Ben W. Heineman Jr.

For more than 200 years, there has been a great debate about whether elected representatives should be trustees for the whole nation or delegates for the constituents of their district or State. This democratic dilemma -- small "d" -- is now vividly on display as a group of centrist senators determine the final shape of health care reform, indeed decide whether there will be health care reform at all. None is in a more precarious position as "delegate" than… More »

My wife and I paid $2,000 for two tickets to the WorthyCause Gala. Then we went to the best fund-raiser ever---without ever leaving home. The Gala was at the Museum of Modern Masterpieces. On the Gala website, we received a floor plan of MMM, images of some of the best known works of art, with accompanying remarks on tape from the curator, and an audio of the string quartet that was playing during the cocktail hour. On the website was also a layout of the… More »

As we now know all too well, the credit crisis and the global recession stemmed, in important part, from stark failures of boards of directors and operating business leadership in important financial institutions: the witch's brew of leverage, poor risk management, creation of toxic products, lack of liquidity---all made more poisonous by compensation systems which rewarded short-term revenues/profits without regard to risk. Buffeted by the recession and the… More »

As the President and other senior administration leaders hunker down in a windowless basement room in the White House to begin debate on future U.S. policy in Afghanistan, one of the most vexing issues will be wide-spread Afghan corruption. The profound problem, as articulated by the Administration's military and civilian leaders, can be simply stated. Corruption is a major cause of Afghan societal and governmental instability. Anticorruption efforts are… More »

By Ben W. Heineman, Jr. and Cristine Russell.A trip to Europe invariably includes a quest (large or small) for an atmospheric corner of history. But for many observers, it also involves remarking (with a light or heavy touch) on the ineluctable irony of past glories buried under present banalities. Condos for sale with "cathdl vu." On the way to Basel and Budapest for work, we recently spent four days in Vevey and Montreux, two picturesque towns at the… More »

As the sun bathes the beach and the dunes in early morning light, I drink my first cup of coffee and see a coast guard cutter patrolling up and down the ocean shore in place of the familiar fishing trawlers. It must be looking for those radical fundamentalists who have swum across the Atlantic with scimitars in their teeth. But, the cutter, more than mile away, runs silently across the horizon. It symbolizes President Obama's Martha's Vineyard stay --… More »

In early August, The New York Times ran a front page story that statisticians--rather than "dronish number nerds"--are increasingly in demand, "even cool." With reams of data generated in the computer age and new realms to explore for purposes as broad as protecting national security or creating financial products, statisticians, says the Times , are only a small part of an army of "data sleuths...from backgrounds like economics, computer science and… More »

A teaching moment presented itself when President Obama was asked at his recent press conference about the arrest of his friend and Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr.That moment would have involved one of the most basic principles of our legal and political life: the need for due process to reach the best possible approximation of the "truth."   As everyone knows, the President said that he didn't know the facts, that he was a friend of Professor Gates and… More »

Bribery, extortion and misappropriation in public sector activities have insidious consequences, especially in developing nations. This type of corruption distorts markets and competition; breeds cynicism among citizens; stymies the rule of law; damages government legitimacy; corrodes the integrity of the private sector; undermines development; and impairs poverty reduction. Corruption also helps perpetuate failed, failing and fragile states which may be incubators… More »