Economy

Latin America’s new promise—and the need for a new attitude north of the Rio Grande

[PDF] Why private military and security companies should be regulated

José Luis Gómez del Prado 03 Sep 2010

The independent experts of the UN Working Group on mercenaries have arrived at the logical conclusion that a new binding international legal instrument is necessary to regulate and monitor the activities of private military and security companies (PMSC) The reasons are developed in the present article…

By Joseph E. Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilmes

Writing in these pages in early 2008, we put the total cost to the United States of the Iraq war at $3 trillion. This price tag dwarfed previous estimates, including the Bush administration’s 2003 projections of a $50 billion to $60 billion war.

But today, as the United States ends combat in Iraq, it appears that our $3 trillion estimate (which accounted for both government expenses and the war’s broader impact on the U.S. economy) was, if anything, too low.

Making Do, a new book by Steve Daniels, highlights the power of the Jua Kali (hot sun) industries in Kenya. Here’s an excerpt, from The Atlantic.

Cities produce 80 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, and that number will grow as more people in the developing world move to urban centers. How we develop urban infrastructure over the next 30 years will determine whether cities become a growing force for environmental destruction or primary sources for ecological rejuvenation.

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When people approach social value as subjective, malleable, and variable, they create better metrics to capture it.

As Barnes & Noble considers selling itself—and its founder considers forming an investor group to buy it—it, along with e-book rivals Amazon and Apple face an investigation into suspiciously uniform prices for e-books by Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal. [Press release]

From Dr. Hazel Henderson:

The Massachusetts economy expanded at more than double the rate of the national economy during the second quarter of the year, boosted by federal stimulus programs, demand for technology products and the strongest job growth since the so-called miracle years of the 1980s, the University of Massachusetts reported today.