Visiting Scholar, American Enterprise Institute
Visiting Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and Professor of Economics at Carnegie Mellon University
PROFILE
Adam Lerrick
Guest
FROM Adam Lerrick
To the Point
The World's Biggest Challenge: Feeding Humanity The G-8 leaders took heat from Britain's Guardian newspaper this week for discussing the world's food crisis over a 19-dish dinner prepared by 25 chefs in Hokkaido, Japan. Meantime, the World Bank reported that 75% of the rise in food prices is due to bio-fuels. The rising prices of food and fuel are being called "the first real economic crisis of globalization." In the past three years, increased food costs have pushed 400 million into the ranks of the world's poorest, those who live on less than a dollar a day. Other factors include global warming, meat consumption, politics and financial speculation. We look at the worldwide food chain, stressed so thin that any disruption means it can't keep up with growing demand.
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To the Point
What happens when America retreats from the world? Is President Trump taking his "America First" agenda to extremes, withdrawing the country from the international stage on trade and climate change, distancing America from its traditional allies across the Atlantic and even threatening to physically isolate the country through the building of a wall along its southern border? León Krauze guest hosts.
To the Point
Who's to blame for the opioid crisis? Some of the lawyers who took on Big Tobacco are now going after Big Pharma. It’s all about the deadly epidemic of opioid use. Are the drug companies to blame? What about the users? Later, on today’s Talking Point: making sense of Britain’s upset election.
To the Point
The longest US war: Will Trump send more troops to Afghanistan? The Trump White House is divided over the Pentagon's request for more troops in Afghanistan—where the US has been fighting for the past 16 years. Is there a formula -- either for "victory" or a political settlement? Is there an end in sight for America's longest war?
To the Point
Trump's 'America First' goes missing abroad In the Middle East, President Trump is changing some policies of the Obama Administration—and reversing his own campaign attacks on Islam as a religion that "hates us." We hear about his visit to Saudi Arabia and what's at stake for the rest of his foreign excursion.