THE KAPLINSKY REPORT

Why are some nations rich while others are poor? This is the question posed by American academics Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson in their new book ‘Why Nations Fail’.

Whilst one may be tempted to view this query as a complex question requiring burdensome, eye tiring diagrams and graphs, with lots of academic technical babble thrown for good measure, the authors surprisingly expound their argument with simplistic graphics and everyday prose.

They illustrate their thesis with numerous historical examples ranging from the bubonic plague of the fourteenth century – when half of the infected perished – to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in 19th century England.

Underlying their main argument is how political and economic institutions impact the development of any given society throughout history. The impact can either be positive or negative, or initially positive (where extractive institutions are involved) to begin with, but eventually reverting back to negative territory when the real nature of the implementation of extractive institutional policy takes on its natural effect.

I’m probably using more complex language than what the authors used throughout the book – what they simply believe, is that when political and economic institution in any given society are inclusive in nature, for example, recognising citizens’ private property rights, incentivizing creativity by allowing inventors to commercially benefit from their hard work, then the overwhelming impact on that particular society will be positive and will lead to greater wealth and prosperity for them.

On the flip side of the coin, where political and economic institutions of a society or nation are extractive – in which the leaders accumulate all the wealth and resources for their own exclusive benefit – then such a society will experience hardship, poverty and eventual collapse because of bellicose competition among rival elite groups who want a slice of the action.

The authors also propound that nations need to provide inclusive environments that are conducive to creativity and innovation. They define innovation as new people, with new ideas, providing new solutions to old problems. However, they argue that the elite of any given society or polity, whose intention is to retain power and control over the population and resources, are inimical to such new advancements because it would potentially be a threat to their hegemony or dilute their powers.

Creative destruction – a phrase coined by the economist Schumpeter – a necessary component of prosperous societies, according to the authors, is met with elitist resistance and sometimes the execution of inventors whose brilliant ideas would politically emasculate them. Change, they write, does not come easily and in most cases, is always challenged by the ruling class who always have the most to lose from innovative change.

In the current digital age and economic global downturn, many similarities can be seen. Information, freedom and individual rights are the big current issues being fought over in the ‘Occupy’ tents, ‘Arab Springs’ and Wiki-style websites, all vying for some form of creative destruction. Disturbingly, such societal upheavals, according to the authors, do not always have immediate positive outcomes and in some instances, may take centuries before any beneficial effects are felt by the masses.

Useful links: Why Nations Fail, Human costs of food crisis – Guardian.co.uk, Authors of ‘Why Nations Fail’ – Daron Acemoglu & James Robinson

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From stock market tips to questions about whether the gold bubble will burst or whether the price of oil will go up or down, our appetite for future knowledge is insatiable.

And why wouldn’t it be? In terms of the economy, 2011 – at least in the west – has turned out to be a bellicose and tumultuous period of time that has seen tens of billions of Euros and Dollars wiped off the value of share prices on all major bourses.

Gone are the heady days when House prices seemed to be headed for the heavens and no one cared about tomorrow. Reality has now set in and forecasts about tomorrow’s economic and political conditions are taking on religious significance.

Future knowledge and predictions is no longer the domain of priests and prophets; scores of academics and experts churn out dozens of thick glossy bold titled books claiming to have warned about present apocalyptic conditions.

Our response to this frenzy of prophesies is to bask in the awe of such intellectual prescience while making the necessary microeconomic tweaks and adjustments to our stock portfolios and tax saving schemes.

It is a science and discipline, we believe, only understood by a small group of gifted individuals who have dedicated years of study to the complex minutiae of human behaviour, weather patterns, and religion.

Such individuals, our reasoning continues, should be accorded the best places in society, the best food, the best medicine and treatment, the best education, the best living standards – you name it, as long as it’s the best, they deserve to be given it at our expense.

However, a closer and deeper inspection of reality may reveal a different state of affairs. It may reveal that we are living one great big con where nobody knows anything.

The truth may be that the only way to survive in this mystery we call life is by pretending to know the unknowable; shout out loud enough and people are bound to want to listen to what you have to say. And the really talented bluffers will dress this future knowledge up with the decorum of ceremony, specialism and exclusivity.

As a species, we have bought into this follow-the-leader mentality because it is the only way we know how to survive. Our assets – whatever they are worth – are best protected by those individuals who claim to see and understand the invisible order of the universe.

And so it goes, that we will always be addicted to getting advance and privileged information on what tomorrow holds for us and there will always be a surplus group of smart people looking to hoodwink their way into our pockets and minds.

Useful links: Daily Mail – Experts urge Americans to hit the pavement…, Global Brain, The: Your Roadmap for Innovating Faster and Smarter in a Networked World, (paperback), Economics of Food, The: How Feeding and Fueling the Planet Affects Food Prices

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In the 21st  century frame of mind, it almost seems too obvious that older concepts and technologies will eventually give way to more advanced platforms. This has been experienced across the board from the music industry – in the form of Napster to the rise of the ipod – which was slow to adopt the changes that were reconfiguring digital music consumption, all the way to the traditional paper book which has been around in one form or the other since 868 AD.

Of course, opinions are divided as to how soon the paper book will be consigned to the museum; but if the newly opened ultra modern Westfield shopping mall in Stratford city is anything to go by, its demise may not be too far off.

Anyone who visits this particular Westfield will be impressed by its ostentatious immensity and proximity to the Olympic village. However, if like me, you judge a place not just by how good the buildings looks, but also by the size and quality of its resident book store, you will be disappointed by Westfield’s offering.

