risks, Semiconductors, U.S., WWII
Pittsburgh Gazette (December 26)
“As terrible as World War II was… COVID is exacting a far bigger toll among Americans.” The pandemic has already claimed twice as many lives in half the time. “And yet the contrast in national harmony and sense of national purpose is dramatic.” The sacrifices required today pale by comparison, but “many Americans regard wearing masks an intolerable inconvenience and practicing social distancing too great a sacrifice.”
Tags: Contrast, Covid, Inconvenience, Intolerable, Lives, Masks, National harmony, Pandemic, Purpose, Sacrifices, Social distancing, Terrible, Toll, U.S., WWII
Minneapolis Star Tribune (July 22)
The 1.5 year decline in U.S. life expectancy “is the largest seen in a single year since World War II” and “reflects the pandemic’s sustained toll on Americans, particularly the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on communities of color,” where life expectancy fell nearly 3 years for blacks and Latinos.
Tags: Blacks, COVID-19, Decline, Disproportionate, Impact, Life expectancy, Pandemic, U.S., WWII
Time (June 23)
“Life expectancy across the country plummeted by nearly two years from 2018 to 2020, the largest decline since 1943, when American troops were dying in World War II.” While life expectancy also dropped in many countries during the same period, “the average loss of life expectancy in the U.S. was nearly nine times greater than the average in 16 other developed nations, whose residents can now expect to live 4.7 years longer than Americans.”
Tags: Decline, Developed nations, Dying, Life expectancy, Plummeted, U.S., WWII
New York Times (March 29)
The Covid-19 crisis has awakened “a sleeping giant” in China. “How the ruling Communist Party manages the coming months will help shape how hundreds of millions of young people see its authoritarian political bargain for decades to come.” The “generational awakening… could match the defining effects of World War II” and it “could disrupt the social stability on which the Communist Party depends.”
Tags: Authoritarian, Awakened, CCP, China, COVID-19, Crisis, Disrupt, Sleeping giant, Social stability, WWII, Young
The Guardian (December 2)
Though Prime Minister “Theresa May is reviled for her weakness,” no other “British prime minister has found the strength to condemn an American president as she condemned Donald Trump since the Anglo-American alliance began in the Second World War.” Nothing the previous Prime Minister’s “said matches the forcefulness of May’s out, loud and proud denunciation of Trump for sharing the ‘hateful narratives’ of British fascists.”
Tags: Anglo-American alliance, Condemn, Denunciation, Fascists, May, Strength, Trump, U.S., Weakness, WWII
Reuters (December 13)
“In time, Syria may be seen to define the early 21st century the way the Spanish Civil War did the 1930s – a perfect storm of all the worst trends in global politics and conflict. If it is, then Aleppo will be its Guernica, the Spanish town carpet bombed by Nazi aircraft in 1937 in a savage precursor to the horrors of the coming World War Two.
Tags: Aleppo, Carpet bombed, Conflict, Global politics, Guernica, Nazi, Perfect storm, Spanish Civil War, Syria, Worst trends, WWII
The Economist (May 21)
Before the WWII, available date suggests business “cycles aged like people…. the odds of tipping into recession rose as an expansion got older.” Since then, however, the data is counter-intuitive, indicative of “ageless recoveries.” “Since the 1940s age has not withered them: an expansion in its 40th month is just as vulnerable, statistically, as one in its 80th (each has about a 75% chance of surviving the next year).”
Tags: Ageless recoveries, Business cycles, Counter-intuitive, Data, Expansion, Recession, Vulnerable, WWII
Forbes (April 15)
It’s easy to underestimate the loss of Greece. “While it may be true that the economic damage of a Greek collapse would largely be confined to Greece itself, it nonetheless would undermine the great post-WWII dream of a united Europe that would never experience another catastrophic war….. Thanks to remarkably bad leadership, Europe’s post-WWII order is in mortal danger, threatening unimaginable political and economic repercussions.”
Tags: Collapse, Danger, Economic damage, Europe, Greece, Leadership, War, WWII
Wall Street Journal (April 27, 2013)
“Who started World War II? We thought that one belonged to the Department of Settled Questions, along with any lingering doubts about whether the Earth orbits the sun. But Japan’s Shinzo Abe has a fresh, er, interpretation.” The Prime Minister’s latest revisionism threatens to further enflame tensions, already running high, in Asia. “Much of the world long ago forgave Japan its wartime atrocities. But it hasn’t forgotten them…. Mr. Abe’s disgraceful remark will make his country no more friends abroad.”
Tags: Atrocities, Disgrace, Japan, Prime minister, Shinzo Abe, WWII
