When a pizzeria closes, the pizzeria down the block usually sees a surge in business. That principle applies to commerce in the larger North American neighborhood. Whenever the United States locks the gate on a plausible economic activity, Canadians move in and profit.
When he worked as a legislative liaison in 1982 for Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown, B.T. Collins -- an unlikely Brown hire, as Collins was a Republican and double-amputee Vietnam War veteran who joked that he threw grenades "like a girl" -- had choice words for the California Legislature. He used to call the Assembly "an adult day care center."
Let me be very clear on the economics of President Obama’s State of the Union speech and his budget. He is declaring war on investors, entrepreneurs, small businesses, large corporations, and private-equity and venture-capital funds.
On the last day of her trip to East Asia, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke briefly of the place of human rights in American policy toward China. "Our pressing on those issues" -- issues she didn't identify any more fully -- "can't interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crisis."
Two weeks ago we discussed the basic framework for 2010's thirty-six Senate elections. Last week we reviewed the seventeen Democratic Senate seats that are on the ballot in the midterm year.
One of my favorite federal judges used to laugh whenever I began a sentence "with all due respect," because he knew I was about to tell him I thought he was wrong.
A couple of years ago, when speaking to a local group, I mentioned that The Chronicle was losing money.
At the brink of global ruin, many Americans suddenly seem willing to consider sensible ideas that were always deemed unthinkable, and to reject foolish notions that were once deemed brilliant. Soon we may be mature enough to observe how other developed countries address problems that have baffled us for generations.
How big should government be? The answer is: As big as it has to be -- and for small-government types, no bigger than it has to be.
The president deserves the high marks he is getting from the public for his first month in office. Most presidents get to spend their first month putting up the draperies.
I hate to admit it, but I miss Bill Clinton. At least that lecherous old charmer was more amusing than his successor as a Democratic president, our new mortician in chief, Barack "End of the World" Obama.
Let bankruptcy courts modify the terms of home mortgages, says President Obama and legislation now before Congress. Banks don't like the idea, but it's a good one, possibly even for them.
LONDON -- Think that credit collapse that triggered the Bush administration's $700 billion bank bailout was necessary because of Republican hostility to regulation and the ineptness of President George W. Bush?
All of America was watching Barack Obama on Jan. 20 as he promised to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." But few thought that, within a month, controversy would arise over the Constitution's census clause.
The last two Democratic presidents have a lot in common. Like Bill Clinton before him, Barack Obama is a gifted 40-something politician, a strong orator with a high likeability quotient, and a successful candidate who captured the White House by running on a platform offering big change. And like Clinton, Obama begins his administration blessed with large Democratic majorities at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.
Last week in the Crystal Ball , we looked at the historical background of off-year Senate elections and laid the groundwork for the earliest possible projection of the 36 contests on the ballot in 2010. This week we call the Senate roll among sitting Democrats to see who appears safe and who might be in trouble. Next week, in our final round-up, the Republican seats will be under the microscope.
Open most any urban newspaper to the foreclosure notices, and you'll find the list heavy with Hispanic names. Times are tough for Americans of every demographic, but for Latinos they are grimmer still.
With President Obama's signature affixed to the economic stimulus bill, his landmark victory can be put in proper political context. Regardless of that bill's manifest imperfections and the messy legislative process, the new administration achieved a difficult objective on the tightest possible schedule.
The unemployment rate in Ireland is 9.2 percent and expected to climb, perhaps as high as 15 percent. A real estate market that, according to Bloomberg, quadrupled from 1997 to 2007, is crashing.
The purpose of being a columnist is not to win friends. It is not to provoke silent nods of agreement. The goal is to strike a chord, hit a nerve -- which is to say, at least sometimes, make people mad. Controversy is good, not bad.
