Economics
The mission of this working group is to build sustainable economy and financial balance within resilient social ecologies.
Symphony of the Soil - a remarkable film for all ages
This film is a great tool for community-building ...and is transformative...
http://greenwheaton.org/environmental-film-symphony-soil/
" By understanding the elaborate relationships and mutuality between soil, water, the atmosphere, plants and animals, we come to appreciate the complex and dynamic nature of this precious resource. The film also examines our human relationship with soil, the use and misuse of soil in agriculture, deforestation and development, and the latest scientific research on soil’s key role in ameliorating the most challenging environmental issues of our time. Filmed on four continents, featuring esteemed scientists and working farmers and ranchers, Symphony of the Soil is an intriguing presentation that highlights possibilities of healthy soil creating healthy plants creating healthy humans living on a healthy planet."
Video - Scrap Fuel Subsidies and Price CO2, Urges World Bank
Reuters - trust.org - May 6, 2013
LONDON, May 6 (Reuters Point Carbon) – The world’s nations must scrap fossil fuel subsidies and put a price on emitting carbon dioxide if the planet is to avoid dangerous climate change, according to the president of the World Bank. The two measures are part of a five-point plan that the bank urged the world’s environment ministers to take, including building low carbon cities, improving agricultural practices and sharing new technology that will save energy.
“We need a global response equal to the scale of the climate problem.
Petersberg Climate Dialogue IV
http://www.bmu.de/en/topics/climate-energy/climate/international-climate-policy/petersberg-climate-dialogue/
Nearly two-thirds of Greek youths are unemployed
Image: A Greek unemployment center.
reuters.com - May 9th 2013 - George Georgiopoulos
Greek youth unemployment shot to a record 64 percent in February, underscoring the dire state of the recession-hit economy despite signs of improving business sentiment.
Repeated doses of austerity under international bailouts have almost tripled Greece's jobless rate since its debt crisis began in 2009, weighing on an economy in its sixth year of recession.
Overall unemployment has risen to an all-time high of 27 percent, data showed on Thursday, while joblessness in the 15-to-24 age group jumped to 64.2 percent in February from 59.3 percent in January.
The other-worldly philosophers
Image: Article illustration by Brett Ryder
economist.com - July 16th 2009
Robert Lucas, one of the greatest macroeconomists of his generation, and his followers are “making ancient and basic analytical errors all over the place”. Harvard's Robert Barro, another towering figure in the discipline, is “making truly boneheaded arguments”. The past 30 years of macroeconomics training at American and British universities were a “costly waste of time”.
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It Can Happen Here: The Confiscation Scheme Planned for US and UK Depositors
Truthout.org -- by Ellen Brown -- March 29,2013
Confiscating the customer deposits in Cyprus banks, it seems, was not a one-off, desperate idea of a few Eurozone “troika” officials scrambling to salvage their balance sheets. A joint paper by the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Bank of England dated December 10, 2012, shows that these plans have been long in the making; that they originated with the G20 Financial Stability Board in Basel, Switzerland (discussed earlier here); and that the result will be to deliver clear title to the banks of depositor funds.
http://truth-out.org/news/item/15401-it-can-happen-here-the-confiscation...
Crisis for Europe as trust hits record low
Image: The poll found a vertiginous decline in trust in the EU in countries that were traditionally pro-European. Photograph: Ian Waldie/Getty Images
guardian.co.uk - April 24th, 2013 - Ian Traynor
Public confidence in the European Union has fallen to historically low levels in the six biggest EU countries, raising fundamental questions about its democratic legitimacy more than three years into the union's worst ever crisis, new data shows.
After financial, currency and debt crises, wrenching budget and spending cuts, rich nations' bailouts of the poor, and surrenders of sovereign powers over policymaking to international technocrats, Euroscepticism is soaring to a degree that is likely to feed populist anti-EU politics and frustrate European leaders' efforts to arrest the collapse in support for their project.
