“When legal marijuana goes on sale, sometime next spring, the black market will not simply vanish; over-the-counter pot will have to compete with illicit pot. To support the legal market, Kleiman argued, the state must intensify law-enforcement pressure on people who refuse to play by the new rules. A street dealer will have to be […]
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Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Growth of Financial Services in the U.S.
“The financial services sector as a whole accounts for more than 20 percent of US GDP, and this share has grown by around 10 percentage points since the 1970s. Additional expansion has taken place in the business services sector, encompassing law and accounting firms and other outgrowths of a financialized economy. Overall, it seems reasonable […]
Posted inUncategorized
“The growth of the Internet will slow drastically [as it] becomes apparent [that] most people have nothing to say to each other. … By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s…. Ten years from now the phrase information economy will […]
Posted inUncategorized
“In the postindustrial economy, feminism has been retooled as a vehicle for expression of the self, a ‘self’ as marketable consumer object, valued by how many times it’s been bought—or, in our electronic age, how many times it’s been clicked on. ‘Images of a certain kind of successful woman proliferate,’ British philosopher Nina Power observed […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Geeks on the Front Lines
The U.S. government is increasingly facing cyber threats that could affect our national security and economy. As a result, the government is courting hackers for cyber security jobs, but needs to overhaul its image to lure young talent, who can easily find well paid jobs in Silicon Valley and private security firms: “To get a […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
‘Like Being in Prison with a Salary’: The Secret World of the Shipping Industry
An excerpt from Rose George’s new book, Ninety Percent of Everything on the current state of the shipping industry, which often gets underreported despite it driving our global economy: “Yet the invisibility is useful, too. There are few industries as defiantly opaque as shipping. Even offshore bankers have not developed a system as intricately elusive […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Post-Scarcity Economics
Our world is increasingly automated, so what exactly will drive our economy, our jobs, and consumer demand into the next century? “We live like gods, and we don’t even know it. “We fly across oceans in airplanes, we eat tropical fruit in December, we have machines that sing us songs, clean our house, take pictures […]
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Everything Is Rigged: The Biggest Price-Fixing Scandal Ever
What the Libor and ISDAfix scandals reveal about manipulation of the global economy by banks: “All of these stories collectively pointed to the same thing: These banks, which already possess enormous power just by virtue of their financial holdings – in the United States, the top six banks, many of them the same names you […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
How the Trailer Park Could Save Us All
Manufactured homes in trailer parks could be an affordable way to house a growing number of seniors on a budget: “Seniors who can live on their own cost the country relatively little—they even contribute to the economy. But those who move into nursing homes start to run up a significant tab—starting at $52,000 a year. […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Multiplayer Game ‘Eve Online’ Cultivates a Most Devoted Following
A visit to Iceland and CCP Games, the company behind the sci-fi video game Eve Online. The game has grown to 500,000 users and $65 million in revenue: “Economists have written dozens of papers celebrating the sophistication of Eve’s economy and the amazing level of industry among the players, who basically create everything within the […]
