PERIODICALS
FOREIGN POLICY & DEFENSE
Shortly after World War 11, Eberstadt explains, President Harry Tru- man initiated "development assistance," designed to promote eco-nomic self-sufficiency in poor countries overseas. The World Bank, beginning in 1946, was set up to "facilitate investment for productive purposes" in countries needing an industrial base. Even the United Na- tion's Relief and Rehabilitation Agency (UNRRA) was limited to pro- viding only "immediate...
the previous one? Opinions vary, al- though most scholars' answer is No.
Were supporters of the gradualist Johnson policy in Vietnam correct when they blamed the news media for undermining vital public sup- port, or was the policy itself fatally flawed? For their part, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger believe that they negotiated a satisfactory end to the war in 1973, but that Congress, cutting aid to Saigon in 1973-74, made Hanoi's victory inevitable. Fromkin and Chace contend that merely holding...
Fukushima, in Foreign Policy (Summer
1985), 11 Dupont Circle, Washington,
D.C. 20036.
In disputes over the causes of America's $36.8 billion trade deficit with Japan, tempers have flared on both sides of the Pacific.
Fukushima, an economist at the Nomura Research Institute, suggests that Americans listen to the Japanese side of the story. He believes that Japanese businessmen have been falsely stereotyped as economic ma- rauders, while in fact, "Japan has been playing a helpful, vital...
making direct investments." American workers are now building Hondas; Japanese steel companies are selling ad- vanced cold strip mill technology to their U.S. counterparts.
Washington, Fukushima says, is using Japan as a scapegoat. With a growing deficit that absorbs two-thirds of all national savings, an over- valued dollar, a diminishing competitive edge in several key industries, and excessive borrowing from overseas, the United States is largely re- sponsible for its own economic woes....
Erik Lundberg, in Journal of'Economic
Literature (Mar. 1985), Dept. of Econom-
ics, Stanford Univ., Stanford, Ca. 94305.
From the mid-1930s through the late 1960s, Sweden's pioneering "wel- fare state" defied the doomsayers. Achieving full employment, a low rate of inflation, steady growth, greater income equality, and political stability, the Swedish Model held up surprisingly well.
But in 1974, the long rise of Sweden's gross national product (GNP)
The Wilson QuarterlflAutumn 1985
19
PERIODICALS
ECONOMICS. L...
PERIODICALS
ECONOMICS. LABOR. & BUSINESS
ended. Stagflation set in. Investment waned. Labor strife grew. The population rose to nearly 8.3 million. Lundberg, an economist at the Stockholm School of Economics, traces the problem to the reigning So- cial Democrats' dogged adherence to an outdated economic blueprint.
During the 1930s, even before John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) proposed that government spending could stabilize a free market econ- omy, Swedish economists were trying to blend...
Wilson and Cook, who teach public policy at Harvard and Duke, re- spectively, reject the theory that the unemployment rate is directly linked to the homicide rate. They do not, however, deny that "economic conditions may have some effect on the crime rate," which includes many types of crimes against property.
In 1976, JEC Chairman Hubert Humphrey stated that a "1.4 percent rise in unemployment during 1970 is directly responsible for . . . 1,740 additional homicides." Humphrey...
Charles Murray, WQ, Autumn 19841. Murray asserts that "basic social indicators took a turn for the worse" during the 1960s. Jencks, a sociologist at Northwestern Univer- sity, replies that the official overall poverty rate fell from 19 percent in 1965 to 13 percent in 1980, when adjusted for inflation. Medicaid and Medicare, he adds, not only improved poor people's health but also may have helped to lower infant mortality. Life expectancy, in fact, rose more from 1965 to 1980 than from...
Michael Massing, in Columbia Journalism Review (MayIJune 1985), 700 Journalism Bldg., Columbia Univ., New York, N.Y. 10027.
Following two much-publicized libel trials (Gen. William Westmore- land and Ariel Sharon against CBS News and Time, respectively), in- vestigative journalists in the United States seem to be backing off difficult stories. But are they?
Massing, a contributing editor of the Columbia Journalism Review, be-lieves that "a chill has indeed set in." After interviewing...
Gary D. Gaddy and
David Pritchard, in Journal of Communi- Church cations (Winter 1985), The Annenberg
School of Communications, Univ. of Pa.,
3620 Walnut St. C5, Philadelphia, Pa.
19104-3858.
On April 16, 1984, USA Today ran the following headline: "TV Preach- ers Not Hurting Local Church."
This headline encapsulated a two-volume study the Annenberg School of Communications and the Gallup Organization. In 1978 and 1983, Gallup had surveyed more than 1,500 people on their religious-...