Summer 2009

Thrift: The Double-Edged Virtue

Any solution to the global economic crisis will require a thriftier America and, paradoxically, a less thrifty Asia. A dose of economic sobriety may be just what the United States needs, but a difficult global rebalancing lies ahead as spendthrift Americans and the prodigious savers of Asia adjust to new realities.

in this issue:

The Global Savings Tsunami

– Robert Z. Aliber

The global economic crisis has some surprising causes, but who would have guessed that overzealous saving was one of them?

What Makes Mr. Zhang Save?

– Michael Pettis

Why are the Chinese such legendary savers? The answers shed light on why that habit is about to change.

The New Normal

– Martin Walker

An era of debt-fueled consumption has come to an end, and with it the economic culture that created it. If government is going to fill in for consumers, it will need to be smart about how it spends.

Message in a Genome

– Matthew Stremlau

As scientists tease out the human genome’s secrets, it’s easy to seize on our genetic differences, which are small and often inconclusive. But the surprising ancestral connections that our DNA reveals are the big story in the post-genome world.

This Is Not a Map

– Max Byrd

Maps are not always works of dutiful representation — sometimes they are tickets to flights of the imagination.

Rediscovering Central Asia

– S. Frederick Starr

To imagine Central Asia’s future, we must journey into its remarkable past.

Divided By: How the Machines Won

– James M. Morris

In a world so saturated in connectivity that every last oddball can find a poll, a pie chart, or an online pal to confirm that he's not alone, there are still some gaps that can't be bridged.

The Higher-Ed Bubble

– The Wilson Quarterly

Is the cost of higher education nearing a tipping point?

The Economists' Bailout

– The Wilson Quarterly

Economics, like all sciences, perhaps, aims at the reduction and control of risk. How's that working these days?

The Grammarians Have No Clothes

– The Wilson Quarterly

Strunk and White may have been influential, but one scholar thinks they based their grammar rules on "intuition and prejudice."

Africa's Orphans

– The Wilson Quarterly

Clamping down on foreign adoptions seems to many African leaders like a relatively cost-free way to stand up to Uncle Sam.

Terror Intelligence

– The Wilson Quarterly

The attacks of 9/11 seem like fanatical acts, but they were meticulously planned for more than five years, with the terrorists training on U.S. soil.

Winging It

– The Wilson Quarterly

General David Petraeus's views on the importance of higher education don't seem to have penetrated the leadership of the Air Force.

The Eight-Year Itch

– The Wilson Quarterly

Term limits in Florida and other states were supposed to boost competition, remove the incumbency advantage, and speed up turnover. So far, none of that has come to pass.

Money for Metros

– The Wilson Quarterly

A study suggests that all that stimulus money would be better spent on metropolitan areas than given to states.

$43 Million for What?

– The Wilson Quarterly

The average Superfund site costs $43 million to clean up, but the overall economic benefits remain elusive.

Speedy Spillovers

– The Wilson Quarterly

Placing even a single superworker among slower ones will boost the speed of the entire group.

Is Sociology Dead?

– The Wilson Quarterly

With so much of human behavior being linked to human DNA, what's a sociologist to do if everything is inherited?

The Web News Fallacy

– The Wilson Quarterly

Think newspapers can only exist online? A study reveals the only three or four percent of newspaper reading happens there.

Cashiering the Critics

– The Wilson Quarterly

The newspaper film critic may be well along the path of the ichthyosaurs, soon to be extinct.

Who Voted for Hitler?

– The Wilson Quarterly

The Nazi rise to power in Germany was largely due to voters opting for what they perceived as their economic self-interest.

Repeating History in Juárez

– The Wilson Quarterly

Ciudad Juárez has a long history of violence between competing drug kingpins.

Saint Chávez

– The Wilson Quarterly

Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez has attached himself like glue to the nation's secular saint, Simón Bolívar.

Lessons of Babel

– The Wilson Quarterly

Joseph Smith, the 19th-century prophet of the Mormon Church, saw in the story of the Tower of Babel a metaphor for the "infinitie multiplications of opinion" within the Christian world.

Farming for Real

– The Wilson Quarterly

Critics say futuristic schemes and rigid insistence on organic methods undermine farmers' efforts to gradually improve agriculture.

Medicine Meets the Computer

– The Wilson Quarterly

In the effort to modernize the medical establishment, there are monumental challenges in installing adaptable systems that will truly improve patient care and cut costs.

Gilded Vestibules

– The Wilson Quarterly

An architecture critic says it's time to call a halt to monumental visitor centers, a "pointless, wasteful building type we'd be well rid of."

Corruption's Hidden Benefit

– The Wilson Quarterly

A high level of corruption in an oil-producing economy, oddly, can actually lessen the chances of armed conflict.

Broadband Hype?

– The Wilson Quarterly

Bringing high-speed Internet access to the hinterlands has not—so far—paid off huge dividends.

Goodbye to All That

– The Wilson Quarterly

The "special relationship" between the United States and Saudi Arabia died in the ashes of the World Trade Tower and the Pentagon in 2001.

No Double Beds for Boris

– The Wilson Quarterly

The Soviets mandated health spa retreats for their workers, but never quite understood that sometimes people just want to enjoy a little quality time with their spouse and family.