What if we promoted policies to shrink our economy, rather than grow it? What if government officials called for a recession, perhaps a depression, as the answer to humanity’s most intractable challenges? As heretical as they sound, such questions frame very real policy proposals debated by a growing legion of economists, activists, and government officials representing the so-called Degrowth movement. Degrowthists argue that only a contraction of the world’s developed economies can help reduce dependence on fossil fuel and other environmental resources, slow climate change, and ... Read More
German Conservatives Discover Populism In Euro Crisis
August 31, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
A visceral disgust for handing out cash to "save the euro" has seized German leaders like a gag reflex in the declining weeks of summer. The idea of paying for the mounting debts of euro-zone countries like Spain and Greece has suddenly struck a number of people in Chancellor Angela Merkel's circle as insane, if not criminal. Christian Wulff, the normally quiet and uncontroversial German president, wondered out loud during a keynote speech last week whether the European Central Bank really should be starting a second round of massive debt purchase in the form of Greek and other European ... Read More
Legal Services Wanted; Lawyers Need Not Apply
June 28, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
"Law is too important to be left to lawyers." Paraphrasing the famous adage about war and generals, Mark Chandler, general counsel at Cisco Systems Inc., shared this observation with me in the spring of 2007. We were speaking over Cisco's stunning TelePresence video-conferencing system — he traveling on the East Coast, me on the West — while he grabbed a quick sandwich between meetings. Others had referred to Chandler as one of the most innovative senior lawyers in Silicon Valley, and I was picking his brain about the impact of law on innovation as part of the early phases of a research ... Read More
Financial Expert: Global Free Trade Necessary
February 14, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
In an age when spikes in the local price of milk can arguably be tracked to riots on the streets of Cairo, it’s only fair to wonder — just how did we become so economically interconnected? In his 2008 economic history, A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World, William J. Bernstein, a retired Oregon neurologist turned financial theorist, author and adviser, is remarkably adept at providing answers. In less than 400 pages, Bernstein’s ambitious tome is surprisingly successful in tracing globalization’s long route from ancient camel trains to air-conditioned container ... Read More
For the Love of Money
August 5, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
"Small businesses are the heart of the American economy. They're responsible for half of all private sector jobs," President Obama remarked to a selection of small business owners in March 2009. "And small businesses don't just provide jobs — they provide the innovations that help us lead in the global economy." Yet a research project out of the University of Cincinnati begs to point out one problem with small businesses -- they fail a lot.* Associate professor of quantitative analysis and operations management, Yan Yu, and doctoral student Shaonan Tian announced 23 country-specific ... Read More
