For decades now, the United States has been expanding all manners of relations with Japan and China–economic and business, financial, military, cultural, tourism, education, and more. As a result, the three economies have essentially merged and the web of interdependencies is enormous and complicated. The center of the world’s economy has shifted to Northeast Asia […]…
About: William Holstein
Author Archives: William Holstein
If we can’t agree on the facts, how do we have a democracy?
This is an incredibly important column from Jim Rutenberg in today’s New York Times. It connects with some of the things I have been saying about the media and the quality of the American debate. In the column, Rutenberg quotes Martin Barron, executive editor of the Washington Post, as asking: “If you have a society […]…
The World Is Looking For a Signal From America
More than any presidential campaign in my lifetime, this election next week is going to have a dramatic impact around the world, not just in the U.S. of A. One basic question the Chinese and others are asking is, does American democracy work? Look at how fundamentally indecent and contentious it has become. If we […]…
What Will It Take to Restore The Quality of America’s Debate?
By now, it seems universally established among America’s thinking elites on both sides of the ideological fault lines that this presidential campaign has reduced the American public discussion to its lowest level ever. Certainly the lowest I’ve seen in my lifetime. Truth isn’t truth. Facts aren’t facts. We’re just shouting at each other through social […]…
Was It All a China Bubble?
The markets and investors are rattled by a downturn in global trade and by a sharp decline in China’s exports. My answer: the world has been riding on China’s bubble for more than two decades but now the Chinese are shifting gears. The net result is the entire world is being affected by developments in […]…
