Conventional Wisdom

Paris. -- The G-7 meeting in Tokyo has echoed the conventional analysis of what is wrong with the world economy and repeated the old, tried and as yet unsuccessful recommendations about what to do. What if both analysis and remedies are wrong?It is nearly everywhere assumed, in the industrial countries, that increased trade by way of lowered tariffs is the answer to the present recession, the worst and longest the industrial world has experienced since the Great Depression. Thus the Tokyo meeting gave us a new agreement on tariff reductions.

The other day, I stumbled across a conversation about homosexuality on a local Christian radio station. There were three people talking, and after the predictable hemming and hawing about loving the sinner and hating the sin (though in this case, the sin and sinner seemed so inextricably linked when it comes to sexual activity that the distinction was largely irrelevant), one of them homed in on a grand observation. "Notice how you don't see many images of older people in gay literature and media.

WASHINGTON -- Presidential campaigns are educational. The 2008 primaries are a year away, but we're already seeing the conventional wisdom flipped on its head, teaching us Americans new lessons about ourselves. Who, for example, would have expected former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, known to favor abortion rights, gay rights and gun control, to be surging ahead of Sen. John McCain of Arizona in major polls of Republicans - even among Southerners and Christian conservatives? How did he do it?

Last week's column was all about why certain of us (49 percent nationally) continue to identify with the party of individualism and free markets. This week, a related topic: what it will take to increase that 49 percent to 51 percent in 2016. First, we should not attempt to emulate liberal Democrats on their core issues. A "Democrat-lite" approach is simply a nonstarter, despite the apparent dawning of a new progressive era in the U.S. Believe me, this too shall pass. Accordingly, any recipe for wholesale redrawing of the party platform should be resisted.

WASHINGTON -- Pete Wilson didn't win two terms in the Senate and two as governor of California by being shy and deferential to other politicians and their opinions. So it should come as no surprise to find that he seems to have little patience with the conventional wisdom about his own campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.One of the tenets of that wisdom as defined by some of his rivals is, of course, that no supporter of abortion rights can be the Republican nominee.But Wilson, who likes to describe himself as "pro-choice, not to be confused with pro-abortion," contends that more and more Republicans are coming to see that, as he puts it, "the issue has been settled" and it is time to move on to others -- a judgment that opinion polls reflect these days.

SUCH is the perversity of the human animal that no sooner does a new reality displace the old conventional wisdom than someone will proclaim that reality the new conventional wisdom, and therefore wrong.So it was as the world's oldest surviving political party assembled for its 41st quadrennial convention amid reports that its candidates were becoming more popular, its opposition less so, and its prospects not at all bleak."Temporary euphoria," intoned a guest at one of the convention-eve parties.

NEW YORK -- Either Americans are kidding themselves or they know something about their lives that the financial experts don't.The experts say, over and over, that the boomer generation isn't saving nearly enough for its retirement. Yet two-thirds of working Americans 26 and up say they're pretty confident that they'll achieve security in old age, according to a poll by the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) and Mathew Greenwald & Associates in Washington, D.C.Around 20 percent think they're saving more than enough, Greenwald says.

GOV. PARRIS N. GLENDENING'S choice of Ellen L. Willis to fill the vacancy created by Del. Richard N. Dixon's appointment to the post of state treasurer hasn't quieted the political gamesmanship that has defined this selection process.Instead of considering the competence of a candidate, Carroll's Democratic Central Committee and Mr. Dixon spent a disproportionate amount of effort trying to select a person they project can win the seat outright in 1998.Perhaps it is too idealistic to think politicians would, or should, do it any other way. But to illustrate why party leaders and Mr. Dixon used flawed criteria, consider the hypothetical case had the governor appointed a clone of Mr. Dixon himself to fill the vacancy.

SAN DIEGO -- "Is It Over?" Newsweek magazine brazenly asked on its cover a week ago.Amid the superspin and whirl of analysis that followed the final presidential debate Wednesday night -- a faceoff that had been billed by many as Bob Dole's last chance to turn the race for the White House around -- pundits took on the pointed question, all but closing the book on the 1996 presidential election weeks before voters go to the polls.By yesterday morning, the pronouncements, deplored by media experts for their presumptuousness, had gelled into "conventional wisdom," settling on the campaign with the pervasiveness of the morning fog here.

