In The News

How Globalization Has Left the 1 Percent Further Ahead

Tavia Grant, Janet McFarland November 28, 2013
Canada is not alone with a widening income divide – a few making great gains while the vast majority struggles with stagnant wages. Analysis from the Globe and Mail points to globalization as the reason. US competition may pressure wages, and the skilled with global appeal are paid more than those with local appeal. “The top 1 per cent of earners [has] seen growing demand for their specialized...

Merkel Says Spy Scandal Is Testing EU-US Trade Talks

Stefan Wagstyl November 27, 2013
Relations with the US and a proposed transatlantic free trade agreement are “being put to the test” amid reports of US National Security Agency surveillance, suggests German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “Berlin is pressing the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, to incorporate data safeguards into the negotiations for the planned Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, launched this...

After-School Activities Make Educational Inequality Even Worse

Hilary Levey Friedman November 25, 2013
Leisure activities – the exposure to new ideas, projects, adults and ways of working within teams – can contribute to a child’s later status. “While we talk a lot about inequalities between the rich and the poor, and the role school quality plays in perpetuating class divisions, one often overlooked factor is the opportunities middle- and upper-middle-class kids get to strengthen their life...

A Global Challenge: Training Engineers for the 21st Century

November 22, 2013
Experts in science, technology, engineering and mathematics – the so-called STEM fields – help grow economies. Yet interest in these fields is down in the US and Europe. “Within industrialized countries, scientific and technical courses are deemed to be difficult, uninteresting and not competitive in terms of salary expectations,” reports ParisTech Review. An introduction to the essay points out...

WikiLeaks Publishes Secret Draft Chapter of Trans-Pacific Partnership

Alex Hern, Dominic Rushe November 21, 2013
WikiLeaks, a website that exposes confidential government and corporate documents, has published a chapter on intellectual property rights from a proposed trade agreement negotiated by 12 Pacific Rim nations, most of which are democracies. “The 30,000 word intellectual property chapter contains proposals to increase the term of patents, including medical patents, beyond 20 years, and lower global...

How to Avert Another Debt-Ceiling Crisis

James Leitner, Ian Shapiro November 15, 2013
The United States borrows 46 cents for every dollar it spends, and despite congressional approval of the expenditures, a few members cling to a self-imposed debt ceiling, insisting that partial default may bring new discipline and spending priorities. “Had the debt ceiling been breached, the damage to the U.S. and world economies could have been measured in trillions of dollars,” write James...

The Kennedy Temptation

Ian Buruma November 14, 2013
Assassinations of popular leaders prompt many to speculate what might have been had they lived. Citizens mourn that a violent killer or a small group of extremists can dash the hopes and choice of many as was the case with US President John F. Kennedy. “America’s national politics is so poisoned by provincial partisanship – especially among Republicans, who have hated Obama from the beginning –...