Author Archives: timwferguson

In the throes of its own existential revenue crisis, the nation’s press is wrestling with the social justice of a local newspaper mainstay: crime coverage.  On top of heightened sensitivity over appearances in many parts of America—too many of those suspected or arrested after street offenses are of color—there is guilt that names of theContinue reading “A Progressive Press Weighs Who Not to Name”

June 16, 2021 Today’s temperature map alerts us to another heat wave amid another drought across much of the U.S. These conditions guarantee continued battles over water availability and rights to use it. That, in turn, promises restrictions on usage in dry jurisdictions. These can affect as big a user as hydroelectric power generation. For many,Continue reading “Getting Water on a Parched Planet”

In The Economist this week is one of those periodic reminders that the Boomer age cohort is actually where the money is.  Such nods to silver spending, even if in this case concerned with greater online purchases of adult “nappies” and mobility milks, are a useful corrective to the routine ad-market focus on the youngContinue reading “There’s Still Gold in Us Silver Spenders”

If an early April panel discussion (virtual) of the Manhattan Institute on “Planning the Post-Covid City” was surprisingly progressive, maybe it was because this talk of revolution in the streets was about reallocating little more than parking spaces. Yet that much upheaval is basic, these panelists agreed, to renewal of New York’s pre-pandemic glory. TheContinue reading “Even the Manhattan Institute Says Curb Your Car”

I got to thinking about cheese and whether that infamous American surplus you heard a lot about two years ago had gotten bigger in the pandemic.  The long and short of it—if that’s the right way to refer to something that comes in rounds—is that yes, it’s bigger, but the reasons are not simple. ItContinue reading “The Complexity of Ever More Simple-Cheese Output”

One aspect of New York City’s clean-up in the 1990s was the closing of many dingy Off-Track Betting parlors. Some tidier operations lived on for a few years but ultimately Gotham said good riddance to the public gambling-on-horses corporation. The OTB experiment in the city had begun with apparent popular support in 1970 as aContinue reading “New York Again Seeks a Handle Up”

More than most U.S. presidents, Ronald Reagan was a myth–and I mean that in the non-disparaging sense. A story was created around the real man, and it came to represent policies or ideology put into practice. On the economic front, this amounted to limiting government’s growth, at least in many areas (middle-class transfer programs suchContinue reading “My Commentary on ‘The Reagans’”

Many words—including some of my own—have been expended lately on the plight of what we used to call daily journalism.  Often they get around to saying the newspapers (and now their websites) have themselves to blame for failing to maintain a connection with their readerships. These critiques call to mind a missed opportunity of myContinue reading “Love Letter *From* the Editor”