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This is the second of a series of columns by John Edward, who teaches economics at Bentley and UMass Lowell, on economic issues related to the upcoming presidential election. The first column, “The 100 Percent,” appeared on May 16, 2016. Here is the simple formula for “making America great again.”…
Read More »The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. Gonzalo Gallegos Polls make it clear that the American public is way ahead of Congress in supporting normalization of relations and reopening trade with Cuba. But positive numbers from several polls don’t mean that the normalization process will be easy or fast. That…
Read More »This is the first of a series of columns by John Edward, who teaches economics at Bentley and UMass Lowell, on economic issues related to the upcoming presidential election: Quiz question: What percentage of Americans pay taxes? Remember presidential candidate Mitt Romney writing off the “Forty-seven percent of Americans [who]…
Read More »The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons Barron’s own blog. Massachusetts is a world-class laggard when it comes to public support of the arts, and things could get even worse. The Massachusetts House just cut funding for the Mass. Cultural Council (MCC) by $2 million, to $12.2 million. (Originally, House…
Read More »The entry below is being cross-posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. Storm clouds gathered over Serengeti, New York. The weaver birds and bee-eaters stopped their day’s work and gathered nervously in the limbs of the acacia trees. Even the flamingos out on Lake Nakuru stopped their soaring flight and…
Read More »The enter below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron. Secure the checkpoints. Close the borders. Keep all Muslims out. Is anyone surprised to hear such calls from Donald Trump? The unspeakable horrors of the terrorist bombings today in Brussels strikes fear in all our hearts. We’re coming up on…
Read More »Jeffrey Goldberg in “The Atlantic” magazine’s new issue has an extraordinary and fascinating long article about President Barack Obama’s view of the world. It’s the most in-depth exploration of the President’s foreign-policy ideas and values that I’ve read in his two terms. For its length and complexity, the publication of…
Read More »It’s been a while since I’ve dragged over a link from my daily reading on the web, but this piece from the Brookings think tank by Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann seems to me to be spot on about what has corroded America’s civic culture. Here’s the link so you…
Read More »The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. A relaxing Florida vacation has made me even more of a techno-peasant than I usually am. The issue that now challenges me is the dilemma presented by Apple’s refusal to comply with the U.S. government’s request to facilitate access…
Read More »Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey shared her thoughts on our society’s opioid epidemic in yesterday’s Boston Globe (“Cutting off the opioid epidemic at the root”). Despite all the attention devoted to this issue by legislators, public safety officials, and community groups, nothing will change, she wrote, until “we change the…
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