Commentary / World May 23, 2020
The Great Depression paradox: children survived, then thrived
National crises can actually have positive effects on the young, building character as much as destroying it.
Stephen Mihm
For Stephen Mihm's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
Commentary / World Apr 25, 2020
Dangers of age segregation exposed
For most of America’s history, the idea that people over the age of 65 would voluntarily herd themselves into special communities built around their needs would have seemed absurd, even dystopian. Yet a largely voluntary movement toward segregating people by age has reached extreme ...
World / Social Issues | Commentary Feb 20, 2020
The ugly history of blaming ethnic groups for disease outbreaks
As the coronavirus outbreak grows in scale and scope, a nasty side effect spreads: discrimination. Inside China, people from Wuhan have been treated like lepers. Outside, we're seeing numerous reports of verbal and physical abuse aimed at ethnic Chinese, and an aversion to Chinese ...
Commentary / World Feb 18, 2019
Sleazy journalism can serve the public good
Long before Bezos's battle with the National Enquirer, a fight involving a scabrous newspaper led to a U.S. Supreme Court decision expanding freedom of the press.
Commentary / World Sep 2, 2018
Does corruption matter to voters? It depends
Democrats' main target should be the Republican Party, not the president.
Commentary / World Mar 9, 2018
FDR's gun-control strategy was based on taxes
His administration gave gangsters 3,700 reasons to stop buying machine guns.
Commentary / World Feb 26, 2018
Amazon's labor-tracking wristband has a history
Jeff Bezos is stealing from a 19th-century playbook.
Commentary / World Apr 18, 2017
Overbooking is a problem as old as the airline industry
Overbooking was the solution to the costly problem of 'no-shows' — people who reserved a seat but failed to board — that emerged in the late 1940s.
Commentary / Japan Apr 12, 2017
Why Westinghouse was doomed at its creation
The world has spent nearly 60 years trying to make economic sense of nuclear power, with limited success. It may be time to pull the plug.
Commentary Nov 21, 2014
Islamic State's planned currency is so 7th century
Islamic State has announced plans to start its own currency, an essential building block for their larger goal of restoring an ancient Islamic empire.