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So Erel Margalit wants to be Jerusalem mayor…
Originally published 22 Jun 2006 in The Jerusalem Post

	Houston (photo: Rice University)

Erel Margalit, one of Israel’s hi-tech leaders, may run for mayor of Jerusalem. He wants to follow Houston’s mayor, who “brought music to the city.” Maybe music helped, but more likely its success was predicated on its being a pro-business town.

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Is poverty here to stay?
Originally published 5 May 2005 in The Jerusalem Post

A pack of media mavens, notably Ruth Sinai of Haaretz, savaged Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, claiming his adoption of the Irish model would result – and indeed has already resulted, they claim – in increased, rather than diminished, poverty. Definitely so, if you subscribe to the statistical nonsense that misrepresents the number of the poor by making it dependent on relative rather than real values.

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Here comes the counter-revolution
Originally published 17 Apr 2005 in The Jerusalem Post

A group of neo-Marxists, anti-globalists and plain old-time socialists are seeking to found a new college “to create a cadre of people … able to engage in well-informed debate and critically challenge the prevailing neo-liberal and neo-conservative social and political trends” – that is, to militate against economic reform.

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Labor offers some old ideas on the economy
Originally published 25 Aug 2004 in The Jerusalem Post

	Labor

What kind of economic program will a government in which Labor participates follow?

If we are to take seriously Shimon Peres’s priggish pronouncement that Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s market reforms are creating a “capitalism of pigs” and a “shitty economy” (this when Netanyahu actually averted an economic catastrophe and even initiated some growth), it will certainly not be a program of reform.

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An open letter to Ehud Olmert
Originally published 8 Apr 2004 in The Jerusalem Post

Dear Minister of Industry Trade and Employment,

First, congratulations on helping initiate legislation to limits destructive strikes in the public sector. You showed admirable political courage in opposing public monopoly unions who wield great economic and electoral powers.

All the more the pity that you have not shown similar courage in other important matters, especially in your additional role as Minister of Communications. There, instead of opening the field to more competition, you side with the Israeli oligarchy in restraining competition, thus harming the consumer, your real electorate, and inhibiting economic growth.

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