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The paradox of prosperity

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 16:31:08 -0800

Economist - By The Economist - Jan. 29 - IN THIS issue we launch a weekly section devoted to China. It is the first time since we began our detailed coverage of the United States in 1942 that we have singled out a country in this way.

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Building a better suntrap: A novel approach to solar power may help to improve its efficiency

Sat, 31 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Economist - By (From The Print Edition) - Dec. 31 (Special Report) - Peter Bermel of MIT and his colleagues think they have found a way round the usual solar power difficulties. As they describe in Nanoscale Research Letters, they have invented a way of concentrating the energy in the sun’s rays without the need for mirrors. It is, quite literally, a suntrap.

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WikiLeaks: Out of time and money | The Economist

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - Nov. 03 (News) -

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The euro crisis: Eurodoom

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - Nov. 02 (Editorial) - I suppose it's worth mentioning that Europe is back to crumbling before our very eyes. Late yesterday, the prime minister of Greece announced a plan to hold a referendum on the newly negotiated rescue deal. I'll let Roberto Perli, from the International Strategy and Investment Group, explain the political dynamics: Papandreou’s motives are understandable: So far the opposition has provided no support for the measures that he has been forced to push through, and he and his party have been left alone facing the public anger.

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US crime and GDP: Falling together

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - Sep. 28 (Editorial) - It may be of little comfort to their residents, but there was at least some good news for the American states hardest hit by recession, in the regional crime data recently released by the US Department of Justice. Nationwide, crime rates have been falling for two decades, a trend that continued through the recession. The latest figures reveal the surprising depth of the decline in property crime between 2007 and 2010. In the states which suffered the biggest drops in per-person income, such as Nevada, the rate of property crime has also come down most. If such crime is a rational act, one might expect it to increase as residents get poorer and more desperate for cash.

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How to save the euro

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - Sep. 15 (Editorial) - So grave, so menacing, so unstoppable has the euro crisis become that even rescue talk only fuels ever-rising panic. Investors have sniffed out that Europe’s leaders seem unwilling ever to do enough. Yet unless politicians act fast to persuade the world that their desire to preserve the euro is greater than the markets’ ability to bet against it, the single currency faces ruin. As credit lines gum up and outsiders plead for action, it is not just the euro that is at risk, but the future of the European Union and the health of the world economy.

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America’s downgrade: Substandard & Poor

Thu, 11 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - Aug. 11 (Editorial) - It was a humbling moment for America, and the decision by Standard & Poor’s to strip the country of its triple-A credit rating on August 5th came at a particularly sensitive time. Furious Obama administration officials immediately attacked the ratings agency—and the criticisms increased on August 8th, the first trading day following S&P’s announcement, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted by 5.5%. Was S&P justified? This matters for the downgrader as well as the downgraded. The reputations of the ratings agencies are still stained by their gross overstating of the quality of mortgage-backed bonds before the credit crisis (see article).

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Hit the Road

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - By K.N.C. - Aug. 02 (Opinion) - The lack of child care was at one point an intentional policy choice—made by the nearly all-male political, bureaucratic and business elite—based on the belief that keeping women at home would support traditional values.

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Debate: The news industry

Sat, 16 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - By Jay Rosen, Nicholas Carr, Tom Standage - Jul. 16 (Opinion) - There is no question that the internet is transforming the news industry, just as it has reshaped so many other industries. And, as in those other cases, the internet's impact has both positive and negative aspects. Does this, on balance, strengthen or weaken the news system? This question is not merely of academic interest, or self-interest on the part of journalists. Through an accident of history, the news industry is a largely commercial venture that provides important public goods: serving communities, facilitating public debate and holding those in power to account. This debate will hinge, I suspect, on the effectiveness and sustainability of the new models of accountability journalism that the internet makes possible.

