Robert Samuelson - The Japan Times

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Robert Samuelson

For Robert Samuelson's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 9, 2013

America can't afford the Amtrak train fantasy

The fact that a program as wasteful of taxpayers' money as Amtrak has so many defenders is more evidence why the U.S. budget debates are stuck.

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 4, 2013

Italian election gives Europeans a reality check

For a while, Europe's political elites had convinced themselves the worst of the euro crisis had passed. Italy's latest election quashes this optimism.

COMMENTARY / World

Feb 20, 2013

Psychology is to blame for weak U.S. growth

U.S. job creation is weak because, since 2008-2009, Americans have gone from being an expansive, risk-taking society to a skittish, risk-averse one.

COMMENTARY / Japan

Feb 5, 2013

Learning from Japan's struggle

Americans could learn from a new prime minister's efforts to revive the flagging economy of Japan, once viewed as the next economic superpower.

COMMENTARY

May 30, 2012

It's time U.S. dropped the college-for-all crusade

The college-for-all crusade has outlived its usefulness. Time to ditch it. Like the crusade to make all Americans homeowners, it's now doing more harm than good. It looms as the largest mistake in educational policy since World War II, even though higher education's expansion also ranks as one of America's great postwar triumphs.

COMMENTARY

May 3, 2012

Costs of being too responsive to the public will

The Washington of conventional wisdom and the real Washington are two entirely different places.

COMMENTARY

Apr 25, 2012

What happens to world's economy if Spain fails?

Just when you thought the world economy might be improving, along comes Spain. It's Europe's next economic domino, struggling to cope with big budget deficits, massive unemployment and an angry public. Will it fail — and, if so, with what consequences?

COMMENTARY

Apr 16, 2012

Look at Social Security for what it is: welfare

Would Franklin Roosevelt (the 32nd U.S. president) approve of Social Security? The question seems absurd. After all, Social Security is considered the New Deal's signature achievement. It distributes nearly $800 billion a year to 56 million retirees, survivors and disabled beneficiaries.

COMMENTARY

Apr 5, 2012

Is American energy 'independence' possible?

Call it President Richard Nixon's revenge.

COMMENTARY

Mar 22, 2012

Pinpointing the causes of the U.S. economic crisis

Four years after the onset of the financial crisis — in March 2008 Bear Stearns was rescued from failure — we still lack a clear understanding of the underlying causes. Hundreds of studies and books have given us an increasingly detailed picture of what happened without conclusively answering why. Conventional wisdom has advanced competing theories: Wall Street types took too many risks, encouraged by lax government regulation; or, pro-homeownership policies eroded mortgage-lending standards and created the housing bubble.

COMMENTARY

Mar 14, 2012

Japan's cautionary tale for the U.S.

Since the financial crisis, a shadow has hovered over the U.S. economy: Japan. Could what happened there happen to us? The bursting of Japan's real estate and stock bubble in the early 1990s has had lasting consequences: a "lost decade" (actually, two) of meager growth and weak job markets. Though hardly a depression, Japan's prosperity has been partial and unsatisfying, enjoyed by some and missed by others.

COMMENTARY

Mar 12, 2012

Fear and consequences of defense budget cuts

It turns out that "budget sequestration," portrayed as an evenhanded way to spur bipartisan negotiations over budget deficits, is actually a dagger aimed at defense spending. The president and other top administration officials have said the automatic spending cuts required by sequestration are "bad policy."

COMMENTARY

Mar 5, 2012

Will American values outlast the social storm?

In 1924, the sociologist couple Robert and Helen Lynd arrived in a small Midwestern city they called Middletown (it was Muncie, Ind.) to study and survey the place.

COMMENTARY

Feb 22, 2012

Campaign finance reform fails to reach goals

The emergence of super PACs shows once again that "campaign finance reform" has failed abysmally. After nearly four decades, it has achieved none of its goals. It has not purged politics of big donations, nor cured public cynicism about the influence of the rich, nor made elected leaders more trusted. What it has done is compromise basic First Amendment rights, clutter politics with baffling laws and regulations, and actually deepen cynicism.

COMMENTARY

Feb 15, 2012

Disability program reveals U.S. budget quagmire

Social Security's disability program is a political quagmire — and a metaphor for why federal spending and budget deficits are so difficult to control. The numbers are too big; the details, too complicated; and the choices, when faced, too wrenching. President Barack Obama's new budget, estimated at $3.5 trillion or more, will raise all these problems. Experience suggests that little will be done to rein in long-term spending and deficits.

COMMENTARY

Feb 8, 2012

World economy's uncharted territory

"The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there." — L.P. Hartley, English novelist

COMMENTARY

Jan 27, 2012

Lesson of Great Recession is too hard to accept

The recent release of the 2006 transcripts of the Federal Reserve's main policymaking body stimulated a small media frenzy: "Little Alarm Shown at Fed at Dawn of Housing Bust," headlined The Wall Street Journal. The Washington Post agreed: "As financial crisis brewed, Fed appeared unconcerned." The New York Times echoed: "Inside the Fed in '06: Coming Crisis, and Banter."

COMMENTARY

Jan 23, 2012

Typecast 'vulture capitalist' has work cut out

For Mitt Romney, it's the best of times and the worst of times. While his New Hampshire win brings him closer to the Republican nomination, his campaign narrative against President Barack Obama may be unraveling.

COMMENTARY

Jan 5, 2012

Why Obama will (won't) win re-election in 2012

Could 2012 turn conventional wisdom on its head? Here's the conventional wisdom: U.S. President Barack Obama's re-election is vulnerable to the weak economy and high joblessness. Here's what might happen: The economy gradually improves, and although unemployment stays high (exceeding 8 percent), what counts politically is the palpable sense that things are moving in the right direction. This allows Obama to argue, as he already does, that his policies are slowly repairing the economic calamity he inherited from Republicans.

COMMENTARY

Dec 21, 2011

Debt undermines the classic answer to recession

"Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist."

From easily navigable train stations to the helpfulness of its municipal staff, Tokyo has earned high praise for its commitment to accessibility for disabled travelers.

[Rebroadcast] Japan is doing better on accessibility than you may think

When trying to trace your lineage in Japan, the "koseki" is the most important form of document you'll encounter.

Climbing the branches of a Japanese family tree

By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Students ‘study abroad’ on island of Suo Oshima

Students ‘study abroad’ on island of Suo Oshima

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