Brian Gongol
Graphic of the day: Lady Luck
Fixing poverty using market economics
The Acumen Fund gets some good press from BusinessWeek, which highlights the potential in solving problems of poverty by giving the poor access to investment money. It's one of the best charities around.
Now there's a shortage of soybeans
A whole lot of acres have shifted to corn production across the Midwest in order to satisfy demand for ethanol. Now, the campaign against "trans fats" has created a big surge in demand for soybean oil, which ought to raise bean prices. Corn and soybeans traditionally have been kept in 50/50 rotation in places like Iowa, but high corn prices have driven that balance in favor of more corn acreage. Higher prices for soybeans may put the whole thing back on a 50-50 scale.
Big snowfall means lots of potential for flooding
Slap yourself with a hot towel
Culture still discriminates heavily against girls in India
They're four times more likely to be abandoned by their parents. What's amazing right now is the enormous cognitive dissonance that a story like this reveals: On one hand, we're battling with China over who gets to be the top dog in the world's economy, while at the same time, Americans are adopting more kids from China than from anywhere else in the world. We have politicians who whip up a fury over immigration from Mexico (which, if we simply raised the legal limits on immigration, would help solve America's labor shortage and simultaneously improve the standard of living for millions of Mexicans), while at the same time almost no one with a modicum of empathy to their name could look at the children suffering in Darfur and not want to do something to help. The question of girls in India is similar: Some people are obsessed with the "threat" of cheap competitive labor in places like India, yet few of them probably see how economic growth in places like India could save the lives of millions of baby girls. Economic growth requires free movement of people, goods, and services -- free trade and open immigration.
UK opposition leader says EU needs to get real about economics
Says a visitor from Mars would think they're dumb for being blind to the need for economic growth
British government wants short funerals in case of bird-flu epidemic
China is going to pour almost 20% more into military spending
It's a "modernization" program for the world's largest army. The question is whether it's a threat.