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Cameron, Coulson and the press: The irony of the prime minister's predicament

Sun, 10 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - Jul. 10 (Editorial) - Almost all prime ministers have a kind of moral half-life; their personal credibility starts off strong and then declines incrementally in office as they are buffeted by scandals and misjudgements. Gordon Brown is the only recent example of a prime minister who lost his moral authority in one go; the snap election fiasco in effect doomed his premiership after just a few months in office. I believe that, although Coulson-gate is the gravest moment of David Cameron's career (and could get worse), it still falls into the first category of prime ministerial crisis. It is an event that will sap his personal credibility, and therefore popular appeal, but it is not enough by itself to remove that credibility entirely and irrevocably. It is more like Tony Blair's tobacco-advertising scandal in 1997 than Mr Brown's botched flirtation with an early election a decade later. (The caveat is that we do not know where this story is going; there may yet be revelations that make the crisis more wounding for the prime minister.) The great irony of Mr Cameron's predicament is that he has managed to get himself embroiled in a crisis concerning something he has never really cared about: newspapers. It is an open secret in Westminster that the prime minister believes the influence wielded by print media is vastly overrated. If you want to reach and move voters, he reckons, television is the medium that matters.

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America's debt: Shame on them

Sat, 09 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - Jul. 09 (Opinion) -

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The future of news: Back to the coffee house

Sat, 09 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - Jul. 09 (Opinion) - Three hundred years ago news travelled by word of mouth or letter, and circulated in taverns and coffee houses in the form of pamphlets, newsletters and broadsides. “The Coffee houses particularly are very commodious for a free Conversation, and for reading at an easie Rate all manner of printed News,” noted one observer. Everything changed in 1833 when the first mass-audience newspaper, the New York Sun, pioneered the use of advertising to reduce the cost of news, thus giving advertisers access to a wider audience. At the time of the launch America’s bestselling paper sold just 4,500 copies a day; the Sun, with its steam press, soon reached 15,000. The penny press, followed by radio and television, turned news from a two-way conversation into a one-way broadcast, with a relatively small number of firms controlling the media. Now, as our special report explains, the news industry is returning to something closer to the coffee house. The internet is making news more participatory, social, diverse and partisan, reviving the discursive ethos of the era before mass media. That will have profound effects on society and politics.

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The end of mass media: Coming full circle

Thu, 07 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - Jul. 07 (Editorial) - There is a great historical irony at the heart of the current transformation of news. The industry is being reshaped by technology—but by undermining the mass media’s business models, that technology is in many ways returning the industry to the more vibrant, freewheeling and discursive ways of the pre-industrial era. Until the early 19th century there was no technology for disseminating news to large numbers of people in a short space of time. It travelled as people chatted in marketplaces and taverns or exchanged letters with their friends. This phenomenon can be traced back to Roman times, when members of the elite kept each other informed with a torrent of letters, transcriptions of speeches and copies of the acta diurna, the official gazette that was posted in the forum each day. News travelled along social networks because there was no other conduit.

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The space shuttle: Into the sunset

Sun, 03 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - Jul. 03 (Special Report) - If the weather holds and there are no unforeseen complications, then early in the morning on July 8th a woman and three men will ascend the launch tower at Florida’s Kennedy Space Centre, strap themselves into Atlantis, the last operational space shuttle, and, as the engines ignite, wait for the countdown to reach zero. Burning thousands of litres of rocket fuel every second and blasting superheated gas into the water-filled trench beneath the pad, the engines will kick up the vast gouts of steam and smoke that characterise a rocket launch.

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Greece's finances: Out of the frying pan

Sat, 02 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - Jul. 02 (News Analysis) - Greece has gained some breathing space in its struggle to avoid a messy default. If all goes according to plan during this weekend’s consultations by the eurogroup—a teleconference of finance ministers of countries that belong to the currency—Greece’s creditors will shortly agree on a fresh bail-out package to replace the €110 billion agreed a year ago. Athens now expects to receive a €12 billion loan tranche within a fortnight from its European Union partners and the International Monetary Fund, which should enable the government to meet debt redemptions and pay civil servants' salaries at the end of the month. But the domestic cost has been high. Almost 200 people received hospital treatment after anti-austerity riots outside parliament on the night of Wednesday’s vote, which the governing PanHellenic Socialist Movement (PaSok) party won by 155 votes to 138. Seventeen extremists face charges of inciting violence. Three days later, teargas fumes were still wafting through narrow streets and shops around central Syntagma square, scene of the worst clashes.