"HUGE" IS THE only word to describe the impact of American women winning the Women's World Cup Soccer championship.I was born in 1940 and grew up female in the middle of this century. My generation was constantly told, "Women are not team players." We saw many women individually break through the glass ceiling, from Margaret Thatcher to Billie Jean King. But there was no cracking of the conventional wisdom that we could be divas but not trusted team members.That conventional wisdom, which exploded in front of our eyes by an incoming missile called the U.S. women's soccer team, should blast through some of the final barriers against women assuming more leadership roles.

I have a buddy of mine that calls every now and then and starts the conversation with this phrase, “Do you believe yet?” I only laugh. I'm not paid to buy into this team - or not to buy in, for that matter. That's the job of the knowledgeable and passionate Oriole fan. I'm paid to look at this club objectively, put aside my Baltimore roots, and tell you what I honestly think. What I honestly think is that these Orioles should not be seven games over .500 on August 7. They should not be right in the thick of the wild-card race.

I recently chatted with Aaron Schatz, the editor-in-chief of Football Outsiders , for an upcoming story that has little, if anything, to do with Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco. But after we were done chatting about whatever it was that we were talking about -- you'll find out in a few days -- Schatz wanted to get a point in about Flacco. Earlier in the conversation, I had casually mentioned that most people believe that Flacco is above average . “I don't think it's accepted as conventional wisdom that he is above average,” Schatz later said, circling back to my comment.

Eileen Ambrose delaying Social Security from 66 to 70 to boost benefits after 70 by about a third ("Here's what you should know about Social Security," March 11) advocates. But there are factors this conventional wisdom overlooks. If one forgoes 100 percent of benefits for four years, he or she must live 12 years after 70 to break even. Will one live to and after 82, and how active one will one be after 82 to enjoy the extra funds? Taxable IRAs and 401(k)s are subject to Required Minimum Distribution (RMD)

Conventional wisdom suggests that No. 3 Cornell's bid for its first national championship since 1977 took a serious blow with the news on Tuesday from InsideLacrosse.com that senior attackman Rob Pannell could miss as much as six weeks after undergoing surgery to repair a broken bone in his left foot. But don't count on the Big Red players falling into that line of thinking. “We're disappointed in the loss, but I think we're also excited as a group because we can show everyone what we do have,” junior defenseman Jason Noble said.

The Ravens have leaned on Ray Rice this season as the running back led the NFL in total yards from scrimmage (2,068) and set a franchise record with 15 combined touchdowns. It's a trend that has been ongoing over the past two years. According to ESPN's AFC North blog , the team is 20-1 (.952) when Rice gets at least 20 touches. But the Ravens are just 5-8 (.385) when the two-time Pro Bowl selection doesn't. Conventional wisdom seems to suggest that the offense will continue to rely on Rice, who said he doesn't feel the weight of the unit on his shoulders.

To get right to what everyone wants to know, where the Cavaliers' LeBron James is going … no one knows. You might think someone does, or you do, but no matter what anyone says or how often they say it, they don't. With James, who's nothing if not unwavering, insisting he'll decide after the season, one and only one thing counts: The Last Thing That Happens. That's the very last thing, the final game of the Finals, which provides a single image that stands as the snapshot of the season.

They call it "The Book," though it has no pages, no actual printed words and no known author. It is the body of conventional wisdom, culled from nearly 150 years of baseball, that has served as silent mentor to every manager who ever decided to go for the win on the road or play for a tie at home. The unwritten rules of baseball strategy might as well be chiseled in stone, because there is real peril in ignoring them. Never intentionally put the tying or go-ahead run on base? Seems logical enough.

The conventional wisdom is that innocent men and women are hardly ever sent to prison in the United States. A subset of that legend is that in the rare cases when the criminal justice system miscarries, that system is self-correcting, freeing the wrongfully convicted expeditiously. For many, many decades, books about wrongful convictions have both created and reinforced the legend. Almost every book told the story of an isolated case. Almost all ended with the wrongfully convicted individual back in society.

Time seemed to stop when Mayor Sheila Dixon's trial began three weeks ago - although maybe that was just because the clock in the courtroom was broken, stuck at 9:47. The next day, it was still stuck, but at a different time, 9:19. Eventually the clock was replaced by a working one, albeit one that runs a little fast and makes you think it's later than it is. But that could just be how it seems when you're waiting for some indeterminate amount of time for an equally unknowable thing: When Dixon's jury will render its verdict.

Despite conventional wisdom - and the huge higher education spending increase just proposed for Maryland - giving academia more public bucks is not the path to economic success. The cries for more money have certainly been abundant. In October, the New America Foundation's Michael Dannenberg declared that states should deficit spend on higher ed to keep tuitions low and economies running. In November, the Center for Studies in Higher Education implored Washington to fight recession by spending big on scholars.