Brexit: Systemic Risk and a Warning
But the reality of our lives, irrespective of wealth or position, is that we are thoroughly interdependent with each other, the socio-economic networks that bind us, and the planet and its living...
View ArticleMiracles and Tragedies of Modern Travel: a Love-Hate Story
Movement is a privilege viewed a right. Modern infrastructure in its many forms, from planes to trucking, one-day Amazon to instant Snapchat, is almost entirely built and run on uninterrupted flows of...
View ArticleWill the Coronavirus Kill Globalization?
The global spread of a new pathogen has exposed the fragility of modern life. As it moves around the world, the coronavirus has compromised the circulatory system of globalization, dramatically...
View ArticleThe 10,000-Mile Cod and Insane Global Trade (Episode 16 of Crazy Town)
With coronavirus prompting a slowdown in global trade, it’s all the more critical to find a different way forward. Thankfully, Asher, Rob, and Jason have a few ideas about how to have fun while...
View ArticleGlobal Boom, Pandemic, Crash: Is History Just Repeating Itself?
The coronavirus pandemic is, among other things, a tribute to human ingenuity and our relentless pursuit of globalization, an impulse thousands of years old. Previous civilizations, from the Romans to...
View ArticleGlobalization and Decommissioning Democracy
Discussions of the threat to liberal democracy have neglected perhaps the most surprising source that is one of the major arcs of history of the last three decades: globalization.
View ArticleExtreme poverty isn’t natural, it’s created
But if these findings are anything to go by, we need to reevaluate the dominant narrative about long-term poverty trends. The notion that extreme poverty is the baseline state of humanity falls apart,...
View ArticleWhere’s Dirk Gently When You Need Him?
Ultimately, trying to free the ship, or even convert it to run on green fuels or the latest in sail technology is treating the superficial layers. Instead, we need to dig deeper (yuk yuk).
View ArticleThe grain giants have made a bonanza from hunger. Time to take them apart
As economies tumble, inflation surges and global food prices soar to critically high levels, two sectors seem to have hit the jackpot in 2022 – energy giants and grain traders.
View ArticleInterdependence and the fracturing world: China, Russia, Europe and the...
In the post-Cold War era the public and policymakers believed that with every day the world's economies would become more and more integrated. Now the opposite is happening.
View ArticleHockey Sticks and Crosses
Two types of images are key to understanding current debates about economic globalization: the hockey stick chart, representing the stunning and inexorable growth of some phenomenon; and the cross...
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