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Economics

Summer 2006

Can America compete in a 'Flat' World?

Many of you are familiar with Thomas Friedman’s argument, in The World is Flat, that technology has eliminated many barriers to competition and thus created today’s globally competitive economic environment. His dramatic examples of outsourcing show that key services, including high-level engineering and scientific tasks, can be effectively accomplished without regard to the workers’ physical location. This allows imaginative businesses to tap talent from around the globe, often at considerable savings.

Friedman, a foreign affairs columnist for The New York Times, uses this evidence to reach some alarming conclusions about how America will fare in the future. After establishing the central thesis that location is … » More …

Summer 2008

The Coming Depression

 

Illustration David Wheeler

 

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been waiting for this all my life. Growing up with parents born in the crash year of ’29, and with grandparents marked and ennobled by sacrifice and ingenuity in living well with nothing, I’ve amounted to nothing but a Baby Boomer: first coddled and spoiled, and soon to bring down, single-handedly, the world’s climate stability and Social Security.

But now I have a chance to redeem myself. … » More …