The Limits of the Earth, Part 2: Expanding the Limits
Image: Limits of Earth logo.
blogs.scientificamerican.com - April 18th, 2013 - Ramez Naam
As part one of this series showed, we are up against incredible challenges: feeding a world with a rapidly growing appetite, the continuing loss of the world’s precious forests, the ongoing collapse of fish species in the oceans, the rapid depletion of our fresh water resources, and the over-arching threat of climate change, which makes all others far worse.
Ending growth isn’t a realistic option. Billions of people in the developing world want access to more resources, deserve those resources as much as those of us in the rich world do, and need them in order to rise out of poverty.
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Global Risk Management Conference
Global Risk Management Conference
Navigating Risk in the Global Economy
09 - 10 May, 2013
New York Marriott Downtown
New York, NY
About the Program
Are you equipped to navigate risk in a world of uncertain economic, political and ongoing technological change? Is your organization able to anticipate, be alert and adapt to unexpected events in today's interconnected and fast-moving markets? Managing emerging risks is key to building financial resilience and operational security.
Join an interdisciplinary discussion with international experts and practitioners on the latest thinking and best practices on:
MACRO RISKS: Which risks are critical to address in the months ahead? The debate includes geopolitical, economic, environmental, regulatory, legislative, IT/cyber security and social media issues.
Transparency in Supply Chains: A Convergence of Possibilities
csi.gsb.stanford.edu - Kriss - February 4, 2013
Where do the products we buy come from and how do we know that their production doesn’t leave a wake of environmental damage or exploited workers? Even brands we think we trust are often linked to suppliers with questionable or downright abusive practices, as exemplified in the November factory fire in Bangladesh, where 112 workers were killed at a factory that supplied Walmart, Sears and even the U.S. Marine Corps, though all claim they had no idea that apparel produced there was destined for their stores.
Global supply chains are complex and opaque, with many layers of suppliers, distant and inconsistent regulatory environments, and intermittent and sometimes unreliable audits and reporting.
Euro at 10-Month High Poses Economic Threat, Juncker Says
Image: Jean-Claude Juncker said, “the euro foreign-exchange rate is dangerously high.” (Jock Fistick/Bloomberg)
bloomberg.com - January 16th, 2013 - Stephanie Bodoni
The euro’s 8 percent gain against the U.S. dollar in the past six months is posing a fresh threat to the European economy just as it shows signs of escaping the debt crisis, said Jean-Claude Juncker, who leads the group of euro-area finance ministers.
Echoing policy makers from Switzerland to Japan in bemoaning strong exchange rates, Juncker late yesterday called the euro’s value “dangerously high” after the 17-nation currency this week traded above $1.34 against the dollar for the first time since February last year.
The euro has rallied amid growing signs in financial markets that the three-year debt turmoil is fading and after European Central Bank President Mario Draghi last week signaled no immediate plan to ease monetary policy further.
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World stock markets on edge as investors remain focused on US fiscal cliff’s threat to economy
washingtonpost.com
Uncertainty over whether Washington will agree a spending and taxation deal that is crucial to keeping the U.S. economic recovery on track kept a lid on global market gains on Monday.
Economists have said the U.S. risks slipping into recession if hundreds of billions of dollars in expiring tax cuts and automatic spending reductions take effect on Jan. 1 — the so called “fiscal cliff.” Congress and the White House must find a compromise to prevent a big hit to the world’s biggest economy.
President Barack Obama, fresh from a re-election victory, and House Speaker John Boehner have spoken of compromise but appear to be taking a firm stances on some issues, including whether to raise taxes for the wealthiest.
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Eurozone unemployment hits new high
Image: Pedestrians walk past graffitti in Athens – a growing number of Greek workers remain nominally employed but have not been paid for some time. Photograph: EPA
guardian.co.uk - October 31st, 2012 - Julia Kollewe and Phillip Inman
Unemployment in the eurozone has risen to a new record, with more than one in four out of work in Spain and Greece.
