| | | | At least 13 were killed and 80 injured in Barcelona today when a van plowed into a crowd of people. Local officials have said the number of dead is "bound to rise." Krishnadev Calamur remarks in the Atlantic on the recent spate of attacks like today's in Spain:
"The manner of Thursday's attack at Las Ramblas matches several recent high-profile terrorist attacks across Europe, including in Nice, France, and London," Calamur writes. "What's different about such attacks is the number of casualties vary widely. A recent car and knife attack at Ohio State in 2016 injured a few people; one woman was killed in last weekend's attack in Charlottesville, Virginia; six people were killed in the Westminster Bridge attack in London; and more than 80 people were killed in Nice."
"Terrorist groups recognize not only the impact and efficiency of using simple means—like vehicles—to carry out attacks, they also recognize the challenges policymakers face when they respond to terrorism," Calamur writes.
| | The U.S. Shouldn't Start a Trade War with China | | But it would win one if it decided to, argues Ian Bremmer in Time:
"For one, China's vulnerabilities are far greater… Although it is less important to the economy than it was, trade accounts for almost 40% of Chinese GDP vs. less than 30% in the U.S."
"Debt is another source of Chinese weakness," Bremmer notes. "Heavy spending by the government and state-owned companies have pushed debt levels to dangerous new heights."
"But there's a catch for the Trump team. If you want to be sure the near-term pain a trade battle would impose on U.S. workers will prove worthwhile in the long run, you'd better have allies--both political and military. Yet President Trump passed on an opportunity to strengthen ties with a number of Asian partners when he walked away from the enormous Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal. He encouraged NATO members to hedge their bets on Washington by allowing them to question his commitment to the Atlantic alliance."
"President Trump must also understand that China will do its best to target U.S. companies and industries based in states with high concentrations of voters that are part of his political base. China's leaders can read an electoral map, and they know how to hit Trump where it hurts most.
"So, yes, the U.S. can win a trade war with China," Bremmer writes. "That doesn't make it a good idea."
| | Robots Won't Take All Our Jobs | | | Economic evidence doesn't support the current anxiety over automation, James Surowiecki argues in Wired:
"If automation were, in fact, transforming the US economy, two things would be true: Aggregate productivity would be rising sharply, and jobs would be harder to come by than in the past."
"[In] reality, productivity gains over the past decade have been, by historical standards, dismally low… Nor does the job market show signs of an incipient robopocalypse," Surowiecki writes.
"The peculiar thing about this historical moment is that we're afraid of two contradictory futures at once," Surowiecki notes. "On the one hand, we're told that robots are coming for our jobs and that their superior productivity will transform industry after industry... But at the same time, we're told that we're in an era of secular stagnation, stuck with an economy that's doomed to slow growth and stagnant wages.
"Both of these futures are possible. But they can't both come true," Surowiecki writes. "Fretting about both the rise of the robots and about secular stagnation doesn't make any sense. Yet that's precisely what many intelligent people are doing."
| | Why Trump Advisers Shouldn't Jump Ship | | In the Daily Beast, James Kirchick explains why calling for Trump administration staffers to resign is a mistake:
"Who does these pundits think will fill the positions of White House Chief of Staff and Defense Secretary were Kelly and Mattis to go?" Kirchick asks. "Very likely the kinds of conspiracy theorists and nationalists whom McMaster has tirelessly cleaning out of the National Security Council, and who would have thrived were his predecessor Mike Flynn still around.
"Indeed, for all the administration backstabbing and high drama that has filled headlines over the past several months, such palace intrigue is far better than the alternative: an administration purged of reasonable individuals and replaced by Bannonites."
| | Trump Did Something
Good This Week | | Cass Sunstein writes in Bloomberg View that Trump did at least one thing right this week: "issuing an executive order designed to lower regulatory barriers to infrastructure projects, and to speed up and simplify the process for obtaining necessary permits and clearances."
"If the permitting bureaucracy were a supervillain, it would be the Blob. It can take several years, and millions of dollars, to obtain environmental clearance for construction permits, even if the goal is to develop green infrastructure and to improve the environment."
"Building on Obama's actions, Trump's executive order calls for tracking every major infrastructure project, with public disclosure of deadlines and of whether they have been met, alongside potential penalties for poor performance," Sunstein notes.
"Defeating the permitting Blob will require sustained follow-through from the executive branch, and both dedication and toughness on the part of its leadership. But let's give credit where it's due: This week's executive order provides an excellent foundation for achieving that goal."
| | Is New Zealand Messing with Australian Politics? | | Australia is facing its own birther scandal of sorts (though one based in reality). The Economist reports:
"A strange political scandal in Australia turned serious on August 14th when the deputy prime minister, Barnaby Joyce... discovered—much to his surprise—that he was also a citizen of New Zealand. Section 44 of Australia's constitution prevents anyone with dual citizenship from sitting in Parliament. So far such discoveries have led two Australian Greens to resign from the Senate and an MP of the Liberal Party to step down from his cabinet role as industry minister.
"But the discovery of Mr Joyce's apparent ineligibility has given the matter greater urgency—the loss of a single seat would cause the coalition government of the Liberal and National parties to lose its majority. Events have escalated quickly, with one Australian minister accusing New Zealand of meddling in its politics."
"[The] chief-of-staff of an Labor senator spoke to an MP in the New Zealand Labour Party, Chris Hipkins, about Australian legislators who may be New Zealand citizens," the Economist writes. "Mr Hipkins raised the issue in his country's Parliament. Questions from journalists then resulted in the Kiwi interior minister explaining Mr Joyce's new-found status. Smelling a conspiracy, the Australian foreign minister, Julie Bishop, said that she would find it 'very difficult' to work with a party that sought to 'undermine the Australian government'."
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