This brief history of regal extortion draws some parallels to today’s “sinister” Federal Reserve, though the links are less tenuous than Dr. Hoye and others often suggest…

As the Annus Horribilis finally comes to an end, many forecasters in the policy and financial communities have been left licking their wounds. This effort from Moises Naim and his team at Foreign Policy tries to capture the best of the worst and is certainly worth a look…

Prescient words from Lebanese poet Khalil Gibran in 1934…

Pity the nation that wears a cloth it does not weave,
eats a bread it does not harvest,
and drinks a wine that flows not from its own wine-press.
Pity the nation that acclaims the bully as hero,
and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful.
Pity the nation that despises a passion in its dream,
yet submits in its awakening.

Over-the-counter gambling on the markets has been around much longer than modern derivatives pundits would have you believe. The New York Times was warning against “casino capitalism” as early as 1905, when side bets on market movements were both commonplace and unregulated, and won the attention of an American government still swaggering after its victory over the mega-trust companies of the late 19th century. The following 60 Minutes segment discusses both the nature of CDS instruments and how they’ve become just as dangerous today as they were in the “bucket rooms” or gambling houses of the 1920s…

“Despite its severity, we believe that the slump in stock prices will prove an intermediate movement and not the precursor of a business depression…” This advice from the Harvard Economic Society on November 2, 1929 illustrates that unbridled optimism in the capital markets was just as dangerous 80 years ago as it is today. Modern financial crises aren’t simply failures of regulatory oversight or inherent structural weakness. They’re a combination of the cyclicality of human behavior, the dangers of unbridled leverage, increased speculation by unsophisticated investors, and our complete lack of financial memory beyond 20 or 30 years.

As institutions around the world tighten their belts in response to the coming economic storm, we can only glimpse from their preparations the full breadth and depth of of “The Great Correction” and the many ways capital markets dictate the rules in our daily lives…

While the world comes to terms with yesterday’s historic call for change, Nouriel Roubini and his team have pulled together a laundry list of the many great challenges that lie ahead…

“Spectacular episodes in financial history” come about more often than we might expect, and certainly more often than we remember. Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith wrote a brilliant primer on financial speculation in the early 1990s, suggesting that our memory for financial disaster was far more limited than our intelligence might otherwise suggest:

Keynesian reflections from 1919 on the first era of true globalization, complete with bountiful trade, unparalleled upward mobility, liquid labor markets, secure international travel, and a blissful ignorance of the fragility of this new 20th Century World Order…

What an extraordinary episode in the economic progress of man that age was which came to an end in August 1914! The greater part of the population, it is true, worked hard and lived at a low standard of comfort, yet were, to all appearances, reasonably contented with this lot. But escape was possible, for any man of capacity or character at all exceeding the average, into the middle and upper classes, for whom life offered, at a low cost and with the least…

See below for yet another in a series of elaborate digital frauds. Somewhat surprising is the considerable improvement in grammar and argument – it may even have been written by a native English speaker. Not surprising is the use of a decade old framework – the Nigerian 419 scheme – to lure unsuspecting Westerners into providing key banking information in exchange for a share in a large and unattributed overseas estate. The “four one nine” comes from the section in the Nigerian penal code which deals with such frauds. To hear Der Spiegel tell it: “A 419 is a mass crime, a money generator, and could aptly be described as the use of globalized methods as revenge by the losers of…

It isn’t everyday that mega-corporations act outside of their own financial interest. It simply isn’t in their design. But suppose that it was possible to expand profitability by reducing environmental impact, sourcing sustainable products, and pushing “green” across an entire supply chain. Such is the latest logic out of Bentonville, Arkansas, where the world’s largest retailer and private sector employer is taking a decidedly new approach to the age-old challenge of perpetual corporate growth, and blazing a profit- and eco-friendly trail for other industrial titans to follow…

Social entrepreneurship is at the heart of Capitalism 2.0, and the country’s leading minds are finally demanding a full system upgrade…

Thoroughly Modern Do-Gooders
By DAVID BROOKS

Fashions in goodness change, just like fashions in anything else, and these days some of the very noblest people have assumed the manners of the business world — even though they don’t aim for profit. They call themselves social entrepreneurs, and you can find them in the neediest places on earth.

The people who fit into this category tend to have plenty of résumé bling. Bill Drayton, the godfather of this movement, went to Harvard, Yale, Oxford and McKinsey before founding Ashoka, a global change network. Those who follow him typically went to some fancy school and then…

An expanded look at the role corporations and hospitable business environments have played in stabilizing the anarchic system of international relations. This work is based on an earlier paper which focused on the rise of the corporation as a key variable in the calculus of global peace and security…

In this recent Times OpEd, Rochester economics professor Steve Landsburg points out how easily John Q. Public overlooks cause and effect in 21st century markets.

Let’s review: 1) goods and services require labor and capital to produce; 2) the price of labor and capital impact an item’s ultimate price; 3) factors of production are much less expensive in the developing world; 4) a decades-long public war on inflation in the developed world has prevented the price of goods from increasing in step with wages; however, 5) wage growth is now slowing and inflation has reached a 17-year high; thus 6) in their quest to find the lowest price, consumers who rebel against off-shoring jobs are simply biting the hand that feeds them,…

“That’s what Chess is all about,” insists renegade Grandmaster Bobby Fischer. “One day you give your
opponent a lesson, the next day he gives you one.” In a world of anarchic intra-state relations, the question of governing dynamics has inspired countless political scientists since Machiavelli first reflected on the lessons of power. Perhaps not surprisingly, the lessons of chess provide a useful analogy in that never-ending debate…

Check republics
Sally Feldman in New Humanist

This summer the Iraq Chess Federation’s annual tournament took place at Kufa, near Najaf. It was a serious contest, attended by regional champions from all over the country. Between games there was feasting and rejoicing as a ray of optimism briefly shone through the prevailing bleakness.

The event was especially significant since the…

This paper was written for quite possibly the best combination of professor and class I’ve ever experienced. If only all academic endeavor challenged so profoundly, surveyed so broadly, and bore as much intellectual fruit…

Hegemonic Stability and the Rise of Global Corporations
by Devin DeCiantis

“The logic of markets is borderless,
but the logic of politics remains bounded.”
- Louis W. Pauley, Who Elected the Bankers? Surveillance and Control in the World Economy, 1997

“Know thyself, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories.” In the case of Iran and the U.S., Sun Tzu’s prescient advice — combined with the thorough research of “your correspondent” — suggest that peace might be an easier wager than recent history predicts. With their popularity on the wane, like-minded conservatives in their ranks, and religious ideology on their side, Bush and Ahmadinejad have more in common today than either care to admit…

After an inhospitable welcome at Columbia University and a defense of Iranian intentions in the halls of the UN, it was up to Charlie Rose to coax a straight answer from the puzzling Persian President and his schizophrenic vacillations between coherence and crusade. Neither Rose nor Ahmadinejad disappoint…

An indictment of the sedentary class, excerpted from an 1862 essay by Henry David Thoreau in The Atlantic…

I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least—and it is commonly more than that—sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements. You may safely say, A penny for your thoughts, or a thousand pounds. When sometimes I am reminded that the mechanics and shopkeepers stay in their shops not only all the forenoon, but all the afternoon too, sitting with crossed legs, so many of them—as if the legs were made to sit upon, and not to stand or walk upon—I think that they deserve…

The Ford Foundation’s Values and Grant Letter

The Ford Foundation and the organizations that we support seek to:
reduce poverty and injustice,
promote democratic values,
increase international cooperation, and
advance human achievement.