It is reminiscent of the story of Nero playing the violin while Rome burned, because of his lunacy. In the past week gatherings of the world’s powers to discuss climate change all advocate accelerated, multilateral, cooperative action to reduce carbon emissions and change human consumption habits, except America. The richest country in the world uses …
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Month:September 2007
Give a $ 200 laptop to a poor child
The One Laptop per Child project has been launched. For a modest donation of $ 200 you can provide a child with a new MIT designed notebook. Check out the site on-line. For a couple of weeks in November, you can can get one yourself too.
Virtual worlds are a window on human psyche
As virtual worlds become more ubiquitous and more long lived, user behaviour is offering more insights into human psyche and revealing how virtual reality can fill some emotional needs we might have. As this article discusses, the working and spending behaviour of avatars is active by choice rather than necessity – you don’t have to …
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US schools cleaning up the menu
It appears from anecdotal evidence that school cafeterias in the US have made a concerted effort to facilitate better diets: fewer fried foods, smaller servings and no cupcakes. Growing awareness of increasing obesity and federal guidelines have encouraged a administrators to take steps to make food in schools healthier. For example California school districts have …
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US housing still on the way down
A useful summary of data points from John Mauldin illustrates that the US housing market is still receding. This matches the IFC chart showing that sub-prime mortgage problems are not expected to peak till the beginning of the year. (That chart is in the July Review here.) First the inventory of existing homes rose yet …
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The risk of a global coordinated slump
The Economist asks whether the golden age of stable growth enjoyed by America and others for 2 decades is coming to an end. Regular readers will know that my prognosis is not optimistic. While the risk of a global coordinated slump is low, it seems that economic imbalances have grown rapidly beyond historical norms in …
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Quality enforcement Chinese style
As previously reported, the head of China’s Food and Agriculture minister was executed for corruption and dereliction of duty earlier this year. That sets the tone for measures that will be taken in in China to maintain standards. But it is more extreme than one would like. So, with the spate of product quality issues …
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Energy, credit and big picture change
This statement from hedge fund manager Hamid Hakimzadeh bears serious reflection. The global financial system is critically predicated on future energy supplies meeting projected demand. The credit pyramid presumes that future expansion is adequate collateral for today’s debt. The emerging reality on energy undermines this assumption, which in turn erodes the valuation of wide variety …
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Exxon denying pollution cartoon.
This new cartoon, produced by Friends of the Earth Europe, sums up in comic form how Exxon worked its way into government channels to further its business interests at the expense of the planet. It could be funny, if it wasn’t so sad. Millions paid to “think tanks” to deny pollution.
The non-bank banking crisis, and a solution for the future
Andrew Hunt has pointed out that many UK banks have been behaving as if they were non-banks. This is likely to have been the case in America and elsewhere too. Hunt points out that: the problems in the UK banking system have arisen because the banks have, in effect, been behaving as though they were …
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