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Through this article I have gained a deeper insight in how public expenditures and public goods promote wealth equality in a society. "Public services are an important antipoverty tool."

Cool theory in regards to "the tipping point". Interesting, and solid criticism of large social expenditures. Wonder how socialists view this, as opposed to free-market economists.

"Public services are an important antipoverty tool. Their benefit doesn't show up in income data, but they appear to play a key role in reducing material hardship." INteresting to see the statistics and how social expenditures help reduce poverty and the wealth gap.

Interesting perspective on an issue thats faded a little from the spotlight - really shows that even when the news coverage fades the problems don't. Just something to keep in mind when we talk about current events: it might be interesting to look at less-recent crises or incidents and where they are now even if they seem less "relevant"

This article was incredible informative about the current major areas that are sucking up a lot of Japan's spending like social benefits and military spending. But it also gives a detailed outline on how Japan aims to combat their debt but I'm unsure if these predictions are too optimistic?

It's interesting to see how Japan's government is interacting with the market in an attempt to create a flow of money that will ease its deficit. The fact that they raised their sales tax is very interesting when we consider how Japan entered its recession in 1997 because the government raised the national consumption tax to 5% from. Has Japan learned its lesson and will it enter another recession again as a result of their new tax hike?

It is cool to see precisely which sectors are consuming the larger portions of Japan's budget through data. I also liked how Japan thought about balance their budget.

Illustrating how the Bank's role in Latin America and the Caribbean has evolved in recent decades, countries in the region now turn increasingly to the institution for more than direct lending, including such services as risk insurance, commodity swaps, and climate adaptation finance.

The region is doing worse. "Latin America and the Caribbean finds itself in the fifth year of an economic slowdown and the second consecutive year of GDP contraction. Worsening external conditions coupled with domestic challenges have reduced expectations for regional growth to -0.7 percent in 2015, with economic activity projected to drop to -1.3 percent in 2016." But also, Mexico and the Caribbean are experiencing 2% growth, while South America is declining 1.7% or more. Why?

I think it is because (and this is just a theory, I do not know for certain) Mexico and the Caribbean have a direct relationship with the USA, which gives them extra economical assistance outside the World Bank.

It's really cool that the women referred to in the article (Dilma Rousseff, Michelle Bachelet, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, and Keiko Fujimori) are taking their countries by storm. These countries are obviously very forward-thinking, and I admire them for it.

It's amazing how much power women can have in countries that Americans often think of as less developed than the US. These women are really taking control, when here in America we have yet to elect a female president or vice-president.

I want to echo Shalina's point. It's surprising that in the United States we still have not had a female President or Vice President, whereas countries that we often consider inferior to ours, such as Argentina and Peru, have already had female leaders. Though not mentioned in the article, another influential country that has already had a female leader is England- which first had a female Prime Minister over thirty years ago!

This article talks about the next eight countries trying to gain entry into the EU. The most likely country to join the EU is Croatia and they may be approved as early as 2011. Each of the countries that applied as some internal issues they have to work out before they will be admitted. The process of being admitted is interesting to me because the countries first have to submit and application, get confirmed as a candidate, and then they begin talks. In the case of Turkey, the process has been going on since 1987.

I had no idea that it was this difficult to become a member of the European Union - being confirmed as a candidate can take more than a decade. Poor Turkey began the process 23 years ago, and is expected to require at least 10 more years to be fully prepared for membership. What an endeavor!

I think this is very interesting and I cannot agree with Jack more. When these countries are thinking only with their pocket books it is hard to be genuinely welcoming to other nations. In my opinion, making Turkey wait 20+ years to join is far too long and a bit ridiculous especially when you compare it to the time other countries had to wait. Croatia joined in less than 5. Very unfair...

This article has a lot of information about the Ebola virus and its impact on the world. I chose this article because many people are completely paranoid about Ebola in the US. The article explains that Ebola spreads slowly, and it is not extremely contagious. Many people are scared of Ebola because of the horrific things it does to your body, but it is important to stop and realize that in the US, it is extremely unlikely to effect a large amount of people. You have to have to exchange bodily fluids with someone showing symptoms of the virus. There are only 2 cases of Ebola in the US (as far as we know), so there is no point in being concerned about becoming infected with ebola.

I love how informative that article was. It gets straight to the point. Although I was never too concerned with the virus to begin with, I do feel a little less afraid of it, like Max. It's really interesting to know that the virus most likely originated from bats though!

Thanks for posting this. There is a lot of good information in this article. With the people's skepticism and the high risk of infection, it must be very difficult to be a health worker in this outbreak.

