Big Think

Obama's Unemployment Problem

For the first time, according to Gallup's latest tracking poll, less than fifty percent of Americans approve of the job Barack Obama is doing as President. That's down from 60% in July. As Greg Sargent says, this just confirms what Quinnipiac and Fox polls showed earlier in the week. And Obama's approval ratings have been hovering just over 50% for a while now. While there is nothing magic about the 50% threshold, it is a sign that the bloom is off Obama's political rose just ten months into his presidency. … Read More

November 20, 2009   |  In Politics & Policy

The American Famine

In the 1960s, the world seemed on the verge of a global food crisis, as the population grew faster than the food supply. As I wrote last week, thanks largely to a suite of technologies known as "the Green Revolution"—which combined high-yielding varieties of wheat, rice, and corn with the intensive use of irrigation, fertilizer, and pesticides—grain production more than doubled in the developing world and the global food crisis never materialized. But the prospect of worldwide food shortage is reemerging, as the innovations of the Green Revolution have begun to reach their limit. According to the latest United Nations report more than a billion people—100 million more than last year—around the world are "undernourished." In other words, about one in six people around the world don't get enough calories to live a normal, healthy life. … Read More

November 18, 2009   |  In Politics & Policy

The Problem of the Guantanamo Detainees

The Obama administration is finally getting serious about closing Guantanamo. The main obstacle to closing the military prison has always been that it wasn't clear where to put the approximately 200 detainees still being held there. But now the administration has floated the possibility that it might move them to American soil. Last week, a delegation from the U.S. Bureau of Prisons inspected a state-of-the-art maximum security prison in Thomson, Illinois, a depressed town of 600 near the Iowa border. The $145 million dollar facility was supposed to bring hundreds of jobs to the area, but in part because of changing Illinois correctional policies has remained largely empty. According to the administration, transferring Guantanamo detainees to Thomson could generate as many as 3200 jobs, and bring a $1 billion to the area over the next four years. Governor Pat Quinn—a Democrat, who is running for reelection next year—has planned a three-city tour to sell the idea, calling the prospect of housing prisoners from Guantanamo a "great, great opportunity for our state." … Read More

November 18, 2009   |  In Politics & Policy

Don't Count on Technology to Save Us

In 1968, a highly-respected population biologist at Stanford named Paul Ehrlich published a best-selling book called "The Population Bomb," warning of global famine as the global population grew faster than the world's food supply. The growing population, he argued, would put such a strain on the world's resources that we were on the verge of "a genuine age of scarcity." He was famously challenged by a professor at a business school named Julian Simon, who bet him that not only were we not on the verge of an age of scarcity, but that over the course of a decade, commodity prices would actually fall. Temporary commodity shortages would give people an incentive to find substitutes and unexpected technological solutions to resource problems. Sure enough, in spite of a few famines caused by local food shortages, thanks to increasing agricultural yields made possible by the technologies of the "Green Revolution" world food production more than kept up with population growth. And commodity prices fell just as Julian Simon had predicted. … Read More

November 14, 2009   |  In Environment

The Downside of the Public Option

In what was a remarkable turnaround—and a huge victory for progressives—last week, the House of Representatives passed a health care reform bill that includes a provision for a government-run program, which would compete with private health insurance plans. The Democrats managed to include the provision for a "public option" in spite of the fact that 39 Democrats and all but one Republican voted against it. President Obama ultimately campaigned hard for the provision, telling Democratic lawmakers that when the bill passes, "each and every one of you will be able to look back and say, 'This was my finest moment in politics.'" … Read More

November 13, 2009   |  In Politics & Policy