Economics
The changing color of money
It would be naïve to say that the times we are going through are not as bad as they seem. Millions are hurting, many are hurting badly. The global financial crisis is a tragedy of uncommon proportion. But the...
POSTED Friday, December 19, 2008
POSTED Friday, December 19, 2008
Not only America wants America to be great
Conventional wisdom says that foreign policy does not determine the winner in US Presidential elections. Particularly not when domestic economic anxieties are high — and that kind of anxiety has probably never been higher in several generations. Still —...
POSTED Monday, October 27, 2008
POSTED Monday, October 27, 2008
Not everyone can have a car if we still want a planet — unless we change
Much has been made of rising aspirations of the middle class in developing countries, with the implication that this must mean literally hundreds of millions of cars — and hundreds of millions of tonnes of oil use and a...
POSTED Wednesday, October 22, 2008
POSTED Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Food deserts, and how individuals can fight scarcity
For many of us, the gateway drug toward a lifetime of experimentation with world-saving endeavors was food. With so many points of personal relevance — from health concerns to the pleasures of taste to the simple fact of its...
POSTED Wednesday, October 15, 2008
POSTED Wednesday, October 15, 2008
It's time to vote
It’s time to vote. Yes — in the elections in November — but not only that. I’m talking about the voting you do every day. Every time you drop a dollar, yen, mark, yuan, frank, rial or pound on...
POSTED Wednesday, October 8, 2008
POSTED Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Tomorrow matters, as much as today
When the world seems to be falling down all around us, can we afford to spend our time thinking about the future? In the midst of ongoing wars, accelerating economic collapse, and cascading environmental ruin, it’s easy to dismiss...
POSTED Friday, September 26, 2008
POSTED Friday, September 26, 2008
Where will the average stand in a world filled with genetically enhanced beauty and ability?
In Grover Beach, California, nineteen-year-old Cameron Clapp trains for his next track meet — on battery-powered, robotic metal legs. Meanwhile, in Framingham, Mass. a pharmaceutical company is splicing human genes into cow and goat embryos, enabling the animals to...
POSTED Monday, September 8, 2008
POSTED Monday, September 8, 2008
Why what you think you know puts you (and me) at risk
Consider this scenario. Your doctor feels a small lump in your gut. You ask her what to do next. And this is what she says: “There is a test we can order to determine if this lump is an...
POSTED Wednesday, August 13, 2008
POSTED Wednesday, August 13, 2008
The trouble with transparency (and how to make it work)
I love transparency, and I wish I believed it could save the world all by itself. Transparency, of course, is the opposite of opacity, secrets, anonymity… all those affordances that can hide bad behavior, foster bribery and corruption, and...
POSTED Monday, August 11, 2008
POSTED Monday, August 11, 2008