Reform

The principle of the filibuster is a sound one: Any member of the U.S. Senate may speak for any length of time, so a senator who is fiercely determined to oppose a bill may command the podium and stop other business in order to make a point of grave importance. Used judiciously, the device prevents a narrow majority from imposing its will on a significant or determined minority. It allows passions to cool, and reinforces the Senate's place as a deliberative body, an institution that the framers imagined might slow the more rampant and populist instincts they believed would emerge from the House of Representatives.

For decades, political reform in the United States has largely meant campaign finance reform. It is a focus the political mainstream prefers, despite the fact that it is akin to addressing an engine with a design defect by regulating the fuel. Many of our current problems are either caused or magnified by the stranglehold the two parties have on our political system. Democrats and Republicans, despite their uniformly low popularity with voters, continue to exercise a virtual monopoly, and they have no intention of relinquishing control.

BEIJING -- For Chinese yearning for reform, the 18 th congress of the Communist Party that wrapped up Wednesday was a crushing disappointment, more about pageantry than real politics. With no deviation from the script, President Hu Jintao stepped down as party secretary-general, a position he has held the last decade, to make way for Xi Jinping, his long-ago anointed heir. In keeping with protocol, the 59-year-old Xi and others in the top echelon of the new leadership are to march out on the dais Thursday morning -- technically the first session of the new party government.

The Securities and Exchange Commission will soon propose rules for revamping money-market mutual funds, pushing the options of a floating net asset value and capital buffers, SEC Chairwoman Mary Schapiro said. "Money-market funds, while perhaps not the cause of the downward spiral of events, certainly exacerbated the financial breakdown," Schapiro said Monday in remarks prepared for a Securities Industry and Financial Markets Assn. conference in New York. The SEC is pursuing "further structural reform" in the $2.6-trillion industry, she said.

Czechoslovaks on Friday and Saturday will elect a new Parliament, one that politicians say could affect the direction of economic reform. Pro-reform forces, led by the center-right party of Finance Minister Vaclav Klaus, hold the upper hand in most surveys in the Czech republic.

Polish Prime Minister Mieczyslaw Rakowski unveiled a government with a new team of economic reformers today but warned that factory shutdowns and unemployment would be the price of reform. Announcing his 23-member Cabinet in Parliament, Rakowski said he wants to implement market-oriented reforms drafted by the Communist Party. He wondered, however, whether Poles are ready for the consequences.

Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, in a speech made public Friday, said that the Soviet struggle for economic reorganization will be long and difficult and may proceed by trial and error. In the speech, delivered to a group of top Communist Party officials earlier in the week and published Friday by Tass, the official Soviet news agency, Gorbachev said the vital question of how to reconcile increased local initiative with centralized planning has yet to be resolved.

Janos Kadar, leader of Hungary's Communist Party since 1956, was replaced Sunday by Premier Karoly Grosz in a sweeping reshuffle that brought outspoken reformers into the ruling elite. Kadar also left the ruling Politburo and was given the largely ceremonial post of party president, in changes announced at the end of a three-day national party conference.

Joel Gemunder, the chief executive officer of Omnicare, retired on July 31, almost exactly one year after his company announced a wide array of wage cuts and layoffs. The former head of the nation's top provider of pharmaceuticals for seniors won't have to worry much about his own personal economic security. He's walking off into his golden years with a getaway package worth at least $130 million. Gemunder's sweet deal only hints at the excess still pulsing through America's executive suites.