The American Prospect articles from May 2009

The American Prospect archives from May 2009

Revolution amid recession.(PROSPECTS)(broadband democracy)
May 1, 2009... UNTIL RECENTLY, THE OPTIMISTIC ASSUMPTIONS OF an era of prosperity dominated ideas about the information revolution. Although many observers recognized that new technology would bring "creative destruction"--making old industries obsolete,...

The xxx-files: lobbying for the porn industry in a time of economic crisis.(Up Front)
May 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] WE ALL KNOW home values and decimated 401(k)s are among the effects of the recession. But what about depleted sex drives? "People are too depressed to be sexually active," Hustler publisher Larry Flynt said in a...

The question: what else should the federal government nationalize?(Up Front)
May 1, 2009... "lf they want a return to the taxpayer? The marijuana trade."--Eric Rauchway, U.C. Davis [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "Iceland, which will be used as refrigerated storage space and harvested for avant-garde pop musicians." --Reihan...

Expert advice.(WAYS AND MEANS)(political vision)
May 1, 2009... ON JUNE 11, 1962, JOHN F. KENNEDY DELIVERED the commencement address at Yale. After some Harvard-Yale jocularity, he put forward the most memorable definition of that triumphal moment in what historians now call the era of liberal consensus:...

It's time to rethink the problem.(Five Ways of Looking at Risk: Everything Americans thought they knew about risk was wrong. Now what? To restore real prosperity, we'll need to get smarter about what we don't know)
May 1, 2009... How did it happen? How did the sub-prime mortgage crisis cascade into the Wall Street meltdown and then the worst recession since the 1930s? One answer crops up over and over: It was the math. According to Wired magazine, a single equation, the...

2 Risk is best managed from the bottom up.(Five Ways of Looking at Risk: Everything Americans thought they knew about risk was wrong. Now what? To restore real prosperity, we'll need to get smarter about what we don't know)(Viewpoint essay)
May 1, 2009... Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke stated the obvious during his March 10 speech at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington: The global financial system contains too much risk and too little regulation. As the central figure in a...

3 The rich and powerful can avoid risk.(Five Ways of Looking at Risk: Everything Americans thought they knew about risk was wrong. Now what? To restore real prosperity, we'll need to get smarter about what we don't know)(Viewpoint essay)
May 1, 2009... Recent discussions of the malfunction of Wall Street have centered on the role of statistical models that failed to accurately account for all possible outcomes. These less likely results, known as "tail risks," were underestimated by the...

4 Housing is local, and lending should be, too.(Five Ways of Looking at Risk: Everything Americans thought they knew about risk was wrong. Now what? To restore real prosperity, we'll need to get smarter about what we don't know)
May 1, 2009... History will recall 2005 as the year the credit bubble grew fattest--when in much of Florida and California, real-estate prices doubled in a matter of months. But in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, it was the year that nearly 12,000 homes were abandoned...

5 A strong safety net encourages healthy risk-taking.(Five Ways of Looking at Risk: Everything Americans thought they knew about risk was wrong. Now what? To restore real prosperity, we'll need to get smarter about what we don't know)(Viewpoint essay)
May 1, 2009... Remember the "ownership society"? Just an election cycle ago, conservatives were urging Americans to give up their antiquated social-insurance programs--Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance--in favor of tax-subsidized individual...

States left behind: when Obama selected his Cabinet, he caused a fair bit of upheaval in his nominees' home states.(President Barack Obama)
May 1, 2009... When, or if, the Republican Party and the conservative movement make their comeback, it will not be under the banner of Washington leaders such as House Minority Leader John Boehner or hapless party Chair Michael Steele. Rather, the comeback is...

The next war over the courts: conservatives are already fired up about Obama's judicial nominations. Is the White House prepared for the fight?(Barack Obama)(Report)
May 1, 2009... On March 17, President Barack Obama announced his first judicial nominee: David Hamilton, a 15-year veteran Indiana federal trial judge with the declared support of both Indiana senators, Republican Richard Lugar and Democrat Evan Bayh. With...