Interview with Sokeel Park, director of a research and strategy group that aids refugees from North Korea, sheds light on the lives of ordinary North Koreans. He illuminates that North Korea is becoming increasingly more capitalistic in an attempt to lessen their isolation; however, this is all happening under the nose of the North Korean government. Correction: North Korea becomes increasingly capitalistic out of necessity: occurred because the North Korean economy was failing -- North Koreans needed food so they smuggled it into the country. As a result, the North Koreans became less isolated from the outside world. A decrease in isolationism and an increase in capitalism happened independently. -thanks miles

I think that the previous comment seems to make assumptions that were not made in the actual article. The article says that due to an economic collapse, some North Koreans have been becoming more capitalistic while simultaneously they have been exposed to more out side media making them less isolated. The previous comment seems to make it seem that the increased capitalism leads to this increased isolation, which is making a inference not stated or explored in the article.

With all the focus on North Korean Politics and threats it is interesting to hear about culture and day to day life. With spreading capitalism and western influence in the millennial generation, it gives me hope that there could be change from within North Korea. Granted, the article mentions that no organized resistance exists but I believe it starts with the culture and the proliferation of ideas.

At first I was taken aback by the claim that the lack of tourists could harm the coral reef. How could less pollution and greenhouse gas emissions harm an endangered reef, after all. Then, I got to read the morbidly depressing news that without a chance to swim next to the pretty colors, humans have little motivation to save a reef they themselves have destroyed. If we do not want the human race to go extinct, or if, at the bare minimum, we don't want to kill off every other species then we must completely reshift the way we think about climate change. Global warming is unchangeably tied with our capitalist system, which produces beliefs in money and individualism over the safety of every living thing.

This is such an interesting take on the impact of the coronavirus and Climate Change. Like Cooper, I originally thought that the general decrease in travel emissions and tourists would have a positive impact on the reefs. However, I had never considered how visiting the reefs in person provides very real motivation for people to appreciate them and contribute to their well being. It seems that coronavirus has allowed us to distance ourselves from very real problems like these, and make us that much less likely to take action. I thought it was also interesting how much Australia relies on tourists from other countries and how coronavirus has revealed how interdependent different countries are.

Like Cooper and Anya said, I would never have thought that tourism was actually beneficial to the coral reefs. Although this seems almost counterintuitive, reading this article brought to my attention how complicated the relationship between capitalism and the well being of some things in nature is.

US and Iran will play each other tomorrow. There is a lot of tension due to conflict between the two governments, and there have been protests in Iran for the last 10 weeks. Many fans have brought politics into the soccer games, such as booing at the national anthem and waving protest flags. Iran's leaders have arrested a bunch of people, and there are a lot of eyes on the team as they continue to advance.

There are so many political issues surrounding the World Cup that sometimes more important ones are ignored. Most of the attention has been directed toward Qatar and less toward what is happening with Iran. The media reporting more about how players are banned from wearing one-love arm bands and other less important issues distracts people from other more important things going on.

After today's game where Iranian players sang the national anthem after some of their families had allegedly been threatened, it is incredibly obvious that the Iranian government intends to use the world cup as a key political tool in dismissing unrest at home.

It is a good thing that this summit highlights aid toward less developed countries. Although a lot of the funding that is going towards these less developed countries seems much more like downstream solutions rather than upstream. This aid may help short term but won't in the long run.

Very interesting that the US was mentioned as starting to act on its commitment from COP26. US is investing $370 bil in emmission-free energy sources that should get close to cutting 50% of emissions by 2025. I wonder how are progress on that statistic is right now.

Comparing immigration issues in two Advanced industrial countries; France and the US

Recently republican candidate has claimed that current vice president Joe Biden has contradicted the US State Department with regards to its position on Lybia. It's believed that Romney hopes to make Obama less credible with regards to his foreign policy.

An interesting article on the Chilean election. This theme reflects on our study of economic approaches, in particular the aftermath of the shock therapy first instituted in Latin America to combat inflation in Chile. This policy was so painful for so many people that, in the 2000s, South America experienced a sharp political left turn, one of whose leaders is Chavez. He has ruled Venezuela with an almost autocratic grip, but seems at his weakest in years for this year's election.

In the past 16 years the World Bank has committed more than $2 billion to education in India. Attendance of primary school, which was the first goal, has dramatically improved, however secondary education is still struggling, so India is now turning its focus to that.

A record-breaking 137 economies around the world have established reforms that make starting and operating small/medium-sized business easier. "Doing Business" is the World Bank Organization's annual report that measures the ease of business, and better scores on the report has a correlation with more income equality and less poverty. An especially interesting aspect of the 2017 installment is that it also added gender discrimination to the criteria when assessing a state.

DHAKA, October 18, 2016 -World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim, concluding a two-day trip to Bangladesh focused on the country's successes in reducing extreme poverty, pledged $2 billion over the next three years in new funding to help the country become less vulnerable to climate change.

Connects to Sophia's post on Bangladesh. . . "Bangladesh is among the countries most at risk from the impacts of climate change. We must confront climate change now as it hits the poor the hardest," said Kim (president of the WOrld Bank).