Tom Skypek

Philip Morris International, Inc. (PM) and the Emerging Markets

In June of this year, I traveled to Poland for business and I was quickly reminded of just how many people in Europe smoke cigarettes. Walking around Warsaw, men and women of all ages were lighting up with abandon. This prompted me to do some research on global tobacco consumption.  The stigma now attached to smoking in the United States simply hasn’t yet taken hold in much of the rest of the world.  The available data indicates that while tobacco consumption is declining in developed nations, demand is on the uptick in emerging markets such as China and where I personally observed this trend, Eastern Europe.  The World Health Organization reports, “Asia, Australia and the Far East are by…

Crossroads GPS: Shovel Ready

It’s a bold move–laughing about a $1 trillion spending policy that didn’t work while the national debt exceeds $14 trillion and 14 million Americans are unemployed.
http://youtu.be/OvnAE8olUxU

Conservative Critics of the Libya Campaign Aren’t Isolationist–They’re Realists

The continued military adventure in Libya, the House of Representatives’ ambiguous rebuke of the President, and the President’s recent speech on Afghanistan,  has led to a number of thoughtful articles on the current trajectory of our foreign policy which I wanted to share.

• Colin Dueck, GOP Isolationist?  No, Just More Jacksonian, RealClearPolitics
• Tony Blankley, McCain Is Wrong: GOP Not Isolationist, The Washington Times
• George Will, John McCain’s Never-ending War, The Washington Post

Lastly, I wanted to share the piece I wrote for RealClearPolitics, Conservatism Does Not End at America’s Shorelines. Like the three authors above, I, too, was prompted by the misleading comments of Sens. McCain and Graham. What the conservative intellectual movement needs is a substantive, honest debate…

Afghanistan Study Group Report

The Afghanistan Study Group issued this report last year.  I received a copy at a meeting this week and read it cover-to-cover.  It’s a succicnt report yet manages to address the key issues at hand.  It certainly challenges the conventional wisdom and outlines a new strategy for what has become America’s longest war.

Atlas Shrugged Movie Trailer

Help promote conservative film.  Spread the word about Atlas Shrugged.  Check out the trailer here.

Obama’s Reticence on Libya Result of “Scheduling Issue”

See for yourself.

Libya Highlights Obama’s Foreign Policy Confusion

There are few things more important to a statesman than credibility and consistency when it comes to administering a nation’s foreign policy.  The Obama administration’s response to recent events in Egypt and Libya underscore its foreign policy confusion.  The White House has a peculiar habit of treating allied governments and adversarial governments as equals.  This stems from President Barack Obama’s professed belief that all nations are indeed equal in Washington’s eyes.  Of course, the reality of international politics is quite the opposite.  More than two-thousand years of human history support this fact.   Some states, whose national interests overlap and intersect, join together as allies.  States whose national interests collide tend to have more adversarial relationships.

Understanding the role alliance systems play…

It’s the Oil, Stupid – Part II

Oil prices jumped 8.5% today as the popular uprisings in Libya continued.  This is exactly what I was talking about last week in my post, “It’s the Oil, Stupid.”  Instability creates uncertainty and uncertainty drives up oil prices.  Because we’re slaves to Middle Eastern crude oil, Washington has to cow-tow to two-bit dictators and the price-fixing cartel OPEC.  This is a choice, though.  When we get serious about energy independence we can fundamentally change this dynamic.  Unfortunately, as I noted last week, “The Obama administration has declared war on the coal industry through its proposed cap-and-trade legislation (and likely forthcoming EPA regulations); the licensing process for building new nuclear power plants has not been accelerated and the administration refuses to grant additional offshore drilling…

Eric Cantor Continues to Draw Ire of Conservatives

Great piece from Erick Erickson at Red State aptly titled, “Eric Cantor’s Failure of Leadership.”

Huckabee Declines to Take Shot At Daniels

Via Tim Alberta at the National Journal: