Financial Times (April 3)
“The tide in the debate over the UK’s continued membership of the EU is turning against those campaigning to remain. This is not surprising, but the weakness of their arguments is puzzling.” Relying on scare tactics and narrow appeals to economic arguments misses the mark. “The main economic factors in favour of EU are not trade, but research, science and innovation policy.”
Tags: Debate, EU, Innovation, Membership, Remain, Research, Scare tactics. Economic factors, Science, Trade, UK
Washington Post (October 28)
Ten Republican candidates (Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, Carly Fiorina, Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, Chris Christie, John Kasich and Rand Paul) faced off in the latest debate. They seemed “to be testing a strategy of winning by whining. Certainly, voters are discontented and even angry. But do they want a leader who campaigns by kvetching?”
Tags: Angry, Bush, Carson, Christie, Cruz, Debate, Discontented, Fiorina, Huckabee, Kasich, Paul, Republican, Rubio, Strategy, Trump, Voters, Whining
Washington Post (June 4)
“The tragic sinking of a cruise ship on the Yangtze River on Monday night produced a reflexive reaction from China’s communist authorities: censorship.” This could backfire. “Mr. Xi’s attempt to impose Stalinist-style information controls may not work in 21st-century China. His regime would foster more trust were it to follow the examples of neighbors such as South Korea and Taiwan, which live-streamed video of rescue efforts after recent disasters and encouraged debate about what went wrong. In attempting to shield the regime from criticism, Beijing’s censors are only adding to public embitterment.”
Tags: Censorship, China, Debate, Disasters, Rescue, Sinking, South Korea, Stalin, Taiwan, Tragic, Xi, Yangtze
Washington Post (June 2)
Thomas Piketty’s book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, has attracted both applause and derision as it soars in popularity. Recent criticism has aimed largely at the supporting data, which suggests inequality has reached new heights. Not so, writes Robert Samuelson in the Washington Post. “Inequality isn’t as great now as in the ’20s. This is history’s real lesson. Although the debate over inequality is legitimate and important, we shouldn’t distort it with misleading and overwrought rhetoric.”
Tags: Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Data, Debate, History, Inequality, Legitimate, Misleading, Rhetoric, Robert Samuelson, Thomas Piketty
Financial Times (September 10)
“The sheer triviality of the German election campaign is a tribute to the success of the country. Only a nation that is secure and prosperous could afford to have a political debate that is so focused on the little things of life.” The big debate in Germany is not intervention in Syria or safeguarding the future of Europe. “The moral issue that has divided Germans this election” is vegetarianism. A proposal from the Green party that public cafeterias quit serving meat, one day a week, “has stirred up an impassioned debate about whether politicians have the right to get between Germans and their sausages.”
Tags: Cafeterias, Campaign, Debate, Election, Europe, Germans, Green party, Meat, Politicians, Sausages, Syria, Vegetarianism
