Maglev Trains in Our Future

Posted on 5 September 2014 by Erik Hare | 7 Comments

Is the US ready for high speed rail? If The NorthEast Maglev (TNEM) gets its way, a solid demonstration project between Baltimore and Washington might be built sometime in the future for an undisclosed amount of money. The project is hardly scoped out yet, but the promise of being able to rocket between the cities at over 300 mph (500 kph) has attracted attention – and $5B in potential backing from the Central Japan Railway, the Bank of Japan, and the Japanese government. It’s a good downpayment on the guesstimated $10-15B the line will take.

How serious is this proposal? The government of Japan would love to start exporting some of its best technology, and it’s hard to pass up that kind of dough. And if TNEM gets their way, it’ll go on from there on a 240 mile line from Washington to New York, making the trip in just one hour. How much will that cost? The guesstimate of $100B is such a round number that you know it’s vague. But it’s a tantalizing worth investigating for a lot of reasons – and the money would come from private investors, not any government.

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Skills Gap?

Posted on 3 September 2014 by Erik Hare | 15 Comments

Is there a “skills gap”? Many economists and policy wonks have debated whether or not persistent unemployment is related to a lack of workers with just the right training to fill today’s jobs. JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon famously wrote an argument in favor of a lack of skills as the major problem, which Paul Krugman then proceeded to tear apart. The arguments continue back and forth with little resolution.

So is there such a problem? The short answer is “no”, but the long answer is “yes”. An excellent piece by James Besson in Harvard Business Review (HBR) un-asks the question neatly and shows that there is indeed a problem developing the right skills in a changing economy – but it’s not something we can fix simply by changing what kids learn in college. It’s much more endemic to a dynamic, open economy all around.

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Labor Creates All Wealth

Posted on 1 September 2014 by Erik Hare | 12 Comments

As Democrats contemplate the possibility of losing the Senate, there are many ways we can handle it. We could all sit in the back and throw stuff, much as the Republicans did for the last few years. We could turn on each other and rip our own guts out in a festival of shame and blame. Or, if we’re intent on really standing up to our principles, we can use this time away from being the responsible ones and understand what it is that we, as a party really stand for.

We have a lot to offer if we can only get it together for once. But I, for one, think it’s going to take a much deeper understanding of our core values and what is really happening around us before we can make it happen.

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