By Steven Hill, The Guardian, January 22, 2012
 
Between Paul Krugman's call for massive stimulus and the demands of the austerity hawks lies a third way: 'aust-imulus'
 
Few subjects have so bitterly divided our insecure times than the double-edged saber of stimulus versus austerity. Consensus over which course will end the current economic malaise has eluded the duelling experts. Without clearer signals of success, many nations have tried a confused mix of both – let's call it "aust-imulus".
 

By Steven Hill, Social Europe Journal, December 21, 2011

A United States of Europe takes a giant step forward… yet the Euroskeptics still see the glass as half empty
 
I was surprised at the chorus of carping that greeted the recent European agreement to launch greater fiscal integration and union. Predictably, the usual gloom and doomers – Wolfgang Munchau, Paul Krugman and just about anyone British – were bound to see the glass as half empty. But even pro-Europeanists like columnists Harold Meyerson and Timothy Garton Ash found a shrill note to sing. The choral theme, as it has been consistently over these many long months, was “It doesn’t go far enough” and “It will be too late.” A subset of criticism was leveled against Germany and France for, in effect, taking too much leadership when previously the skeptics had bemoaned a lack of European leadership. The critics are a hard lot to please, like certain theater critics who, even when they love you, they hate you.
 

by Steven Hill, Social Europe Journal, November 21, 2011
 
In the post-collapse era, economic and ecological sustainability increasingly will take center stage. Despite the eurozone crisis, Europe's social capitalism, steady state economy, pluralistic democracies and environmental policies still provide the best foundation for comprehensive sustainability.
 

Steven Hill, "Is There a Bright Side to the EU’s Policies?"
Fox Business Network, Varney & Co., November 7, 2011
www.foxbusiness.com/on-air/varney-co/index.html#/v/1262967618001/is-there-a-bright-side-to-the-eus-policies

 
Steven Hill, "Can the U.S. Learn From Europe’s Economic Practices?" 
Fox Business Network, Varney & Co., October 27, 2011
http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/1241548371001/can-us-learn-from-europes-economic-practices

The IMPACT Speaker Series presents
 
Steven Hill, Author of Europe's Promise: Why the European Way Is the Best Hope for an Insecure Age
 
Click here for a YouTube video of his lecture
 

By Steven Hill, Bay Citizen, November 1, 2011

So far RCV's accomplishments have been inspiring for those who believe that
American democracy needs reform. San Francisco's 11-member Board of
Supervisors has become far more diverse, with the number of racial minority
supervisors doubling to eight.
 

By Steven Hill, Social Europe Journal, October 24, 2011
 
Is it time for social democrats to take the lead in drafting a Constitution for the new Europe?
 
When I spoke last June in Barcelona at the annual conference of the Social Democrat/Socialists in the European Parliament, I asked the audience a rather pointed question: what is your political program and solutions for the economic crisis that distinguishes you from the center-right? Because when I read various writings and websites from social democrats, including on this Social Europe Journal, I can’t really tell. The Social Democratic message is not clear, the program is too vague, indecisive and hedging. And I don’t just mean about how to deal with the current crisis — what is your blueprint for Europe going forward?
 

By Steven Hill, Social Europe Journal, September 27, 2011
 

By Steven Hill, Zocalo Public Square, September 22, 2011

Last October, in Oslo, amid rainfall and the first cold breaths of winter, I ventured outdoors to a place I had visited before: Oslo’s Frogner Park, home to a work of genius called the Vigeland sculptures. I had first encountered them several years ago and found myself moved beyond expectation. Returning to see them, I was again overwhelmed.

By Steven Hill, Forbes.com and Al Jazeera, September 19, 2011

Israelis missing historic opportunity to lead a regional economic renaissance          

Who could have imagined even a year ago that the Arab Spring would blow a fresh wind across the Middle East, opening minds and hearts to new possibilities. Now in the next chapter of this remarkable story, the Palestinians are taking their quest for statehood to the United Nations. Perhaps no other issue in the Middle East packs as much symbolic value as this one, and holds as much potential to be a catalyst for profound change.

