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+26 +1
How Hyperconnected Cities Are Taking Over the World
We’re now moving toward a new era where insular, political boundaries are no longer as relevant. More and more people are identifying as “global citizens,” and that’s because we’re all more connected than we’ve ever been before. As a result, a “systems change” is taking place in the world today in which cities—not nations—are the key global players, argues Parag Khanna in his new book, Connectography: Mapping the Future of the Global Civilization.
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+11 +1
Multipolar World Order, Economics versus Geopolitics: The Beijing-Moscow-Tehran "Triple Entente"
International tensions have in recent years often led to conflicts between nations, leaving countries to face complicated choices. The world is under constant change, and the most direct results ar...
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+2 +1
The Archdruid Report: The Free Trade Fallacy
“A country that withdraws from free trade agreements and reorients its economy for the production of goods for domestic consumption might thus expect to see some improvement, not only in the prosperity of its working people, but in rates of return on investment.” By John Michael Greer.
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+35 +1
The Soviet Union collapsed overnight. Don’t assume western democracy will last for ever
The liberal order could fall apart just as suddenly as the USSR. If we want it to survive, we have to learn from what happened in Russia. Below the medieval citadel in Kazan, two vast frozen rivers turn the landscape white. On a Saturday afternoon there are a few hardy locals shuffling through the icy sludge to take selfies against the mosque, the Christmas lights and the Soviet-era statues.
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+14 +1
The Retreat from Hyper-Globalization – What’s The Future?
Flows of Goods and Services, People and Capital Have Overwhelmed the Ability of Political Processes to Accommodate Them. By William H. Janeway.
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+23 +1
We don’t have students any more – just customers
With the globalisation and deregulation of trade, governments are increasingly susceptible to the influence of powerful commercial interests. Organisations such as the OECD, the World Bank and the EU mediate this influence and thereby exercise in direct control over national higher education systems. Over the past 20 years, several OECD, EU and World Bank reports proclaim the universities to be the intellectual engine of a global economy rather than a global society.
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+27 +1
A New Study Shows How Severe Inequality Is — and How Little We’re Doing About It
The average income for the bottom 50 percent is the same as in 1980 — while the average income for the top one percent has more than tripled. By Eric Levitz.
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+43 +1
Is Universal Basic Income a Good Idea? Stick Around, Because We're About to Find out
Upcoming UBI programs in Canada, Finland, Uganda, and other countries are very likely to tip the scales in the universal basic income debate one way or the other in 2017. Whether or not UBI is it, we need to find a solution to the problems that are inevitable as automation and AI replace human workers in the coming years.
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+34 +1
Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems
Financial meltdown, environmental disaster and even the rise of Donald Trump – neoliberalism has played its part in them all. Why has the left failed to come up with an alternative?
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+19 +1
China plans 30,000-km high speed rail network by 2020
The Chinese government plans to expand the country's high-speed rail network to 30,000 kilometers (18,600 miles) by 2020, part of public infrastructure spending aimed at shoring up economic growth. The network would connect more than 80 percent of China's major cities, Vice Transport Minister Yang Yudong said. Last year, China's high-speed railway totaled 19,000 kilometers (11,800 miles).
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+24 +1
Any way you calculate it, income inequality is getting worse
A flurry of new reports have provided yet more data demonstrating that inequality is getting worse. All right, this does not qualify as a shock. But it really isn’t your imagination. The economic crisis, nearly a decade on now, has been global in scope — working people most everywhere continue to suffer while the one percent are doing just fine. One measure of this is wages.
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+33 +1
U.S. income inequality, on rise for decades, is now highest since 1928
President Obama took on a topic yesterday that most Americans don’t like to talk about much: inequality. There are a lot of ways to measure economic inequality (and we’ll be discussing more on Fact Tank), but one basic approach is to look at how much income flows to groups at different steps on the economic ladder. Emmanuel Saez, an economics professor at UC-Berkeley, has been doing just that for years. And according to his research, U.S. income inequality has been increasing steadily since the 1970s, and now has reached levels not seen since 1928.
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+20 +1
Xi to be first Chinese leader to attend Davos World Economic Forum
President Xi Jinping this month will become the first Chinese head of state to attend the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, which this year will dwell on the rising public anger with globalization and the coming U.S. presidency of Donald Trump. Xi will take centre stage at the Jan. 17-20 forum with China presenting itself as a champion of globalization.
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+6 +1
Soros: Capitalism versus Open Society
Today I want to explore the conflict between capitalism and open society, market values and social values. I am going to approach the subject indirectly, by first introducing a phenomenon that has attracted my attention only recently, but has assumed such importance in my thinking that I could almost call it the fourth pillar of my conceptual framework. That phenomenon is the principal-agent problem.
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+11 +1
World’s eight richest people have same wealth as poorest 50%
A new report by Oxfam warns of the growing and dangerous concentration of wealth. By Larry Elliott.
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-2 +1
Eight billionaires 'as rich as world's poorest half'
The world's eight richest individuals have as much wealth as the 3.6bn people who make up the poorest half of the world, according to Oxfam. The charity said its figures, which critics have queried, came from improved data, and the gap between rich and poor was "far greater than feared". The richest eight include Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Warren Buffett. Mark Littlewood, of the Institute of Economic Affairs, said Oxfam should focus instead on ways to boost growth.
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+38 +1
China President Xi Jinping: 'No one will emerge as a winner in a trade war'
Chinese President Xi Jinping said Tuesday that globalization has powered worldwide growth and should not be blamed for the world's problems. In an attack on the anti-globalization rhetoric that has led to the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president and the Brexit vote in Britain, Xi told a packed audience at the World Economic Forum at Davos: "It is true that economic globalization created new problems, but this is no justification to write off economic globalization altogether.
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+6 +1
Diplomat says China would assume world leadership if needed
China does not want world leadership but could be forced to assume that role if others step back from that position, a senior Chinese diplomat said on Monday, after U.S. President Donald Trump pledged to put "America first" in his first speech. Zhang Jun, director general of the Chinese Foreign Ministry's international economics department, made the comments during a briefing with foreign journalists to discuss President Xi Jinping's visit to Switzerland last week.
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+29 +1
In Unity is Strength
Trade unions have been demonized, demoralised and weakened by successive governments. In a time of immense economic inequality, Trade Union Congress leader, Frances O’Grady, is correct when saying “never has a strong, responsible trade union movement been so needed.” We live in an age of plentiful resources, yet these resources aren’t being shared, instead the super-rich are able to hoard wealth. In the past, unions metered this by bartering for higher wages and using their power to achieve change that benefited the working and middle class, such as equal pay, maternity pay, and health and safety laws.
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+25 +1
China says policies unaffected by Trump plan to bring factories back to U.S.
China is closely following U.S. President Donald Trump's plans to create more domestic jobs by encouraging U.S. companies to bring home or "reshore" their overseas production, but the government will not change its overall strategy, Industry Minister Miao Wei said on Friday. "Regarding President Trump's efforts to revitalize U.S. manufacturing and allow more U.S. companies to move back to the United States, we are paying close attention to these policies but they will not affect the development of China's manufacturing industry," Miao said at a press briefing.
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