In The News

Many Wall St. Banks Woo Children of Chinese Leaders

David Barboza August 22, 2013
The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating a Wall Street bank practice of hiring children of senior Chinese government officials. One motivation is “open[ing] doors and secur[ing] deals in the world’s fastest-growing major economy,” reports David Barboza in DealBook, a New York Times blog, and banks were said to compete on “who could hire the most politically connected recent college...

Don’t Cry For Me, Motown

Nayan Chanda August 19, 2013
Detroit was a US auto manufacturing center a few decades ago, but now its population of 700,000, down from 2 million, cannot afford to pay off $18 billion in debt and unfunded liabilities. The city has filed for bankruptcy. “Outsourcing, automation and suburbanisation have drained its population” and “the bankruptcy of what used to be the country’s fourth-largest city does indeed signal the...

Fears Over NSA Surveillance Revelations Endanger US Cloud Computing Industry

Charles Arthur August 13, 2013
Cloud computing allows users to share tech capabilities, such as storing data or trying software over the internet or individual servers, yet reports about intrusive surveillance programs may scare away customers. News reports allege that US tech companies comply with government requests for customer data with minimal checks and balances. “A survey by the US-based Cloud Security Alliance, quoted...

Afrikaners Reaping Colorado Wheat Threatened by Visa Cap

Alan Bjerga August 2, 2013
Wheat, like many crops, has a tight window for harvest, forcing farmers to move quickly before rain, wind or unseasonable temperatures strike. Foreigners account for one third of the labor force that harvests US wheat. Many small, skilled work crews come from South Africa during their off season to share combines and assist small US farms. Because wheat harvests are so mechanized, the small crews...

Genius

John Bohannon August 1, 2013
A research team based in China, including scientists in the United Kingdom and the United States, has 2,000 DNA samples and expects to collect thousands more around the globe to determine the source of intelligence, writes John Bohannon for Wired. A US researcher has theorized that genetic mutations may reduce intelligence, and a hunt is on to isolate variations, identify a genetic basis for high...

The Detroit Syndrome

Sanjeev Sanyal July 25, 2013
Emerging economies are urbanizing at a brisk pace, and mid-level cities should take note of the lessons from the bankruptcy filing of what was once the fifth largest in the United States, suggests Sanjeev Sanyal, global strategist for Deutsche Bank. The internet and other technologies have spurred growth of urban centers, rather than diminished it as analysts once predicted. The young gravitate...

US Urged to Adopt Policy Justifying Intervention

Mark Landler July 25, 2013
The doctrine known as “responsibility to protect,” or R2P, compels nations to act when other nations commit atrocities against their own people. But decisions on intervention represent a struggle between conscience and pragmatism. The US applied R2P to justify support for Libyan rebels in 2011, but has hesitated to do the same for Syrian rebels, explains Mark Landler of the New York Times, adding...