In an age of robots, schools are teaching our children to be redundant
By: The Guardian February 15, 2017 In the future, if you want a job, you must be as unlike a machine as possible: creative, critical and socially skilled. So why are children being taught to behave like machines? Children learn best when teaching aligns with their natural exuberance, energy and curiosity. So why are they dragooned […]
The sons of slaveholders quickly recovered their fathers’ wealth
By: The Economist April 4, 2019 Socialism never took hold in America, John Steinbeck allegedly quipped, because the poor saw themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires. Yet in the case of southern slaveholders, who lost much of their wealth after the abolition of slavery in America and General William Sherman’s scorched-earth […]
The independence of central banks is under threat from politics
By: The Economist April 3, 2019 Critics of economics like to say that its abstract theories lack real-world pay-offs. There is a glaring counter-example: the global rise of central-bank independence in the past 25 years. In the 1970s it was normal for politicians to manipulate interest rates to boost their own popularity. That led to a […]
The IMF adds to a chorus of concern about competition
By: The Economist April 4, 2019 Physicists’ quest for a “theory of everything” is well-known. The equivalent in economics is the hunt for common causes for the rich-world macroeconomic trends of the past decade or so: a shrinking share of the economic pie for workers, disappointing investment and lacklustre productivity growth. These must be reconciled with […]
Slower growth in ageing economies is not inevitable
By: Economist March 28, 2019 For the first time in history, the Earth has more people over the age of 65 than under the age of five. In another two decades the ratio will be two-to-one, according to a recent analysis by Torsten Sløk of Deutsche Bank. The trend has economists worried about everything […]
Born to Win, Schooled to Lose
By: Georgetown University March 28, 2017 The American Dream promises that individual talent will be rewarded, regardless of where one comes from or who one’s parents are. But the reality of what transpires along America’s K-12-to-career pipeline reveals a sorting of America’s most talented youth by affluence—not merit. Among the affluent, a kindergartner with test […]
The Myth of Capitalism: Monopolies and the Death of Competition
By: Jonathan Tepper December, 2018 The Myth of Capitalism tells the story of how America has gone from an open, competitive marketplace to an economy where a few very powerful companies dominate key industries that affect our daily lives. Digital monopolies like Google, Facebook and Amazon act as gatekeepers to the digital world. Amazon is capturing […]
Why exercise alone won’t save us
By: The Guardian January 3, 2019 This is the time of year when trainers are mined from under beds and gym kits are disinterred from the bottom drawer. Google searches relating to physical fitness peak in January. Many people even trawl the web to find out about “desk exercises” and “workouts on the go” in […]
Uber’s quiet ride option is a warning: we are falling victims to convenience
By: The Guardian May 29, 2019 Uber has launched a quiet ride service in the US, which means that passengers can request that a driver refrain from talking to them during their trip. The quiet ride feature is available in Uber’s premium Black service. If you’re reading this thinking, “Great, now rich people have even […]