NEW HAVEN ― As U.S. President Barack Obama begins his second term, he needs a simple way to express his vision and policies for the economy ― a metaphor around which support for his policies might crystallize, thereby boosting his administration’s political effectiveness. So, what makes a successful metaphor work?The 2008 Obama campaign used the slogan “Change we can believe in.” But “change” is not a metaphor for a new government: it does not stand for any policies. Nor does “Hope” or “Yes we c

Watching Hillary Rodham Clinton’s exit from the State Department is a little like watching the season-ending episode of a popular television series that may not come back the next year. As loyal as its viewers are, there are always wary network executives and even exhausted writers and producers who’d just as soon let it go. It’s a good policy, after all, to leave your audience wanting more.Clinton’s finale could hardly have been more dramatic. After falling ill with a stomach virus in early Dec

MELBOURNE ― Should rich countries ― or investors based there ― be buying agricultural land in developing countries? That question is raised in Transnational Land Deals for Agriculture in the Global South, a report issued last year by the Land Matrix Partnership, a consortium of European research institutes and nongovernmental organizations.The report shows that since 2000, investors or state bodies in rich or emerging countries have bought more than 83 million hectares (more than 200 million acr

A few years ago the movie “I am Legend” played in movie theaters in South Korea. This zombie/horror movie was very popular with the South Korean public. However in an interesting twist for South Korean moviegoers the lead character played by Will Smith dies at the end of the movie.The fact that the lead character died in the South Korean ending is especially remarkable when considered in contrast to the American ending, the lead character survives and saves mankind. And while this seems a minor

In the 1960s, American society turned to diverse, colorful liberalism and progressivism after experiencing the dark era of McCarthyism and conservatism. Revolting against the monochromatic social atmosphere of the 1950s, which Irving Howe labeled, “This Age of Conformity,” young Americans in the 1960s regarded themselves as liberals, progressives and the New Left.In his insightful book, “Gates of Eden,” an analysis of the American sixties, Morris Dickstein defines the American 1960s as the age o

WASHINGTON ― Growing chaos in the liberated areas of northern Syria is convincing some members of the Syrian opposition that the country will become a “failed state” unless an orderly political transition begins soon to replace President Bashar al-Assad. This stark analysis is contained in an intelligence report provided to the State Department last week by Syrian sources working with the Free Syrian Army. Describing the situation in the area from Aleppo to the Turkish border, where Assad’s army

NEWPORT BEACH ― Watching America’s leaders scramble in the closing days of 2012 to avoid a “fiscal cliff” that would plunge the economy into recession was yet another illustration of an inconvenient truth: messy politics remains a major driver of economic developments.In some cases during 2012, politics was a force for good: consider Prime Minister Mario Monti’s ability to pull Italy back from the brink of financial turmoil. But, in other cases, like Greece, political dysfunction aggravated econ

WASHINGTON ― It’s telling that one of Chuck Hagel’s favorite gifts to friends recently has been a biography of President Dwight Eisenhower, a war hero whose skepticism toward the military is a model for Hagel’s own. Thinking about Eisenhower’s presidency helps clarify the challenges and dilemmas of Barack Obama’s second term. Like Ike, Obama wants to pull the nation back from the overextension of global wars of the previous decade. Like Ike, he wants to trim defense spending and reduce the natio