There are now 18.49 million people without jobs in the 17 countries sharing the euro, said the European statistics office Eurostat on Wednesday with an extra 146,000 joining the ranks of the unemployed last month.
Youth unemployment – joblessness among under-25s – rose to 23.3%, up from 21% during the same month a year ago.
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German growth set to slow as euro zone crisis hits home
reuters.com - November 9th, 2012 - Michelle Martin
Growth in Germany, Europe's largest economy, is likely to weaken in the fourth quarter of this year and the first of 2013 as firms postpone investments due to the euro zone crisis.
The Economy Ministry said on Friday it expected "a noticeably weaker economic dynamic" over winter.
"Nonetheless at the moment we only expect a temporary period of weakness," it said.
U.S. fiscal cliff, Europe's debt woes worry G20
reuters.com - November 4th, 2012 - Krista Hughes and Julien Toyer
Finance chiefs of leading economies pressed the United States on Sunday to avert a rush of spending cuts and tax hikes that could hurt global output next year, though some countries still saw Europe's debt crisis as the No. 1 danger.
Unless a fractious Congress can move quickly to reach a deal after Tuesday's U.S. elections, about $600 billion in government spending cuts and higher taxes are set to kick in from Jan. 1, threatening to push the American economy back into recession.
"They need to act swiftly on the fiscal cliff and then they will need to put in place a medium-term fiscal consolidation," Australian Treasurer Wayne Swan told Reuters before ministers from the Group of 20 countries gathered for talks.
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Turning Rural Indians Into Water Entrepreneurs
Image: Water filtration system.
fastcoexist.com - November 1st, 2012 - Whitney Pastorek
In Sanskrit, jal is the root for “water,” and sarva is the root for “everyone.” Put them together, and you’ve got exactly what Sarvajal delivers: Water for all. Originally launched as a nonprofit experiment in 2007, the company has grown into a thriving hub-and-spoke model of over 150 Sarvajal franchisees operating small reverse-osmosis filtration plants and revolutionary Water ATMs in India’s northwestern states, and its potent combination of entrepreneurship, common sense, and tech savvy has made a significant change in the quality of life for thousands of rural Indian villagers. “In 60 years of existence, India has always had getting clean water to people as the last mile at the top of its list of things to do,” says Sarvajal CEO Anand Shah. “We figured that if you put a lot of smart people on this idea, maybe you could come up with a solution.”
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Missing Voices: How Can We Get More ‘Doers’ to the Social Innovation Table?
submitted by Albert Gomez
http://csi.gsb.stanford.edu - October 1st, 2012 - Kriss Deiglmeier
A number of reports have crossed my desk recently about how to accelerate and advance social innovation. There are reports on collective impact, convenings on impact investing, and conferences about measuring outcomes to name just a few.
These gatherings and reports come from credible sources, and so their recommendations influence the agendas of leaders, funders, and investors.
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The ‘Avon Ladies’ of Africa
Tine Frank… Living Goods managers explained business opportunities to new recruits in Masaka, Uganda.
submitted by Alisa Keesey
The New York Times
by Tina Rosenberg
October 10, 2012
Living Goods, which operates in Uganda, has a very promising model. It brings goods the poor need to their doorsteps, at below-market prices. Most important, Living Goods is building a business with the potential to sustain itself — it has already hit some important milestones. That’s the key to a long life and wide growth — to helping vast numbers of people.
Living Goods
http://livinggoods.org/
French Protesters March in 'Resistance' to Austerity
Protesters carry a banner reading 'no to austerity' at a march in Paris. Photograph: Michel Euler/AP
guardian.co.uk - by Kim Willsher - September 30, 2012
Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Paris on Sunday to protest against the spread of economic "austerity" in France and Europe.
Chanting "resistance, resistance", the crowds had been rallied by around 60 organisations, including the leftwing Front de Gauche and the French Communist party, which oppose the European budget treaty.
"Today is the day the French people launch a movement against the politics of austerity," said the Front de Gauche president, Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
