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Following are highlights
of national news coverage that
members of Mason’s
School of Public Policy received
in the past month.
 Kenneth
Button
Wednesday,
April 30, Washington Post
United's New Plan Could
Cost D.C.
“The next potential
act in Airline Merger Mania 2008:
United Airlines and US Airways
are negotiating a tie-up
that could have profound implications
for Washington-area air travelers,
according to sources familiar
with the discussions. Spurned
by Continental Airlines over
the weekend, Chicago-based United
has focused its attention on
smaller US Airways for the second
time in the past eight years.
In 2001, a similar proposed merger
was dashed after regulators said
it violated antitrust laws.… US
Airways and United will probably
have an easier time reducing
costs by eliminating hubs and
cutting flights on overlapping
routes, analysts said.… However,
those cost savings
may be short-lived,
according to Kenneth
Button, a professor
of
public policy
at George Mason
University. He said that labor
problems—both carriers
have
them—and economic
issues, ranging from low-cost
competition to high oil prices,
will probably gnaw away at any
benefits. ‘This is a short-term
treatment of a
problem without
actually curing it,’ he
said.”
 Mark
Rozell
Wednesday,
April 23, Montreal Gazette
Clinton
Clings to Symbolic Victories
“Fresh
from beating Barack Obama in Pennsylvania’s
presidential primary, Hillary Clinton
on Wednesday boasted about winning a ‘double
digit’ victory in the state and
taking the popular-vote lead in the overall
Democratic race.… With 99 per
cent of precincts reporting, Clinton
won 1,260,060 votes to 1,045,148 for
Obama—a 9.33-point advantage. ‘The
psychological impact remains that it
was a double-digit win’ because
that’s how it was reported, said Mark
Rozell, a political scientist
at George Mason University in Fairfax,
Va.… ‘She is stretching
it by saying she’s winning the
popular vote,’ said Rozell. ‘I
just don’t think it’s accurate
to put Michigan and Florida into play
like that.’… ‘She
has a strong case to make about having
prevailed in the bigger, more populous
states,’ says Rozell. ‘The
problem, of course, is the delegate count.
She only picked up about a dozen (in
Pennsylvania). It just barely begins
to close the gap, and time is running
out.’”
 Jeremy
Mayer
Tuesday, April
22, Politico
War Crimes Next October Suprise?
Jeremy Mayer considers
what might happen if there is a late-breaking
news event or crisis in October 2008
and how that might alter the presidential
race. In the article, Mayer poses the
following question, “What if the October surprise
is the greatest legal conflict between America
and Europe since the creation of the Atlantic
alliance? ”
 Louise
Shelley
Monday,
April 21, NPR
Colombia
Reflects Rising Threat of Nuclear Terrorism
“There
has been an increase in threatening
rhetoric from the al-Qaida leadership,
directedspecifically
against Western Europe and the United
States. And some of the nuclear material
that was lost 10 years ago might
only now be turning up in the black
market. Louise
Shelley, who directs the
Terrorism, Transnational Crime and
Corruption [Center] at George Mason
University, says there is a potential
threat. ‘I mean, when
Osama bin Laden says, “We're
going to get at you,”’ Shelley
said, ‘this
is the kind of point where you think
that the rhetoric is escalating to
something that may make sense to use
this.’ Much
of the nuclear material, or alleged
nuclear material, moving through the
black market, however, involves scams.
The uranium for which the Colombian
rebels were reportedly willing to spend
more than $2 million was useless.”
Monday, April
21, Today's Zaman
Stripped-Down
Investigation Leads Nowhere
“Scholars argue that there are
structural problems in the Turkish Constitution
and legal system hindering parliamentary
commissions from fully exercising their
investigative powers in the public’s
name.… Investigative power, one
of the most important non-legislative
functions of the parliament in any democratic
system, is somewhat curtailed in the
Turkish Constitution.… Even though
there is no express provision in the
US Constitution to its effect, broad
legislative authority to issue informational
demands has been established unequivocally
in Supreme Court rulings since it was
first borrowed from the British Parliament.
In many cases brought to the court, justices
ruled that such powers were essential
to the legislature’s function and
thus implied in Congress’ legislative
powers. Asked whether congressional committees
can look into state or trade secrets, Mark
J. Rozell, professor of public
policy at George Mason University, responded, ‘Congress
also has the power to investigate matters
of state secrets, although the so-called
state secrets privilege may and has been
used to prevent the divulgence of information
to Congress and even to the courts.’”