Charitable relations: philanthropy adapts to the Obama era.(Barack Obama on philanthropy)
May 1, 2009... Last November, two weeks after Barack Obama was elected president, Gara LaMarche took to the podium at the annual meeting of Southern California Grantmakers. The president and chief executive of The Atlantic Philanthropies was in particularly...

A tale of two exurbs: most outer-ring suburbs are being developed into unwalkable sprawl. But it doesn't have to be that way.(Leesburg and Kentlands, Virginia)(Viewpoint essay)
May 1, 2009... Leesburg, Virginia, is the archetypal American exurb. Named after an ancestor of Robert E. Lee, it is the seat of Loudoun County, 35 miles northwest of Washington, D.C.--the farthest true suburb west of Washington. To its west are small towns...

Exit, stage left: a new collection of plays revisits a moment when the narrative power of organized labor was at its zenith.(THEATER)(Theater review)(Book review)
May 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] AT THE PRESENT MOMENT OF Democratic ascendancy and bitter economic tidings, one might expect organized labor to be riding higher in power and esteem than it has in many decades. But fair political winds, rising...

A stalled counterrevolution.('A Failure of Capitalism: The Crisis of '08 and the Descent Into Depression', 'Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism', 'Lord of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World', and 'Plunder and Blunder: The Rise and Fall of the Bubble Economy')(Book review)
May 1, 2009... A FAILURE OF CAPITALISM: THE CRISIS OF '08 AND THE DESCENT INTO DEPRESSION BY RICHARD A. POSNER, Harvard University Press, 346 pages, $23.95 ANIMAL SPIRITS: HOW HUMAN PSYCHOLOGY DRIVES THE ECONOMY, AND WHY IT MATTERS FOR GLOBAL CAPITALISM...

Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism.(book marketplace)(Brief article)(Book review)
May 1, 2009... Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism by George A. Akerlof and Robert J. Shiller [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] From blind faith in ever-rising housing prices to plummeting confidence...

Essays on the Great Depression.(book marketplace)(Brief article)(Book review)
May 1, 2009... Essays on the Great Depression by Ben S. Bernanke [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The Great Depression provides a marvelous laboratory for studying the links between economic policies and institutions and economic performance. Here, Federal...

Getting smarter about IQ.('Intelligence and How to Get It: Why Schools and Cultures Count')(Book review)
May 1, 2009... INTELLIGENCE AND HOW TO GET IT: WHY SCHOOLS AND CULTURES COUNT BY RICHARD E. NISBETT, W.W. Norton, 304 pages, $26.95 ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE 40 YEARS ago when Arthur Jensen's 120page article, "How Much Can We Boost I.Q. and Scholastic...

The Crash of 2008 and What It Means.(book marketplace)(Brief article)(Book review)
May 1, 2009... The Crash of 2008 and What It Means by George Sores [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Legendary financier George Sores explores the origins of the most serious financial upheaval since the Great Depression, its implications for the future, and...

The Next Progressive Era: A Blueprint for Broad Prosperity.(book marketplace)(Brief article)(Book review)
May 1, 2009... The Next Progressive Era: A Blueprint for Broad Prosperity by Phillip Longman & Ray Boshara, Foreward by Steve Coil [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "Despite the subtitle, this is not a lofty blueprint but an astute policy guide, communicating...

Teaching, Tusks, and Trust: Functions of the Public Executive.(book marketplace)(Brief article)(Book review)
May 1, 2009... Teaching, Tusks, and Trust: Functions of the Public Executive by John Brehm & Scott Gates [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "Teaching, Tasks, and Trust is a delight to read--good social science that addresses practical questions of the...

Reinventing Collapse: Soviet Example and American Prospects.(book marketplace)(Brief article)(Book review)
May 1, 2009... Reinventing Collapse: Soviet Example and American Prospects by Dmitry Orlov [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "Orlov writes with assurance, clarity and wit from a singular point-of-view--someone who has witnessed the prior Soviet crackup. This...

Radicalizing love.(MY BACK PAGES)(Laura Kipnis' Against Love: A Polemic)(Book review)
May 1, 2009... WOMEN'S AND GENDER STUDIES CLASSES HAVE familiar canon. Women, Race and Class by Angela Davis. The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan. Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center by bell hooks. Books about love as a form of capitalist enslavement...