Prof. John E. Fernández, director of the MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative, writes in a letter to The Boston Globe that the Trump administration should make an investment in rebuilding America’s infrastructure. Fernández writes that President Trump’s desire to build is good, “for local economies, job creation, and protection from emerging threats such as climate change.”
New York Times reporter Steve Lohr writes about the MIT AI Policy Conference, which examined how society, industry and governments should manage the policy questions surrounding the evolution of AI technologies. “If you want people to trust this stuff, government has to play a role,” says CSAIL principal research scientist Daniel Weitzner.
An excerpt published in National Geographic from a book by Deborah Blum, director of the Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT, examines how Henry Heinz’s push to improve the quality of his company’s ketchup helped usher in new food safety regulations. Blum writes that Heinz realized “consumer distrust of the food supply would be far more expensive to manufacturers like him than the cost of improving the food itself.”
New York Times columnist David Leonhardt highlights Prof. Emeritus Olivier Blanchard’s address to the American Economic Association, in which he argued that governments are overly concerned with debt. “Blanchard’s case revolves around the fact that economic growth rates in modern times are usually higher than interest rates. This pattern means that governments can often repay their debts more easily than people expect,” Leonhardt explains.
Prof. Emeritus and Nobel laureate Peter Diamond speaks with Meghna Chakrabarti of On Point about U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s proposal to increase the top marginal tax rate to 70 percent. “That will raise a lot of money that we could [use to] address some of our shortfalls and that will help us prepare for the large costs coming from climate change,” says Diamond of the proposal.
Writing for The Washington Post, Alexander Agadjanian of the MIT Election and Data Science Lab examines how the Trump administration impacts the image of the U.S. abroad. “Trump does not unconditionally shape foreign opinion of the United States. Instead, citizens abroad react more to the content of a U.S. policy message — whether it is cooperative or uncooperative in nature,” notes Agadjanian.
In an article for The Boston Globe, Prof. Jonathan Gruber argues that a recent ruling by a federal judge in Texas that the Affordable Care Acts is unconstitutional puts the health of people around the country at risk and threatens our democracy. “If the courts overturn this outcome, it is an attack on the very process of representative government in the US,” writes Gruber.
Vox reporter Emily Stewart writes that a working paper co-authored by MIT researchers finds that companies that benefited from recent tax cuts were more likely to announce new benefits for workers. Stewart writes that the researchers found, “companies with larger expected tax savings were likelier to announce a boost for workers. So were companies with political action committees that donate to Republicans more than Democrats.”
Prof. Thomas Levenson writes for The Boston Globe about the harm posed by casting doubt on the threat posed by climate change. “It falls both to the scientists at work in areas that have fallen prey to controversy — and the news media that covers both science and politics,” argues Levenson, “to make it clear what is truly known, and why it matters.”
A new study by researchers from MIT and a number of other universities finds that the “Trump administration’s proposal to roll back fuel economy standards relies on an error-ridden and misleading analysis that overestimates the costs and understates the benefits of tighter regulation,” reports Tony Barboza for The Los Angeles Times.
In an article for The Wall Street Journal, Senior Lecturer Robert Pozen writes that Congress should pass legislation allowing small employers to band together to provide employees access to a common retirement plan. Pozen notes that the new plan “also ought to further reduce the retirement-coverage gap by addressing the needs of part-time and seasonal employees.”
Writing for The Boston Globe, Una Hajdari, the Elizabeth Neuffer Fellow at the MIT Center for International Studies, examines the Trump administration’s approach to working with European countries.
Deborah Blum, director of the Knight Science Journalism Program, speaks with Boston Globe reporter Michael Floreak about her book exploring the origins of food regulation in the U.S. The book, “reminded me why these rules are so important and what a thin line they are between us and the bad old days of the 19th century when cookbook authors had to warn their readers about fake food,” she explains.
Prof. Yoel Fink speaks with BBC Click about his work developing fabrics embedded with light-emitting diodes that could help keep pedestrians safe. Fink explains that the fabric can detect the lights from an oncoming vehicle and establish an “affirmative link between the car and pedestrian.”
A new book by Deborah Blum, director of the Knight Science Journalism Program, focuses on Harvey Washington Wiley’s “fight for pure food,” explains Joshua Johnson, host of NPR’s 1A. While food safety has improved, Blum believes “it’s not safe enough and that our safety mechanisms have been – as they were in Wiley’s time – weakened over the years.”