Not all the Democrats are celebrating the January unemployment numbers as morning in Obama’s America. Robert Reich, Clinton’s labor secretary and one of Via Meadia’s favorite liberals, notes dourly that most of the hiring is happening in lower-wage sectors.With more Americans impoverished than at any other point over the past fifty years, Reich finds candidate […]

Earlier this week I was in Washington, teaching a class and attending some events connected to the visit of China’s vice president.  It was an instructive time; in meetings with U.S. officials, with experts who follow China closely, and at the “state lunch” when Vice President Xi was the guest of honor at a State […]

An inevitable question as we look at the demise of the 20th century economy is how shall we live? As the manufacturing that remains to us becomes more automated, reducing employment even as output climbs; as agriculture continues to need fewer hands; as outsourcing and technological change sweep through the knowledge guilds and the learned […]

The quest for a new social model has to start with economics. America could survive without growing prosperity and rising standards of living, but it would not flourish — and it would not be living up to its potential to create a better life not only for Americans but for people all over the world.  […]

Why did Russia veto the UN Security Council resolution over Syria? Vladimir Isachenkov has an AP piece that offers some background; with that piece and the vast database and computer resources here at Team Mead’s GHQ in glamorous Queens, it’s possible to explain why Russia did what it did. First point: domestic politics.  Putin is […]

[This is Part Two of the “Beyond Blue” series. Part One is available here.] A reader responding to my essay on Governor Brown and the Great White Train asked a cogent question: if building high speed rail is the wrong thing for the governor of California to be doing, what should he be working on […]

[This post begins a series on how the United States can move beyond our current political, economic and social impasse to create a new kind of society. The series continues Via Meadia’s examination of the demise of the blue social model and its effects on American politics and culture.] The frustration and bitterness that fills […]

Each day that goes by gives the White House more reason to regret its Libyan adventure. The overthrow of Gaddafi was a good thing, but from both the humanitarian and strategic points of view, nothing has changed. The war continues to look at best like a diversion, at worst as if the US fell for […]

Four days before he dropped out of the Republican race, Governor Rick Perry created an uproar by saying that Turkey is “being ruled by what many would perceive to be Islamic terrorists,” suggesting it was time to reevaluate Turkey’s place in NATO and to consider zeroing-out US aid to the country. There was, of course, […]

The Blue Model is on the way out. What should come next?