Paul R. Krugman PhD ’77’s recent article “Wisconsin Power Play” in the New York Times is a revealing look into the liberal derangement over the ongoing public sector union battle in the Badger State. In his article, our esteemed alumnus claims that unions must be defended because they are a bastion against undemocratic forces. And against what undemocratic forces are they arrayed? The Republicans, of course. And how do we know that Republicans are, as Krugman says, trying to turn America into a “third-world-style oligarchy?” Because they oppose unions.

Benjamin Disraeli is once said to have remarked that there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. As a man who views the world through empiricist lenses, I’ve never been fond of the saying (I prefer to think of the three categories as lies, damned lies, and personal anecdotes), but there is some truth to the maxim. Statistics, arranged with malice aforethought, can lead their viewers to make facile, incorrect inferences.

Last year, the Social Security Trust Fund paid out more than it received in tax revenue. By 2039, the Congressional Budget Office projects that the trust fund will be exhausted, at which point either benefits will have to be cut by 20 percent or taxes increased by 25 percent.

For the past four years, Fukuyama-style neoconservatives such as myself have grimly born witness as, around the world, the lights of liberty and freedom grew dim or were snuffed out. Bush, chastened by his failed Social Security reform, Hurricane Katrina, and a midterm defeat, gave up his freedom agenda. Obama, more eager to extend an open hand to dictators than wrest them from power, similarly demurred. And so we stood by, outraged but helpless, as Hugo Chavez solidified his dictatorship in Venezuela; as Cuba’s despotism positioned itself to outlive its founder; as Russia backslid into authoritarianism; as much of Eastern Europe began its descent into autocracy; as Bush’s mismanagement of Iraq and Obama’s incomprehensible tolerance for election rigging in Afghanistan dashed our hopes for democratic reform; as the toeholds of Arab liberty in Lebanon and Palestine grew more tenuous; as Iran brutally suppressed the democratic urges of its people; and as Mexico, Honduras, Nicaragua, Mauritania, Niger, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Burundi, and Sri Lanka, amid recession and instability, became significantly less free.

Last week, in a 47-51 vote, the U.S. Senate rejected an amendment to the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act. Sadly, this vote will not end the Republican push to repeal ObamaCare. Going forward, Republicans are mounting a two-pronged assault on the health care reform’s individual insurance mandate before it comes into force in 2014. The first line of attack is to challenge the law in court, arguing that compelling all citizens to purchase health insurance is an unconstitutional overstep of the federal government’s powers. The second is to de-fund the agencies tasked with policing the mandate, which amounts to a de facto repeal.

Imagine two men, John and Nick, standing at the edge of a precipice. They are chained together at the ankle by a heavy chain such that if one falls over the edge (or throws himself off the edge), the other will fall with him, and both will die. John is trying to coerce Nick into giving him something — for convenience, let’s call it a MacGuffin. John has the strength to throw Nick off the cliff, but does not have the strength to simply seize the MacGuffin from Nick — he can only have it if it is willingly given away. Let us also imagine that John values the MacGuffin more than Nick does.

It is the eleventh straight day of protests in Egypt, and nearly every day has been marked by fierce and violent clashes between protesters and riot police. The president, Hosni Mubarak, an 82-year old autocrat, has only avoided the fate of his Tunisian counterpart by sacking his entire government and scheduling elections for September, at which point he claims he will step down. Given the mercurial nature of revolutions, and of Arab revolutions in particular, anything is possible — but for now, the Egyptian regime seems set to end with a whimper, not a bang.

The city was strange and the society was unnerving, but what disturbed me most about my Dubai experience was my job as a business consultant for the Boston Consulting Group.

To the members of the student body who do not follow campus issues, there are only two facts you need to be aware of to have an above-average understanding of what is going on:

As the U.S. Congress (belatedly) hammers out this year’s federal budget, our politicians and pundits have focused their attention on three questions. First, how important are the activities that government performs relative to the private enterprise that it supplants? Second, how redistributionary should our system of taxes and spending be, both in terms of how much we take from the rich to give to the poor, as well as how much we take from future generations to give to the present? And finally, which presents the greater risk: a failure to provide Keynesian stimulus today, or a potential debt crisis tomorrow?