In The News

The Price of Gold

Jane Danowitz December 11, 2007
An 1872 US law – designed to encourage settlement of the American West – allows mining companies to extract gold from the ground without environmental clean-up. The American West has long been settled, and most mining firms taking advantage of the law are foreign-owned, explains Jane Danowitz in a Los Angeles Times opinion essay. Most of the gold goes toward making jewelry, yet Danowitz writes...

Western Union Empire Moves Migrant Cash Home

Jason DeParle December 5, 2007
Technology and circumstances can lift or dash industry fortunes in a heartbeat. Western Union was a company that went bankrupt in the early days of the internet. But even as the internet became established in homes and offices, worker mobility increased, with growing numbers of migrants looking for safe, easy ways to send money home to families. So Western Union is back in business, earning...

How to Save Mother Earth Without Breaking the Bank

Marc Gunther December 4, 2007
By acting quickly, the US could cap greenhouse gas emissions with little sacrifice. Businesses and consumers must shift to using energy-efficient and pollution-reducing measures, suggests Marc Gunther for Fortune magazine, while alternative energy sources and innovation would also contribute to reductions. The strategy will work only if the society puts in a collective effort, according to the...

The US Economy: Trying to Guess What Happens Next

Peter S. Goodman November 30, 2007
The US economy relied heavily on its consumers’ willingness to borrow heavily to meet their wants, even as debt mounts. But the recent economic slowdown has dampened the spending spree. Hints of renewed thriftiness in the US contribute to global unease, and pessimists warn of a severe recession, with a plummeting stock market, escalating unemployment and declining value in the dollar. On the...

Who Gains When the Dollar Sinks?

Scott B. MacDonald November 27, 2007
The US currency has sharply declined in value in recent years, which inevitably diminishes the nation’s economic health and influence abroad. So far, the US economy has been spared the full consequences of its struggling currency because the dollar’s historic strength has put it at the center of the world economy since World War II. Many nations' currencies are pegged to the dollar, and the...

The Limits of a Smaller, Poorer China

Albert Keidel November 26, 2007
“Purchasing power parity” is a complex economic theory that suggests identical goods cost the same in different countries and allows economists to account for the influence of exchange rates and inflation on prices. Relying on that system of measurement, an Asian Development Bank report this summer included Chinese participation in price surveys for the first time. As a result of that...

Why We Trade

Russell Roberts November 19, 2007
Debates featuring US presidential hopefuls feature complaints about trade deficits, outsourcing and the competitive threat of China. Author and professor Russell Roberts, though, offers the reminder that promoting foreign open markets and a protected one at home is no better than mercantilism. All countries are wary about such a strategy and won’t stand for it. On the other hand, free trade...