Group items tagged

I have just returned from Bhutan, the Himalayan kingdom of unmatched natural beauty, cultural richness, and inspiring self-reflection. From the kingdom's uniqueness now arises a set of economic and social questions that are of pressing interest for the entire world.

New global research on equality, inequality, and the happiness of nations. It's an American issue.

The EU is not lending money to Ireland, Greece, and Portugal to help those nations' citizens. The EU is lending those nations money because if they don't those nations and their citizens and corporations will be unable to repay their debts to banks in the core. That will make public the fact that the core banks are actually insolvent. When the Germans and French realize that their banks are insolvent the result will be "severe banking crises and a return to recession in the core of the eurozone." The core, not simply the periphery, will be in crisis. The ECB and the EU's leadership would be happy to throw the periphery under the bus, but the EU core's largest banks are chained to the periphery by their imprudent loans.

Just a few months ago, I wrote a piece for Adbusters that started with a conversation I'd had with an Egyptian activist friend named Dina: All these years," she said, "we've been organizing marches, rallies… And if only 45 people show up, you're depressed, if you get 300, you're happy. Then one day, 200,000 people show up. And you're incredulous: on some level, even though you didn't realize it, you'd given up thinking that you could actually win. As the Occupy Wall Street movement spreads across America, and even the world, I am suddenly beginning to understand a little of how she felt.