timwferguson

Hamptons Traffic and the Road Not Taken

My interest in land-use policy 50 years ago on Long Island was piqued when I learned offhand* of a state highway that was to have been built back then, not far from where our home now sits in Water Mill. How could that have been the case, over a route that today features much largerContinue reading “Hamptons Traffic and the Road Not Taken”

FTC Has Fetched a New Stick

The action in this latest Wall Street Journal story on the now-progressive Federal Trade Commission concerns veterinarians, but it is not a mere dog and pony show. It reflects a concerted push to rein in the nation’s private-equity firms, particularly those involved in mergers or “roll-ups” of businesses in the same type of enterprise. TheContinue reading “FTC Has Fetched a New Stick”

Sociology’s Un-economic Impulse

In the agitated state of modern societies, a rebellion against “neo-liberalism” heralds some preferred order, usually a form of ostensibly democratic socialism. Inherent in this movement is a rejection of economics, which is the study of allocating scarce resources. This is a startling proposition, coming off a generation or two in which economics has beenContinue reading “Sociology’s Un-economic Impulse”

Beijing’s Man in Jakarta

Hard as it may be for Westerners to think that today’s People’s Republic of China, with all of its glaring repressions and slavishness over Covid, could be still a draw for emerging nations…it is. As this latest op-ed in the New York Times from an Australian think tank argues, China is actually gaining ground inContinue reading “Beijing’s Man in Jakarta”

Big Media’s Mere Cameo in a Tale of Conservatism’s Shift

Matthew Continetti’s book, “The Right: The Hundred Year War for American Conservatism,” is getting much respectful attention from mainstream media. It is deservedly praised for an encyclopedic narrative of what has evolved into a greatly populist—disparaged as Trumpian–force in American politics. My beef with the work is that it largely misses a key element inContinue reading “Big Media’s Mere Cameo in a Tale of Conservatism’s Shift”

Show-Offs and Their Big Houses

What primarily intrigues me about people who willingly show themselves and their oversized properties off in places like the Wall Street Journal’s Mansion section is…why? I know we are in the age of oversharing, but these are obviously wealthy people, usually with children–just the sorts you’d expect to want privacy. Of course, if they seekContinue reading “Show-Offs and Their Big Houses”

Beijing and the Big Bomb

Polling suggests widespread gloom among younger Americans over climate change, while other surveys pick up foreboding in the older population at the renewed prospect of nuclear war. Vladimir Putin’s saber-rattling at the West as he rips up Ukraine has jogged memories from a Cold War era extending through the 1980s when the “Day After” wasContinue reading “Beijing and the Big Bomb”

Reminder of ‘Our’ Rogue on the Nile

Any roundup of the world’s noxious right-wing authoritarians usually includes stops in Brazil, Hungary, India and take your pick in Africa…Uganda, maybe? Arguably Vladimir Putin fits within the proto-fascist collection, notwithstanding his rhetoric about “de-Nazifying” Ukraine. But no gallery would be complete without General al-Sisi of Egypt, as this tale from the latest edition ofContinue reading “Reminder of ‘Our’ Rogue on the Nile”

The Beijing Consensus Meets 2022

A broad notion that the People’s Republic of China represented an alternative and quite possibly superior model of social and economic organization has held sway in many quarters for two decades. Are we now to be done with that? What is sometimes called the Beijing Consensus was the subject—or object—of so many thought pieces andContinue reading “The Beijing Consensus Meets 2022”

College $$$ Backlash? Blackstone Isn’t Sold

Various harbingers appear of an end to the college-cost syndrome, whereby prospective students and their parents reassess the worth of plowing tens of thousands of dollars annually into a degree credential. And surely, on the margins, this revolt against the endless increases in tuition and other bills is evident. But then we see reminders, asContinue reading “College $$$ Backlash? Blackstone Isn’t Sold”