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Zimbabwe and its diamonds: Forever dirty

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - Jul. 01 (News Analysis) - The Kimberley Process (KP) is in danger of collapse. Set up in 2003, the system is supposed to end the trade in “blood diamonds” which illicitly finance civil wars. But its Congolese chairman has unilaterally decided to let sales from Zimbabwe’s disputed Marange diamond fields resume. America, the European Union, Canada and Israel are hotly contesting the move. Rulings by the 49-member body, representing 75 diamond-producing and -trading countries, are supposed to be unanimous. Ever since diamonds were first discovered in a 60,000-hectare site in Marange in eastern Zimbabwe in 2006, reports of killings, torture, corruption, bribery, looting, smuggling and political skulduggery have been rife. The stakes are enormous. Tendai Biti, Zimbabwe’s finance minister, has described the field as “the biggest find of alluvial diamonds in the history of mankind”. Potential revenue has been estimated at $1 billion-2 billion a year. One mining expert involved in the area reckons it is “much, much more”. The IMF put Zimbabwe’s entire GDP last year at $7.5 billion.

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Google and antitrust: Searching for evidence

Sat, 25 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - By Schumpeter - Jun. 25 (News Analysis) - When it comes to forging high-level political connections in Washington, DC, Google is something of an expert. Eric Schmidt, its executive chairman, sits on the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology. Marissa Mayer, a Google executive, has hosted a fundraiser in Silicon Valley for Barack Obama. And the company spends millions of dollars on high-powered lobbying firms. But such links have not deterred policymakers and competition watchdogs in America’s capital from looking into whether Google is abusing the clout that it has in certain markets.

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Walmart and class-action lawsuits: A Supreme Court ruling worth checking out

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - Jun. 20 (Opinion) - Monday’s Supreme Court decision in Dukes v Walmart (PDF) looks tailor-made to worry those who think the court has become too business-friendly. On one side was a mammoth corporation, little loved on the left. On the other, 1.5m women (personified in the case by one Walmart greeter, Betty Dukes, pictured above) suing Walmart for alleged discrimination in pay and promotion. The court sent them home unhappy, ruling unanimously against them on one procedural question and 5-4 on the legal heart of the matter.

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School funding: Public good, public cuts

Sun, 19 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - Jun. 19 (News Analysis) - In 1783 Noah Webster, a schoolteacher, published the first edition of his American spelling book. It would become a standard text in classrooms around the country, selling 60m copies over the course of the next century. Webster’s view was that the new country deserved its own approach to English, more accessible than the version it had inherited. For Webster and his followers, literacy was a democratic goal as much as a pedagogical one. That vision of public education is a compelling one, although America has often fallen short in its pursuit of the ideal. This makes it troubling that many cities and states, struggling to make up budget shortfalls, have put schools on the chopping block. In Texas, for example, legislators expect $4 billion in cuts for schools over the next two years, a 6% decrease from the state’s projected funding formulas for 2012. The state convened a special legislative session to hash out the details, after a Democratic state senator filibustered the legislation in the regular session.

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The world economy: Sticky patch or meltdown?

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - Jun. 17 (Opinion) - Summer is at hand in the world’s big financial centres, but the mood is hardly bright. Stock prices have been sliding for weeks in response to gloomy economic news. Factory output has slowed across the globe. Consumers have become more cautious. In America virtually every statistic, from house prices to job growth, has weakened. There was some respite earlier this week, but only because a few figures—on American retail sales and Chinese factory production—were not as dire as feared. Globally, growth is at its weakest since the recovery began almost two years ago. Is today’s softness just a sticky patch, or is the global recovery beginning to melt away?

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Chinese manufacturers: The end of cheap goods?

