In The News

Beijing Is Booming; Talent Is Leaving Due to Bad Air

Peter Ford April 29, 2013
The most talented workers expect top workplace amenities, not to mention basics like clean air. A persistent cloud of foul, acrid air pollution is prompting growing numbers of expatriates and talented Chinese workers to abandon Beijing, reports Peter Ford for the Christian Science Monitor. Some companies offer extra hazard pay to keep employees in the city and can count on higher health costs for...

Canada Must Face Globalization Head On

Rod Szasz April 25, 2013
Information technology, a global marketplace, wage differentials, plenty of skilled labor and a quest for profits have made outsourcing inevitable for banking and many other businesses. Workers lose jobs as consumers consistently choose low-cost electronics, apparel, news or banking services. “No country is unaffected by these changes,” writes Rod Szasz, trader and founder of an industrial...

Have It Their Way

Afshin Molavi April 18, 2013
Investors in emerging markets increasingly target iconic brands in the US. Writing for Foreign Policy, Afshin Molavi offers a long list of brands, including Heinz ketchup, Burger King restaurants and Budweiser beer with ownership, and points out that “Chinese companies – and others from emerging markets – [are] making a major push to buy American and Western brands and companies.” A poll shows...

How Globalization Went Pop, What It Means for Workers

Charles Davi April 16, 2013
Concepts of entropy may assist in understanding globalization’s ways and its rate of speed, suggests attorney Charles Davi in the Atlantic. Entropy, as law of physics, suggests that nature and energy are in flux – orderly concentrations spread into disorder. Information entropy is a method for measuring diffusion. By analyzing global GDP among nations in 1990 – and nations’ specific contributions...

One Man’s Meat Is Another Man’s Poison

Nayan Chanda April 4, 2013
Advice on recipe substitutions is common in cookbooks, but diners don’t like big surprises. The food scandal in Europe exposed the ease at adding less expensive horse for beef in processed meals and the attraction of low-cost, processed foods for the poor. Europe’s horsemeat scandal won’t “reverse the global supply chain that has evolved over the last decade, bringing in efficiency and expanded...

China's Xi Jinping Visits; Africa Asks, What Are We Getting Out of This?

Peter Ford March 27, 2013
Chinese trade with Africa has grown fourfold in six years, up to 2 million. Chinese are based there, and China’s African investments are worth near $200 billion. Still, Africans are questioning if trade is tilted too much in China’s favor, with leaders and pundits suggesting that selling off minerals and natural resources and failing to develop a manufacturing base repeats the legacy of...

Fossil-Fuel Subsidies Help Asia Roar

Will Hickey March 15, 2013
Governments have long provided subsidies, direct and indirect, on fuels for both consumers and producers. Providing subsidies on fossil fuels is costly in terms of public health and climate change. In 2009, G20 leaders agreed that subsidies should be curtailed, but Asian countries continue to fund them to support economic growth. Subsidies for consumers lead to waste, traffic and pollution. Less...