In The News

What Somali Pirates Reveal About the Global Economy

Matthew Lynn February 18, 2011
Pirates off the coast of Somalia continue to target huge ships passing by the impoverished coast. Matthew Lynn, writing for the Financial Times, regards piracy as a metaphor for the global business economy – the pirates know their customers, reinvent careers, conduct research, and maintain employee loyalty by sharing profits. Somalian fishermen were left without livelihoods after foreign factory...

Brazilians Making an Economic Mark

Mimi Whitefield February 15, 2011
“Bem-vindo” – or welcome in Portuguese – is the new greeting for South Florida. The struggling state was hit hard by the property bubble collapse and the sub-prime crisis, so now its real estate, tourism and shopping centers are a bargain for neighbors to the south - Brazilians. Brazil, poised to become the world’s fifth largest economy, has a low unemployment rate, reports Mimi Whitefield for...

China Cocks Its Ear to Arab Freedom Cry

Peter Hartcher February 14, 2011
Measured by market-exchange rates, China’s economy is about 40 percent the size of the US economy. Measured by purchasing power, China is the world’s largest economy, writes Peter Hartcher for the Sydney Morning Herald. The nation’s products, services and labor are comparably inexpensive, often due to great sacrifices of the Chinese people. The government uses an iron hand to keep opposition...

Hungry for Votes

February 11, 2011
In 2008, in the face of rising food prices, G20 leaders founded the Global Agriculture and Food Programme to support research leading to a second Green Revolution and elimination of world hunger. But as food prices rise, pledges to support the program go unfulfilled. Activists and scientists urge sustained attention, yet their pleas fall on deaf ears. Governments slash funds for food research,...

Globalization Fuels the Arab Uprising

Frida Ghitis February 10, 2011
Global trade and competition, recognition of declining resources, rising wage inequality and prices, along with instant communications – many forces of globalization are behind uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. Widespread, well-publicized discontent has made oppression more difficult to enforce, explains Frida Ghitis for World Politics Review. “For people living in the stagnant economies of the...

More in US Grow Wary of Globalization

Jon Cohen, Peyton M. Craighill February 4, 2011
The US was a leading proponent of globalization throughout the 20th century, and most Americans approved of the phenomenon in 2001. Just a decade later, about two-thirds of Americans polled report disapproval of globalization’s acceleration, particularly if it threatens US status as the globe’s leading economy. At the same time, Americans are aware that “durability of an interconnected world...

Irish Pubs Close in Droves

Conor O’Clery February 4, 2011
Replicas of traditional Irish pubs are thriving around the world, but tourists could soon have trouble finding the real thing in Ireland. The original pubs, some centuries old, are putting out the last call and closing doors, as they confront a declining customer base. The culprits: rising unemployment, tied to the global recession, and declining disposable income for Irish citizens, whose taxes...