Sun, 12 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - Jun. 12 (News Analysis) - “It is the end of cheap goods,” says Bruce Rockowitz. He is the chief executive of Li & Fung, a company that sources more clothes and common household products from Asia than perhaps any other. In the low-tech areas in which Li & Fung specialises, the firm handles an estimated 4% of China’s exports to America and a sizeable chunk of its exports to Europe, too. It has operations in several East Asian countries, where it diligently searches for cheap, reliable suppliers of everything from handbags to bar stools. So when Mr Rockowitz says the era of low-cost Asian production is drawing to a close, people listen. He argues that Asian manufacturing has gone through a number of phases, each lasting about 30 years. When China was isolated under Mao Zedong, companies in Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea grew expert at making things. When China reopened in the late 1970s, after Mao’s death, these experienced Asian operators converged on southern China. With almost free access to land and labour, plus an efficient port and logistics hub in nearby Hong Kong, they started to make things ever more cheaply and sell them to the whole world. For the next 30 years manufacturers in China helped to keep global inflation in check. But that era is now over, says Mr Rockowitz. Chinese wages are rising fast. A wave of new demand, especially from China itself, is feeding a surge in commodity prices. Manufacturers can find some relief by moving production to new areas, such as western China, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Malaysia, India and Indonesia. But none of these new places will curb inflation the way southern China once did, he predicts. All rely on the same increasingly expensive pool of commodities. Many have rising wages or poor logistics. None can provide the scale and efficiency that was created when manufacturers converged on southern China.

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Unsafe Pakistan: Wishful thinking

Sun, 29 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - May. 29 (Opinion) - 6-hour terrorist assault on a naval base in the middle of Karachi, which ended on Monday May 23rd, was brazen even by the recent standards of the Pakistani Taliban and its associates. As ever, official confusion, or obfuscation, initially reigned about what actually happened. The interior minister, Rehman Malik, said that no more than six attackers were involved (including two who escaped). He also said that the 11 Chinese and six American technicians working at the base were never taken hostage. But the initial report the navy lodged with the Karachi police said up to 15 raided the base. And suggestions circulated that Chinese had been taken hostage, before the Chinese foreign ministry denied them. The raid by the Pakistani Taliban on Mehran base was the most troubling terrorist attack on the country’s armed forces in two years. The attackers killed at least ten Pakistani guards in gun battles, turning the site into a war zone. Once again, terrorists made Pakistan’s armed forces look sadly amateur.

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India and Pakistan: The world's most dangerous border

Sat, 21 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - May. 21 (Opinion) - The late Richard Holbrooke, the Obama administration’s envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, had many virtues as a diplomat, but tact was not among them. His description of his theatre of operations as “AfPak” infuriated the Pakistanis, who wanted the Americans to regard their country as a sophisticated, powerful ally worthy of attention in itself, not just as a suffix to the feuding tribesmen next door. But that was not the only reason the coinage was unwise. It encouraged the understandable American tendency—shaped by the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the war against the Taliban and now the death of Osama bin Laden—to see Pakistan in the context of the fighting on its north-west frontier, and thus to ignore the source of most of the country’s problems, including terrorism: the troubled state of relations to its east.

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The new tech bubble

Sun, 15 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - May. 15 (News) - Some time after the dotcom boom turned into a spectacular bust in 2000, bumper stickers began appearing in Silicon Valley imploring: “Please God, just one more bubble.” That wish has now been granted. Compared with the rest of America, Silicon Valley feels like a boomtown. Corporate chefs are in demand again, office rents are soaring and the pay being offered to talented folk in fashionable fields like data science is reaching Hollywood levels. And no wonder, given the prices now being put on web companies. Facebook and Twitter are not listed, but secondary-market trades value them at some $76 billion (more than Boeing or Ford) and $7.7 billion respectively. This week LinkedIn, a social network for professionals, said it hopes to be valued at up to $3.3 billion in an initial public offering (IPO). The next day Microsoft announced its purchase of Skype, an internet calling and video service, for a frothy-looking $8.5 billion—ten times its sales last year and 400 times its operating income. And those are all big-brand companies with customers around the world. Prices look even more excessive for fledgling firms in the private market (Color, a photo-sharing social network, was recently said to be worth $100m, even though it has an untested service) or for anything involving China. There has been a stampede for shares in Renren, hailed as “China’s Facebook”, and other Chinese web giants listed on American exchanges.

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Israel and Palestine: Everyone will be impressed

Sun, 15 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - May. 15 (Opinion) - It's mildly irritating when highly placed officials insist on anonymity before offering their comments, and then it's often hilarious when the comments they offer turn out to be boss-pleasing milquetoast platitudes that couldn't possibly have offended anyone if they'd offered them on the record. But here's a rare triple whammy from Ha'aretz: a comment offered by an official on condition of anonymity that's not only a boss-pleasing milquetoast platitude, but also strikes any rational listener as glaringly false.

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