By Steven Hill, Guardian, September 2, 2011
 
The US media's crystal ball gazers have a terrible track record on Europe –- so pay no attention to reports of an imminent fall
 
The US media has a long history of having fun at Europe's expense. Recently Time magazine added to a longstanding Europe-bashing tradition with a cover story that blared "The Decline and Fall of Europe", featuring a young London rioter, dressed in a hoodie and glaring like a Tolkien wraith from the red flames engulfing the cityscape behind him.
 

By Steven Hill, Social Europe Journal, August 17, 2011
 
This article is based on the author's recent visit to Spain, conducting interviews and research into the impacts of the economic crisis. He witnessed the economic strain, but also the remarkable resiliency of the Spanish people. In this article he explores both the roots of the crisis and the responses of Spain's Socialist government, as well as of everyday people, in coping with this challenging time.
 

By Steven Hill, Al Jazeera (English), August 12, 2011
 
The US economy is reeling in the aftermath of poor decision making, and structural weaknesses that have led to massive wasting of money and resources in three critical areas: military spending, health care and energy/transportation. Yet you would never know that by listening to the carnival barkers in the US Congress.
 

By Steven Hill, Guardian, August 13, 2011  
 
Few countries need a reality check as much as Britain. From leading Europe into the disaster of the Iraq war to killing off financial reform, the UK has been more destructive than Greece
 

By Steven Hill, Forbes.com, August 2, 2011

The U.S. massively wastes money and resources in three critical areas: military spending, health care and energy/transportation.
 
The first act of the Debt Deiling Drama is over for now, with all the pundits now assessing the damage to the President, House Republicans, the economy and more. But during the ordeal, while the politicians traded insults like carnival barkers, the real threats to America's future remained ignored. It's not simply that the country is spending money that it doesn't have, but also a matter of what the money is spent on. Is the debt the result of needed investment -- or waste?

By Steven Hill, The Nation, July 20, 2011  

When you stroll around Athens or many other parts of Greece, you see gangs of feral yet endearing cats living off people’s handouts, apparently never wondering what would happen if their lifeline was suddenly cut off. Greece, in a way, has been like those felines, except suddenly the free lunch is over.
 

By Steven Hill, Social Europe Journal, July 18, 2011
 
To understand the present and future, sometimes it's helpful to revisit the past. In the case of Europe, it is instructive to consider the young United States of America in 1789. The thirteen former colonies had expelled their British colonizer with the crucial help of the French, and began the delicate task of trying to form themselves into a union of member states. It was an arduous and at times conflicted trial-and-error process, and its success was by no means assured.
 

By Steven Hill, The Guardian, July 16, 2011

Fearful headlines hide success stories such as Poland, which show Europe is taking the right steps to economic recovery

Nearly three years since the economic earthquake that shook the world, most regions of Europe continue on the path of recovery. It is unfortunate that most of the headlines dwell on the plight of a few debt-strapped countries because much of the rest of Europe is making steady progress toward developing a more sustainable economic model.

By Steven Hill, Social Europe Journal, May 17, 2011

Adapted from the author’s address to the Goethe Institute in Prague at their recent conference “American Dream – Escape from Old Europe?”  
 
Since World War II, it is plain to see that a high degree of convergence has occurred all over the world around the institutions and practices of political democracy and economy. Country after country has followed the American lead, which offered to the world a development model based on the rise of the middle class.  This convergence does not result from some “end of history” triumphalism, but it does mark a relentless, centuries-old march toward the types of institutions and policies that best provide “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” for modern mass societies. Even China in its own way is being drawn inexorably into this convergence vortex. And there is no reason to believe that this convergence will cease in the future.

By Steven Hill, Los Angeles Times, May 11, 2011
 
In these times of severe budget constraints in California, having four separate state agencies controlling finance and taxes, and three separate state entities covering education, seems like overkill. And do we really need a lieutenant governor?
 

By Steven Hill, Social Europe Journal, April 27, 2011

The U.S. massively wastes money on defence spending, health care, energy/transportation, and income disequilibrium.
 
The Battle of the Budget Deficit has become centre stage in the United States and will dominate for many months – most likely into the presidential campaign in 2012. The battle in the U.S. mirrors similar ones in Europe, Japan and elsewhere, but there are important differences that put America at a disadvantage.
 
