One, two, many global agreements

| February 2, 2009

German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced at Davos that she was on board with Gordon Brown’s call for a new world financial order. Merkel appears to be retreating from her stance of panicked nationalism after the global market crash. Sounds downright cheerful about globalism now. Bad news for Germany. Vladimir Putin also pulled his punches in […]

French workers take to the streets

| January 29, 2009

The Herald Tribune reports on France’s general strike yesterday, with up to 2.5 million protesters in the streets across France. One irony of this demonstration is that most of the workers who walked off the job were government bureaucrats, those whose jobs are safest. Why aren’t U.S. workers protesting in the streets? There are plenty […]

Brown again announces New World Order

| January 28, 2009

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown again announced yesterday that the global financial crisis was an opportunity to organize a new world financial order. See the story, and reaction, at the Daily Express. Brown expects to announce the outline of the new order in April at the G20 summit.

Why Timothy Geithner at Treasury?

| January 27, 2009

Timothy Geithner was confirmed as U.S. Treasury Secretary yesterday. The vote was 60-34 in the Senate. Some Senators expressed disapproval that Geithner failed to pay self-employment taxes for two years while working at the International Monetary Fund. See the story at boston.com, and read a few of the comments below the story. This is what […]

Multinational corporations hire children to market products

| January 26, 2009

The Telegraph reports that thousands of British children are being recruited by special marketing agencies to peddle consumer products to their friends. Children are being recruited to set up websites and administer questionnaires to their classmates. MacDonald’s, Coca-Cola, and Mattel are among the well-known corporate names paricipating in these tactics. Children as young as five […]

The damage around the world

| January 23, 2009

Let’s begin our tour with a nice, long statistical analysis of recent economic indicators by David Chapman at SafeHaven. Chapman notes the frequent occurrence of the word “Depression” in recent writing about the global economy. Chapman believes it is not a Global Depression but might become one. At the moment, whether the world enters a […]

England organizes food police

| January 18, 2009

The Telegraph reports that England has devoted 30,000 pounds to organizing WRAP, a program devoted to reducing household food waste. The pilot program will feature house visits in which officials will instruct citizens in approved recipes, how to read food labels, and how to avoid wasting food. The organizers link food waste with increased carbon […]