Steven Pearlstein on All Topics
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“It is disappointing enough that President Obama and his team of crackerjack economic advisers have not had the wisdom or courage to oppose what any first-year graduate student would recognize as truly lousy policy.”
“The business executives dream of crushing or escaping the unions is no less a fantasy than the workers' determination to preserve pay and work rules that ignore competitive realities.”
“If there is a moral to this tale, it is that finance alone cannot make a kingdom thrive and prosper.”
“It's not exactly clear who started the political mud fight between the White House and the insurance industry over health reform. What's clear is that it is in nobody's interest.”
“With financial markets booming even as Main Street is still largely mired in recession, policymakers in Washington on Thursday were scrambling to contain growing populist anger by proposing new rules to curb runaway pay on Wall Street.”
“Americans would be better off if professional sports leagues and their teams were forced to compete -- on the field and off -- for fans, players, coaches, capital and public adulation.”
“It's been a lousy week for Tom Donohue and his pals over at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.”
“If [Wall Street] stumbles on a profitable trading strategy, the last person they are likely to share it with is you.”
“Moore's 'love story' is really an oversimplified political melodrama based on half-truths, innuendo, fuzzy thinking and imagined conspiracies.”
“One of the aims of health reform should be to make health insurance more like fire insurance, reducing as much as possible the moral hazards and the cross-subsidies while protecting all Americans from medical catastrophe.”
“The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee has put the reform back in health reform.”
“Call me simple-minded, but it seems to me that people who use a good or service should also be the ones who pay for it. That's how it works in most markets. And when it doesn't -- health care is a good example -- things tend to go awry.”
“Come to think of it, maybe Rakoff is exactly the kind of activist judge we need more of, not less.”
“It's now clear that the benefits of all that efficiency and liquidity are captured largely by the Wall Street middlemen rather than their customers, or the economy as a whole.”
“At some point [Obama] needs to look straight into the eyes of those who would have him fail and promise to do whatever it takes to break the partisan stranglehold and make health-care reform a reality.”