National Review Online

When Sarah Palin resigned on July 4th weekend, it certainly looked as though she had decided to abandon politics, or at the very least given up on running for president in 2012. And despite the saturation coverage of Palin's Going Rogue book tour, it's not obvious that she hasn't. As Republican political strategist Patrick Ruffini has observed, a Palin presidential run would have profited from releasing the book a year from now, maximizing media exposure in the crucial year before Iowa. Granted, John McCain also capitalized on… more

Megan McArdle of The Atlantic calls this the “evil-man theory of failure.” Something went wrong, and somebody must be blamed. ...

... and pocket the difference all day,” says Jason Delisle, director of the Federal Education Budget Project at the New America Foundation. ...

After Gov. Jon Corzine’s lackluster 2009 state-of-the-state address, New Jersey Republicans -- beleaguered after a long run of stinging defeats -- suddenly perked up. Once considered a serious contender for national office, Corzine is now seen as a miserable failure, and his credentials as former CEO of Goldman Sachs no longer seem quite as impressive. But in order to win back New Jersey, not to mention other heavily urban states, Republicans will need to address the housing affordability crisis.

National Interest Online | Inside Track: Pole Dancing

. . . Next to speak was Flynt Leverett of the New America Foundation, who focused on the economic foundation of the world without the West: developing countries are nationalizing their natural resources and converting them into political leverage, with startling success. Leverett maintained that the dramatic increase in energy prices since 2000 tips the geopolitical scales in the direction of oil-and-gas producing powers. The “strategic consequence” of these developments… more

One sidelight of President George W. Bush's recent trip to Rome for the funeral of the pope was the apparently warm interaction between Presidents Bush and Clinton. In particular, Bush praised Clinton's thinking in the area of Social Security. This praise focused the public eye on an underappreciated fact. President Clinton devoted an enormous amount of effort to the study of Social Security reform. It may well be the case that Social Security reform would have been accomplished if impeachment… more

If somebody owes you $10, the next best thing to having the cash itself is probably having a written IOU. After all, the IOU will make it harder to forget the liability, and also might give you evidence to use in court should the borrower attempt to shortchange you.

The Social Security system is loaded with a confusing mishmash of IOUs, both implicit and explicit. Reforms tend to rearrange the liabilities in this crazy quilt. Do the labels on the IOUs… more

The discussion over how to fix Social Security is filled with words that are getting too much attention. Privatization is one. Focus groups apparently don't like that word, and supporters of private accounts have taken to using the words "personal accounts." Why get so hung up on what you call it? The issue is whether individual ownership of Social Security savings is a good idea or not.

Crisis is another. Crisis is a relative term so there is no right… more

Companies considering new product launches often try out different beta versions of their products on focus groups. The practice is a sound one. No matter how attractive a concept may be, there is no telling whether you have a winner until it takes the form that the customer will see.

With such a process in mind, it is useful to pause for a moment to consider the practical appearance of the product that Social Security reformers are advocating. If optional… more