Still, we face several challenges. First of all, every new company today is being built in the face of massive economic headwinds, making the challenge far greater than it was in the relatively benign ’90s. The good news about building a company during times like this is that the companies that do succeed are going […]
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It’s the Economy, Dummkopf!
With Greece and Ireland in economic shreds, while Portugal, Spain, and perhaps even Italy head south, only one nation can save Europe from financial Armageddon: a highly reluctant Germany. The ironies—like the fact that bankers from Düsseldorf were the ultimate patsies in Wall Street’s con game—pile up quickly as Michael Lewis investigates German attitudes toward […]
What’s Killing Carbon Capture?
Yet only two years in, the future of carbon capture and storage (CCS) is in jeopardy. On July 14, American Electric Power pulled the plug on its CCS efforts, citing a weak economy and the “uncertain status of U.S. climate policy.” CEO Morris said AEP and its partners “have advanced CCS technology more than any […]
Stop Blaming Wall Street
Much of what liberals blame on financialization is a result of profound changes to both the United States and the global economy that date from as early as 1968—well before the onset of financialization. In fact, the growth of the finance sector was partly a product of these developments. It is true that the speculative […]
Bad Education
Since 1978, the price of tuition at US colleges has increased over 900 percent, 650 points above inflation. To put that in number in perspective, housing prices, the bubble that nearly burst the US economy, then the global one, increased only fifty points above the Consumer Price Index during those years. But while college applicants’ […]
Can Rob Kalin Scale Etsy?
“Etsy has made it possible for a lot of small businesses to get off the ground,” says Dale Dougherty, co-founder of O’Reilly Media and the publisher of Make magazine, which covers the do-it-yourself economy. “But even the most successful crafters run up against the limits of their own labor. Handmade can be a limited idea.” […]
Passing Through: Why the Open Internet Is Worth Saving
One could also read ‘The Master Switch’ as a much bolder attempt to influence the future of the information economy, not just net neutrality. In the book and in recent public appearances, Wu has focused on the growing power of Apple, Facebook, and Twitter—not the usual contestants in net neutrality debates. He believes that some […]
The Printed World
The printing of parts and products has the potential to transform manufacturing because it lowers the costs and risks. No longer does a producer have to make thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of items to recover his fixed costs. In a world where economies of scale do not matter any more, mass-manufacturing identical items may […]
The Great Afghan Bank Heist
The troubles at Kabul Bank stand as a parable for the sometimes malign effect that the influx of billions of foreign dollars has had on this impoverished country since 2001. While the Western money spent has done a great deal to create a modern economy, much of it has been captured by a tiny minority […]
Detroitism: What Does ‘Ruin Porn’ Tell Us About the Motor City?
“Red Dawn 2,” the forthcoming sequel to the nineteen eighties B-movie about a Soviet occupation of America, was shot last year in downtown Detroit. A long-abandoned modernist skyscraper coincidentally undergoing demolition served as a backdrop for battle scenes between American guerrillas and the Communist occupiers, now Chinese. For weeks, Chinese propaganda posters fluttered in the […]
