The American (Washington, DC) back issues from November 2007:
From the editor.(Editorial)
Nov 01, 2007; ... Dear Reader: FEW ARTICLES IN THE AMERICAN have resonated like economist Kevin Hassett's short piece in our May/ June issue. It showed, through original research, that developing nations that had relatively free economies but unfree political systems were growing faster than ...
The cover jinx.(THE AMERICAN SCENE)(Brief article)
Nov 01, 2007 ... There's an old saying that, just as any athlete featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated has peaked, any company lauded on the cover of Fortune is headed for a fall. A new study by accounting professor Tom Arnold and colleagues at the University of Richmond finds support for this theory ...
Working-class hero.(THE AMERICAN SCENE)(Brief article)
Nov 01, 2007 ... A REPORT FROM THE INTERNATIONAL LABOR Organization (ILO), a United Nations body, finds that American workers remain the most productive in the world, at least when productivity is measured as "value added per person employed per year." U.S. workers averaged $63,885 worth of output in 2006, ...
The joy of living together.(THE AMERICAN SCENE)(Report)(Brief article)
Nov 01, 2007; ... A new study in the Journal of Family Issues concludes that cohabiting boyfriends do more of the housework than married men do. Even for couples that see themselves as equals, scholars at George Mason University found, getting married tends to have a "traditionalizing" effect, leaving women ...
Eminent disdain.(THE AMERICAN SCENE)(Brief article)
Nov 01, 2007; ... As AMERICANS WERE RUDELY REMINDED two years ago, "eminent domain" is the controversial authority, granted by the Fifth Amendment, which allows governments to condemn and seize private property for "public use," provided they offer "just compensation" to the owner. The 2005 Supreme Court ...
The theorist: MIT's Ivan Werning, 33, uses theoretical models to find the best economic policies on such thorny matters as estate taxes and unemployment insurance.(THE YOUNG ECONOMIST)
Nov 01, 2007; ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] EMPIRICAL ECONOMICS IS fine for exploring things that have already happened. For example, you can look at the history of energy prices and determine how much of an increase forces consumers to reduce the heating of their homes. But Ivan Werning is drawn to ...
What makes a terrorist? It's not poverty and lack of education, according to economic research by Princeton's Alan Krueger Look elsewhere.
Nov 01, 2007; ... IN THE WAKE of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, policymakers, scholars, and ordinary citizens asked a key question: What would make people willing to give up their lives to wreak mass destruction in a foreign land? In short, what makes a terrorist? A popular ...
The big cheese: in the land of Velveeta, who would have believed that the business of making sophisticated, artisan cheeses would be exploding and 1,208 varieties would be competing for Best in Show at the U.S. championships in Vermont? Is American cheese the new American wine? One of the judges, cheesemonger Matthew Rubiner, has the answer.
Nov 01, 2007; ... ON THE LAST day of July, 30 professional cheese judges gathered in Burlington, Vermont, to sniff, taste, critique, and eventually spit (in order to avoid not intoxication, as with wine-tasting, but a horribly full stomach) more than a thousand cheeses--the largest such competition in U.S ....
The China model: economic freedom plus political repression. That's the sinister, sizzling-hot policy formulation that's displacing the 'Washington Consensus' and winning fans from regimes across Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. But, Rowan Callick asks, for how long?(Cover story)
Nov 01, 2007; ... From Vietnam to Syria, from Burma to Venezuela, and all across Africa, leaders of developing countries are admiring and emulating what might be called the China Model. It has two components. The first is to copy successful elements of liberal economic policy by opening up much of the ...
Hard-driving CEOs: top executives aren't just funding auto-racing teams. They're behind the wheel of the fast cars. Travis Braun goes to the track to get the story.(Chief Executive Officers)
Nov 01, 2007; ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] For decades, business executives have been backers of auto racing. Now, more and more, the executives are driving the ears. The Grand American Road Racing Association, an organization whose silent partner is the stock-car powerhouse NASCAR, set up a ...
