Nov 21
The other day I was waiting in line at my local Starbucks, and noticed the coffee shop was selling what appeared to be bracelets. Upon further inspection, the bracelets claimed to be a part of a national job creation program. Anyone who purchases a bracelet for $5 or more is showing his or her support …
Nov 18
During recent years the Global South is experiencing a surge in foreign direct investments in agricultural land. Prompted in part by the food crisis, state and private investors are buying and leasing millions of hectares of farmland in Africa, Asia and Latin America. However, many large-scale land investments do not service the goal of ensuring …
Nov 10
A few weeks ago I wrote a post about the possibility of including factors besides GDP as measures of development, so I thought today it might be interesting to do a sort of case study on a country that has done just that. I’m sure many of you have heard that Bhutan, that small kingdom …
Nov 08
Just over a decade ago, public debt was just under $3 trillion and the US was running a budget surplus. Two wars, two recessions, and eleven years later, the debt has skyrocketed to $14.94 trillion, $10.20 trillion of which is public debt (debt held by investors outside the federal government, the Fed, foreign, state, and …
Nov 03
A few weeks back I went to a Garmeen Creative Lab Workshop, where Bill Moggridge, the Director of the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum spoke about the new exhibition: Design With the Other 90% Cities. I was reminded of this exhibit when I was researching for my last piece on the 7 billionth person entering the world. The role of this …
Nov 01
Yesterday, October 31st, we saw the earth’s population reach 7 billion people. Oddly enough, I didn’t feel the ground shake or claustrophobia overwhelm me when I went outside. Instead, it was not until my Twitter feed started sharing all sorts of stories about what should/would/has happened and how us humans are going to face the …
Oct 20
Last week I wrote a post about some of the aspects of development besides economic growth that policy makers should take into account when dealing with the developing world, and today I would like to continue in a similar vein. This time, however, I am going to discuss a different variable: culture. Over the summer …
Oct 18
Last year I spent some time backpacking through China, and I came away with some great memories from the trip. Apart from just memories, I also came home with a bag full of incredibly dirty clothes. Being in an urban city, I could not figure out why my shirts were always so dark by the …
Oct 13
When it comes to development, is GDP the only thing that matters? The Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) says no. The OECD released a new report that looks at a variety of statistics with the hope of finding new measures for assessing well-being that go beyond Gross Domestic Product. The authors of the …
Oct 11
In my last post I discussed the Global Conference for Social Change that I attended last week here in New York. With one day focusing on women and girls, the second day was all about leaders of change. Guests ranged from business to business (B2B) organizations such as DSM, to the department store Marks and …