 Christopher
T. Hill
Sunday, April
20, New York Times
How Scientific Gains Abroad Pay Off
in the U.S.
“Americans have long profited
from low-cost manufactured goods,
especially from Asia. The cost of
those material ‘inputs’ is
now rising. But because of growing
numbers of scientists in China, India
and other lower-wage countries, ‘the
cost of producing a new scientific
discovery is dropping around the
world,’ says Christopher
T. Hill, a professor of
public policy and technology at George
Mason University. American innovators—with
their world-class strengths in product
design, marketing and finance—may
have a historic opportunity to convert
the scientific know-how from abroad
into market gains and profits. Mr.
Hill views the transition to ‘the
post scientific society’ as
an unrecognized bonus for American
creators of new products and services.
Mr. Hill’s insight, which he
first described in a National Academy
of Sciences journal article last
fall, runs counter to the notion
that the United States fails to educate
enough of its own scientists and
that ‘shortages’ of them
hamper American competitiveness.”
Sunday, April
20, Publico (Portugal)
Professor Kenneth Button was
interviewed by the Portuguese media about
the air transportation industry.
Friday, April
18, Journal de Negocios and Meia
Hora (Portugal)
Professor
Kenneth Button discusses the
airline industry in these Portuguese
publications.
Wednesday,
April 16, Wall Street Journal
Plane Wreck
“Airlines live in a different
regulatory world today, but airline executives
are straining after similar solutions
when they propose mergers or ‘code-sharing’ agreements….
Intellectual revolution though it would
require, the real fix would be some kind
of code-sharing ‘safe harbor’ to
which airlines could repair in times
of financial stress. Crudely, when profits
are scarce, carriers would be free to
collude over fares and routes in order
to maintain service levels without bleeding
each other to death. Delta’s then-President
Fred Reid dared to broach just such a
proposal at an industry conference several
years ago. The same crazy idea also appears
in a growing body of academic work by
people like Kenneth Button at
George Mason University and Embry-Riddle’s
Jayathi Raghavan and Vedapuri Raghavan.”
Wednesday,
April 16, Cleveland Plain Dealer
What a Continental-United merger
would mean for you
“The merger of Delta Air Lines
and Northwest Airlines into the world's
largest carrier could push two other
major carriers -- Continental and United
-- into consolidation, according to industry
insiders…. Continental brings
more planes in and out of Cleveland Hopkins
International Airport than any other
airline, with more than 240 daily departures…. Kenneth
Button, an aerospace policy
teacher at George Mason University, has
said United's Denver hub could grow in
a merger, as it plugs into the Continental
network. Hopkins loses business in that
scenario.
 Stephen
Fuller
Monday, April
14, WTOP Radio
Unfilled
Jobs Slow Economy
“The region’s growing shortage
of workers is compounded by the area’s
lack of affordable housing, a local economist
says. ‘Workers can’t move
here if they can’t sell their house
somewhere else,’ says Stephen
Fuller, director for the Center
for Regional Analysis at George Mason
University in Fairfax, Va. Fuller says
because the region is the fourth most
expensive housing market in the nation,
some 300,000 people who can’t afford
to live here, and they commute in, clogging
area roads.… ‘If we can’t
fill a job, it’s work that doesn’t
get done. It slows our economy. It makes
us weaker. The availability of workers,
the shortage of workers is critical.’”
 John
McClain
Friday, April
11, Baltimore Sun
Housing Market Is 'Pretty
Bleak'
“March is usually the month when
homebuyers get serious, when sales rocket
out of the winter doldrums—but
not this year. Home sales in the Baltimore
area last month fell 34 percent from
a year earlier, the seventh straight
month of declines roughly in that range,
Metropolitan Regional Information Systems
reported yesterday. The average sales
price slid almost 3 percent to about
$297,700, or $8,900 less than a year
ago.…. ‘Pretty bleak,’ said John
McClain, a senior fellow at
George Mason University’s Center
for Regional Analysis. ‘A lot of
people are still on the sidelines. People
think the economy is in a recession,
and it probably is.’”
 Ramkishen
Rajan
Tuesday, April
1, Business Times
Major
Issues Arising from the US Financial
Crisis
Ramkishen Rajan examines
in an op-ed piece the recent U.S. financial
debacle and urges policymakers to pay
attention to risk issues that involve
financial sectors. |
