Robert J. Samuelson

The recent German and Japanese elections deserve more attention than they've got because they illustrate the uneasy relationship between capitalism and democracy.

We're getting a painful lesson in economic geography. What Wall Street is to money, or Hollywood is to entertainment, the Gulf Coast is to energy. It's a vast assemblage of refineries, production platforms, storage tanks and pipelines--and the petroleum engineers, energy consultants and roustabouts who make them run.

Every so often the government spits out some factoid that seems crammed with special significance. The Commerce Department did just that recently when it reported that Americans' personal savings rate had dropped to zero.

One of the unheralded contrasts of our time is this: everywhere we see the increasingly powerful effects of globalization; and yet, the single most important reality for the economic well-being of most people is their nationality.

We cannot decide whether China is a threat or an opportunity, and until we do, every discussion of our relations seems to slide into confusion and acrimony.

If economics were a boat, it would be a leaky tub. The pumps would be straining, and the captain would be trying to prevent it from capsizing. Which is to say: our ideas for explaining trends in output, employment and living standards--what we call "macroeconomics"--are in a state of disarray.

Immigration is crawling its way back onto the national agenda--and not just as a footnote to keeping terrorists out. Earlier this year, Congress enacted a law intended to prevent illegal aliens from getting state drivers' licenses; the volunteer "minutemen" who recently patrolled the porous Arizona border with Mexico attracted huge attention, and members of Congress from both parties are now crafting proposals to deal with illegal immigration.

Americans are having another sputnik moment: one of those periodic alarms about some foreign economic menace. It was the Soviets in the 1950s and early 1960s, the Germans and the Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s, and now it's the Chinese and the Indians.

We are all taught that saving is good--indeed, Americans are often chided for spending too much and saving too little. But what if the problem of today's global economy is that people elsewhere, in Europe, Asia and Latin America, are saving too much and spending too little?

They've gone from heroes to bums. Hardly a day passes when the press or prosecutors don't thrash some corporate CEO for alleged managerial blunders or accounting illegalities.

The interesting question about the advent of $50-a-barrel oil is whether it signals a new era in the economics and politics of energy. To sharpen the question: have we entered a period when, owing to consistently strong demand and chronically scarce supplies, prices have moved permanently higher?

What do AT&T, the civil aeronautics Board, steelworkers and Kmart have in common? Answer: all are victims of competition. Over the past four decades, the American economy has become vastly more competitive.

Everyone is going to play numbers games to judge George W. Bush's next economic policies. Top of the list will be Bush's pledge to cut the budget deficit in half by 2009.

The United States and Europe are edging toward their biggest trade dispute ever--and Washington shouldn't blink. The dispute involves competition between Boeing and Airbus, which has toppled Boeing as the world's largest producer of commercial jets.

The United States is the world's leading economic power--but perhaps no longer the world's economic leader. There's a difference. No one doubts the singular wealth or position of the American economy.

Picture yourself in the mid-1840s. It's an exciting time. Fifteen years earlier, railroads barely existed. In 1830 there were only 23 miles of track. By 1840, there were 2,818; by 1850, 9,021.

The Census Bureau's annual figures on family incomes and poverty were bound to become familiar factoids in the Bush-Kerry combat. The numbers seem to confirm what many people feel: the middle class is squeezed; poverty's worsening.

Every presidential election is an exercise in hope and exaggeration. We hope "our" candidate's triumph will uplift the nation. But the usual campaign exaggerations may deceive and disillusion us.

There may be lots of reasons to vote for John Kerry over George Bush, but "job quality" isn't one of them. Kerry has been telling crowds that the country is "shipping jobs overseas and replacing them with jobs that pay you less than the jobs you have today." Ergo, job quality is going to the dogs.

As Republicans gather in New York, the lackluster job market must dishearten President Bush. He had hoped that a strong economic recovery would favor his re-election, and in some ways, he's gotten his wish.

As Republicans gather in New York, the lackluster job market must dishearten President Bush. He had hoped that a strong economic recovery would favor his re-election, and in some ways, he's gotten his wish.

Someday soon, I may be the last man in America without a cell phone. To those who see cell phones as progress, I say: they aggravate noise pollution and threaten our solitude.

We all descended on Boston last week--Democratic delegates, party consultants, political junkies and journalists--for what often seemed more a sales convention than a political convention.

A Harvard degree isn't the status symbol it used to be--and that goes for Yale and Princeton, too. It seems impossible. After all, the crush to get into elite schools has never been greater, and in general the number of slots hasn't risen.

It's Alan Greenspan's swan song. The Federal Reserve raised interest rates last week, as expected. The overnight Fed funds rate went from 1 percent, the lowest since the late 1950s, to 1.25 percent.

We in the news business think we're impartial seekers of truth, but most Americans think otherwise. They view us as sloppy, biased and self-serving. In 1985, 56 percent of the public felt news organizations usually got their facts straight, says the Pew Research Center.

Wham! bam! now come two intellectual heavyweights, armed with statistics and studies, determined to prove once and for all that globalization is not just an economic necessity but also a moral imperative--leading to greater social justice, freedom and democracy.

The question about china's economy is no longer what it will do to China but what it will do to the rest of the world. It may invigorate the global economy--or destabilize it.

Eugene Steuerle is one of Washington's ranking policy wonks--a term used here with respect. He's forgotten more about taxes in the last 15 seconds than most of us will ever know.

John Kerry recently made an interesting proposal that--if nothing else--illustrates the wide gap between political rhetoric and economic reality. Given the obsession with jobs and overseas "outsourcing," Kerry suggests that government policy should encourage U.S. companies to invest here, not abroad.