A budget deficit is like a two-sided coin – if it results substantially from important investment in new technologies, industries and physical infrastructure (roads, airports, etc.), and from investment in human resources via health care, education and job training, it actually can help pave the way toward a more prosperous future.
 

"Why in Europe they have a better standard of living than in the USA"
Interview with Steven Hill in Polish daily newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, by Wojciech Orliński, April 25, 2011
(Gazeta Wyborcza is one of two leading dailies. The interview attracted wide attention, including over 400 reader comments).
 
“Despite the Crisis, Europe Is the Model for the World”
Interview with Steven Hill in Lidove Noviny, by Veronika Bednarova, February 23, 2011.

By Steven Hill, In These Times, April 6, 2011
 
If progressive don’t realize how much they’ve been had by President Obama, they ARE “f—-ing retarded.”
 
In 2009, then-White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel infamously said that progressives are "fucking retarded." Lately I've begun to think he was correct--though not for the same reasons as Emanuel, who thought that progressives held unrealistic expectations for his boss, President Barack Obama. Progressives are chumps because they had those expectations for Obama to begin with, and poured so many of their hopes and aspirations--not to mention dollars--into electing him.
 

By Steven Hill, Social Europe Journal, March 22, 2011

It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.
– REM, “It’s the end of the world as we know it“
 
Disappointment, as well as renewed pressure from the financial markets on Portugal, Greece, Spain and Ireland, greeted the recent deal on eurozone reform hashed out by European leaders. Financial Times columnist Wolfgang Münchau, adopting his typically anti-Europe posture, wrote that “you cannot muddle through a debt crisis.” Clearly, he has failed to note that Europe has been muddling through for over a year now. And fairly successfully, I might add.
 

By Steven Hill, Sacramento Bee, March 13, 2011 (a version also was published in The Guardian)
 
If it makes sense, as Paul Krugman and others argue, for Greece to ditch the euro, then why doesn’t it make sense for California to ditch the dollar?
 
Many solutions have been proposed to the political and economic crises of our Golden State, with Gov. Jerry Brown calling for a June election to deal with the state budget. But the sheer intractability of the challenges leads to an inevitable conclusion: Piecemeal approaches no longer will suffice. California needs bolder interventions.
 

By Steven Hill, The Globalist, March 7, 2011
 
Both the European and American ways are deeply rooted in old traditions — even in different branches of Christianity. These forces continue to shape attitudes across the Atlantic. Nowhere are these ideological differences more instructive than in the conception of property, social responsibility and government, argues author Steven Hill in his book "Europe's Promise: Why the European Way is the Best Hope in an Insecure Age" (www.EuropesPromise.org).
 

By Steven Hill, Huffington Post, March 4, 2011

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven-hill/an-open-letter-to-us-sena_b_831189.html

The myth of the overtaxed Europeans and other modern fables
Merkel, Germany, overthrow Obama, U.S., at G-20
Sticky glue, social contracts, and fulcrum institutions: a painting in the Rijksmuseum talks to me
Prague: city of modernity…and martyrs…the Velvet Revolution twenty years later
Istanbul: ancient city and throbbing metropolis…where east meets west…economic development…and Iranian torturers
Athens, birthplace of democracy...democracy, the core of the western canon
Arrival in Greece, epicenter of the (debt) earthquake

Amazing Germany…declining unemployment…how do they do it?
Oslo’s astonishing Vigeland sculptures - celebration of human bodies and cycles of life
Bombs, bombs everywhere; Europe ponders America’s return to Bush-lite.
Ancient transportations: walking and bicycling to health
The European Commission (the most important body you've never heard of)
Hope for multiculturalism in southern France…and portable tea bags

French protesters: "Where are you Americans?"

Salzburg:  “Why don’t you have these things for your people?

”The plight of the Roma minority: Signs of hope

Trial by fire: populist party makes gains in Vienna's municipal elections; the challenge of Rainbow Europe

OKTOBERFEST: a “Stammtisch” of thousands; skepticism over U.S. travel advisory in Europe