| Where Colleges Don't Excel
Millions of anxious high school seniors have been hearing from college admissions offices in recent days, and if one believes the rhetoric cascading from campus administration buildings, corporate headquarters and the U.S. Capitol, students lucky enough to get acceptance letters will be entering the best higher education system in the world. Hardly a week goes by without a prominent politician or business leader declaring America's advantage in the global battle for brainpower, citing as evidence a study from Shanghai's Jiao Tong University that rates17 American universities among the world's 20 best. .
Nigeria: The Forthcoming Election - a Transition Into Hope Or Despair?
As we are about to go into another election, I have been agonizing about the prospects which this transition holds for our nation and the teeming population of our people, most of whom still wallow in abject poverty and have seen their aspirations and dreams shattered from one political dispensation to the other. We have been told that the economy has performed well in the past 8 years. Statistics have been brandished to convince the most ardent cynics and critics that good times are back. There has been celebration of an economic performance that is characterized by jobless growth, diminishing quality of life, high unemployment, dilapidating infrastructure and an expanding poverty cycle. But really, of what significance is an economic growth and development that does not translate into social development? Let the statistics convey whatever picture the owner may want to paint.
Innovative measures to overcome challenges to economy
It is a welcome development that the net industrial credit disbursement has risen in the first half of the current fiscal. It was otherwise a difficult period for the economy, because of the worst kind of political troubles, particularly 'hartal' and siege programmes in the greater part of the period. The adverse knock on effect of such troubles are reflected in the latest assessments based on trend studies by the Bangladesh Bank (BB) and Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS). Both the agencies have predicted that the country's economic growth will hover between 6.5 per cent and 6.8 per cent in fiscal 2006-07, falling below the projected 7.0 per cent in the budget. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has, meanwhile, estimated that the economic growth of Bangladesh would be exactly 6.5 per cent in the current fiscal.
Nuclear Program Hurting Iran's Economy, IMF Says
Washington -- The international community's confrontation with Iran over its nuclear program already has affected the Iranian economy adversely and could threaten investment and growth further if the crisis escalates, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). During 2006, "tensions associated with the nuclear issue" had "some adverse effects on private investment, particularly FDI [foreign direct investment]," says the annual IMF Article IV Consultation Report for Iran, released March 8. Article IV reports are based on annual consultations between IMF staff and the member country's top economic officials. The IMF report is a message to the Iranians that the "nuclear crisis is quite a problem" for them, according to Patrick Clawson, deputy director for research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
The Conference Board(R) The UK Business Cycle Indicators(SM)
NEW YORK, March 13 /PRNewswire/ -- The Conference Board announced today that the leading index for the U.K. increased 0.3 percent, and the coincident index remained unchanged in January. LEADING INDICATORS. Five of the eight components that make up the leading index increased in January. The positive contributors -- from the largest positive contributor to the smallest -- were order book volume, volume of expected output, operating surplus of corporations, productivity for the whole economy*, and stock prices. The negative contributors -- from the largest contributor to the smallest -- were consumer confidence and the fixed interest price index, and new orders for engineering industries*. With the 0.3 percent increase in January, the leading index now stands at 139.2 (1990=100).
City department makes move; Economic development now located in ...
The three-person department was relocated last week from the civic complex to the Justice Building on Pitt Street, next to city hall.
The idea of moving the department closer to city hall formed part of Mayor Bob Kilger's election platform.
At an Oct. 25 debate featuring the mayoral candidates, Kilger raised the idea of moving the department closer to city hall.
The economic development department should be located in a business environment rather than a place where ice rentals are booked, the mayor said at the time. .
Memo To The Media: How To Cover The Debt Crisis
Well over a year ago, I wrote an article for Harvard's journalism journal Nieman Reports complaining about deeply flawed media coverage of credit and debt issues in America. “There is a credit divide in America that fuels our economic divide," I wrote, warning of a potential economic implosion because so many Americans are trapped by a debt squeeze. I was not alone in projecting a crisis, although my focus was more on the failure of many media outlets to track the problem and ask deeper questions. “Ours has become a nation in which the carrot of instant affluence is quickly menaced by the harsh stick of bill collectors, lawsuits, and foreclosures," I argued. “And yet, this bubble can burst and has: The slickest of our bankers and the savviest of our marketers have been able to undo the law of gravity, that what goes up must come down." One didn't have to be an expert to see the warning signs which have since led to a massive market meltdown, a collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market, bankruptcies by leading financial lenders, billions of dollars in losses by top banks and financial lenders, and predictions of more pain to come for nearly two million Americas facing foreclosures.
US is main culprit in running up an unpayable global ecological debt
Mankind is plundering the worlds resources at a pace that outstrips the planets to sustain life. The biggest culprit in this regard is the United States. With only 4.5 per cent of the worlds population, the US consumes more than 29 per cent of the worlds annual output of renewable resources making it the most wasteful society on earth.
If only another 12 per cent of the worlds population had the same level of consumption of renewable natural resources as the Americans, there would be nothing left for the other 83.5 per cent (100 per cent minus 16.5 per cent).
For years, the United States and US-controlled bodies like the World Bank (now headed by arch neo-con hawk Paul Wolfowitz) have been urging developing countries to adopt economic policies that promote sustainable development.
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