Generation next: at a vigorous 75, CEO blogger Bill Marriott runs a global empire of 3,000 hotels. He talks about immigration, healthcare, green lodging, and the Next Big Thing.(THE AMERICAN INTERVIEW)(Interview)
Nov 01, 2007; ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ON THE DAY 80 YEARS AGO that Charles Lindbergh started his solo transatlantic flight, J. Willard Marriott, a 26-year-old native of Utah, opened a root beer stand in Washington, D.C. Raised in the family business, the founder's son, J. W. (Bill) Jr., now ...
Guess who really pays the taxes: yes, income in America is skewed toward the rich. But taxes are skewed far, far more. The top 5 percent pay well over half the income taxes. Stephen Moore has all the numbers.(QUESTION & ANSWER)
Nov 01, 2007; ... 1 Are income taxes fair? That depends on who is offering the opinion. Democratic candidates for president certainly don't think so. John Edwards has said, "It's time to restore fairness to a tax code that has been driven badly out of whack." Hillary Clinton laments that ...
The good, the bad, and the Japanese: the brilliant director Akira Kurosawa, of 'Seven Samurai' fame, helped bring a new kind of hero to the American movie screen, writes James Bowman. Not so much film noir as film gris.
Nov 01, 2007; ... Clint Eastwood, an icon of American heroism recognized throughout the world, made a movie last year about one of the best-known battles of World War II, a movie that lacked both a hero and so much as a glance in the direction of what was being fought over. It was a movie about war seen ...
The election: one year out.(DATA POINTS)
Nov 01, 2007; ... Americans complain that our presidential campaigns are too long and too expensive, but we take elections seriously and believe in the importance of voting. On Election Day 2008, Americans will choose their president freely for the 56th consecutive time, a record unbroken in any other ...
The glorious toothpick: the story of the humble mass-produced toothpick is a paradigm for American manufacturing: inspiration, invention, marketing, competition, trade, success, and failure. Engineering scholar Henry Petroski explains.
Nov 01, 2007; ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] THE PLAIN WOODEN toothpick is among the simplest of manufactured things. It consists of a single part, made of a single material, and is intended for a single purpose, from which it takes its name. But simple things do not necessarily come easily, and the ...
The internet of things: your cell phone camera can take a look at a product and tell you all about it. Is this an ephemeral gimmick or a great business?(TECHNO-IDEAS)(Nextcode)
Nov 01, 2007; ... Todd Malan is a frustrated oenophile. When he tastes a wine he likes at a restaurant, he has no handy way of recording the relevant information about it--name, vintage, region, year, and so on. Keeping a wine diary is cumbersome, and it's notoriously difficult to remove the labels for ...
Rah! Rah! Block that rook! Small, no-name colleges have suddenly become powerhouses in intercollegiate chess. By whipping Harvard and Yale in the thinking-person's sport, they are cleverly trying to build reputations to attract top-quality applicants and alumni money.
Nov 01, 2007; ... Were it not for chess, Ray Robson might be just another boy genius. AFTER COMPLETING SIXTH grade last year, the spindly 12-year-old began pursuing higher learning at his home in Largo, Florida, studying Mandarin with his mother and discussing literature with his father, a professor at St ....
Our worst president ever? That's what some on both left and right are saying about George W. Bush. Don't count him out yet, Victor Davis Hanson advises.(GEOPOLITICS)
Nov 01, 2007; ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] By October, 15 months before his presidency would end, George Bush's approval ratings still hovered around 30 percent. His administration will go down, say historians such as Columbia's Eric Foner and Princeton's Sean Wilentz, as a disaster. As ...
Human rights in China: the whole sad story: respect for basic human rights will be a bellwether for continued economic development and peaceful foreign policy, writes Jacqueline A. Newmyer. The outlook appears bleak.
Nov 01, 2007; ... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] "ULTIMATELY, CHINA WILL need to embrace some form of a more open and representative government if it is to fully achieve the political and economic benefits to which its people aspire," Donald Rumsfeld, then the secretary of defense, intoned in 2005. That ...