Writing for USA Today, Prof. Barry Posen argues for ending the war in Afghanistan. “It is plain that we have no actual strategic policy in Afghanistan — no plausible purpose other than using taxpayer money, the lives of American soldiers and the deaths of Afghan civilians caught in the crossfire to protect U.S. leaders against the possibility of future blame."
MIT researchers have found that reducing payments to long-term care hospitals could save the U.S. health care system around $5 billion a year, reports Margot Sanger-Katz for The New York Times. “The history of long-term care hospitals suggests the industry will always innovate ahead of you, and you may actually have to roll up your sleeves and find these pockets of waste,” explains Prof. Amy Finkelstein.
In an article for The Wall Street Journal, Senior Lecturer Robert Pozen argues that having the Securities and Exchange Commission switch to semiannual reporting would not encourage more firms to make long-term investments. Pozen notes that, “a better idea for reforming financial reporting would be for firms to stop issuing ‘guidance’ on their earnings for the next quarter or year.”
Prof. Sara Seager and other top scientists recently urged members of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation to fund NASA’s hunt for extraterrestrial life, reports Ryan Mandelbaum of Gizmodo. In testimony, Seager noted that moon landings inspired current engineers, and for the next generation “the equivalent of that is the search for life.”
Prof. Dava Newman highlighted the potential concrete benefits and cultural impact of successfully landing on Mars during her commentary before a Senate subcommittee, reports Meghan Bartels for Space.com. “We get humans there with all our great science, it will just lift us up,” said Newman.
Prof. Emeritus Ernest Moniz – former US Energy Secretary and co-chair of the Nuclear Threat Initiative – speaks with Jeremy Hobson on WBUR’s Here & Now about the Trump-Putin summit and what it could mean for nuclear dialogue.
Writing for The New York Times, Prof. Maria T. Zuber, MIT’s Vice President for Research, stresses the importance of federal investment in scientific research. “When investments in R & D produce new scientific and technological advances, those advances can in turn spawn new companies and even whole new industries, creating good jobs in a variety of fields,” writes Zuber.
MIT alumna Chrystal Kornegay has been appointed the executive director of MassHousing, reports The Boston Globe’s Adrian Walker. Kornegay, the first woman and person of color to hold the position, is tasked with finding ways to fund affordable housing.
During a broad-ranging conversation with Tom Moroney of Bloomberg News, President L. Rafael Reif discusses why education, the free-flow of talent and federal investment in fundamental scientific research are key components to America's success. Reif explains that, in his view, the foundation of our future is, “talent and believing that our research and investments will benefit the American economy.”
In a letter to the Financial Times, graduate student Daniel Aronoff writes about what he sees as the root causes of populist discontent in America. Aronoff notes that, “Those who wish to preserve the rules-based order — and I count myself among them — need to climb out of their echo chamber, open their minds and listen.”
In an article for the Financial Times about the best economics books of 2017, Martin Wolf highlights new works by Prof. Andrew Lo and Prof. Peter Temin. Wolf writes that in Temin’s “important and provocative book, [he] argues that the US is becoming a nation of rich and poor, with ever fewer households in the middle.”
In a Financial Times article, Senior Lecturer Robert Pozen details how the proposed tax plan would encourage employers to relocate US jobs to foreign countries. As a result of the foreign profits minimum tax, countries could “offer a corporate tax rate at 10 percent to US companies if they would relocate their manufacturing or research facilities,” explains Pozen.
In an op-ed for the Deseret News, graduate student Ryan Hill describes a House-passed tax bill as “devastating” to graduate students, highlighting a provision that designates tuition waivers as taxable income. “The new tax deeply undermines our nation’s commitment to basic research and technological innovation,” writes Hill.
Writing for The New York Times, graduate student Erin Rousseau examines how the House tax bill would negatively impact graduate students in the U.S. The bill, “would make meeting living expenses nearly impossible, barring all but the wealthiest students from pursuing a Ph.D. The students who will be hit hardest are those from communities that are already underrepresented in higher education.”
MIT Sloan Senior lecturer Neal Hartman writes for HuffPost about whether it’s possible to prevent election interference via social media. “We can blunt their attempts at manipulation by common-sense corporate, media, government and individual citizen actions, exposing untruths and speaking truths when we can,” writes Hartman.