In this department, it scores a woefully low mark. I have visited many large to medium sized shopping malls in America and many of them offered a decent sized Barnes and Noble – at least. Westfield’s offering, Foyles, looks more like a beta-trial book shop or tiny stock room, than a place that really wants to sell books.

More energy was spent on creating a fantastic interior design – and I don’t fault them for that  - than on giving its customers a bigger volume of spatial experience where you can get lost in the wonders of a multitude of great hard-cover titles.

The same can be said of its nearest rival, WH Smiths,  which is located only a few blocks away. The shelf arrangements look  jumbled, disorderly and hurried, as if it is more important to show a retail presence in a headlining shopping mall, than to give meticulous thought to how consumers would perceive their brand.

Does this lack of attention point to a more obvious fact that paper books are no longer the powerful force they once were? Does the army of Kindle/Kobo hugging women we see seated in trains, immersed in everything from a Stieg Larsson to Kathryn Stockett’s book ‘The Help’, point to a future of smaller shop floor space for their pulp ancestors and a plethora of smaller, niftier, nascent electronic newborns that fit snugly into handbags?

The traditionalists would say no; their argument hinging on the simple fact that humans need to feel and touch with their hands and will always need to do so. Those embracing tablets and ebooks, would argue the opposite – that humans can go beyond their biological predispositions by adapting their touchy-feely caveman instincts to the ultra smooth electronic super-amoled screens of the twenty-first century.

Which ever side of the argument you take, what is becoming glaringly obvious is the fact that the large brick and mortar book shop format is loosing market share to a multitude of small devices that fit easily into handbags and pockets.

Useful links: Mail Online – Online pirates threaten Kindle profits…., guardian.co.uk – Spanish novelist quits

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There is this pervasive feeling that things have been the way they are now for a very long time. By that I mean, it has always been the preserve of the rich and powerful to control the fate of the masses. It has always been the individuals educated in elite institutions who get the seats of influence in their respective governments and societies.

Even in modern democratic countries where elections are regularly held to represent the wishes of the people, this so called, democratic mechanism, also seems to be enabling the perpetual tide of elitist rule over the masses; which in reality, is just an illusion of collective freedom which starts and ends at the proverbial ballot box.

This feeling that all is not right, I presume, stems from the recent Arab spring or as some would ironically put it, the awakening of Islam – swathes of nations and peoples all under the umbrella of repressive, autocratic rule by a small minority of individuals. Of course, there are some who would counter this argument by saying that not all cultures are suited to democratic values and traditions.

However, recent events in these regions, seem to be telling a different story, in part. For example, NATO’s  external influence in certain spheres of uprising, can, in some opinions, create an artificial outcome which does not truly reflect the wishes of the people who are being supposedly ‘liberated’.

With the backdrop of the current global financial crises in the West, and the social seismic activity that is tearing its way through the Arab world, it is hard not to sit up and re-appraise the core of the fundamental values that underpin the fabric of the global village we occupy.

Are we happy with the way our governing elite are handling matters? Do we feel that we are collectively being exploited by powerful corporate organisations whose only interest is profit for their shareholders? Are we being weakened by the fantasy that ‘Free markets and Capitalism’ are the only viable models for humanity?

The answers may lay buried deep in the framework of the human psyche. From birth, we are culturally and intellectually subsumed into one dogma or the other. These belief systems have total control over our lives – our way of thinking, the associations we make with other groups of people, where we spend our summer vacations, our views on different cultures and how they fit into our way of thinking.

In turn, the effects of these patterns of behavior, have knock on effects in virtually every aspect of global society, from the most basic of relations – between neighbors of different races – to international relations between countries.

The ruling classes, while wearing the guise of having the collective interest of the masses at the heart of theirethos, really just cares about the small elitist community that they truly serves. A good example of this can be found in basic Physics.  The success of a rocket being launched into space, beyond the earth’s atmosphere, depends on its escape velocity – in other words, has the rocket got enough velocity to escape the earth’s gravitational pull to launch itself into space?

So how does this connect with elitist values? The actions and policies of powerful competing interests can imprison the upward mobility of the masses by making it incredibly difficult for such reliant groups to easily access vital resources that would enhance their economic prospects; that would improve their living standards; that would enable them to save enough money to buy that first house without too many hurdles.

A nascent example can be seen in the British educational system where university fees have increased to astronomically prohibitive levels thus creating and sustaining further elitism and class inequality and social division for generations to come.

The escape velocity for these individuals – lower down the food chain – has just increased exponentially, and democracy doesn’t seem to offer any viable alternatives as political power has perpetually oscillated between political-duopolies with not much variance between them.

We always get the feeling that they ultimately serve one invisible, all powerful master that can not be contradicted or disobeyed without harsh consequences. One only needs to look at what happened to Greece’s prime minister, George Papandreou, when he tried to be democratic or to Julian Assange when he opened governments.

So will this global awakening of the masses lead to positive societal changes or just be remembered as a short-lived  bellicose footnote in history? Whatever happens, we’re all in for a protracted bumpy ride that shows no signs of slowing down.

Useful links: The mathematical law that shows why wealth flows to the 1% – The Guardian, Occupy London, Turning point: A world in upheaval – KPR

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“All adolesents  are vulnerable, but some are more vulnerable than others”. This is particularly true for street children who irk a miserable living on the streets. In most urbanised cities in developing countries, the number of children living on the street continues to swell with many business districts bursting at the seams. There are currently 150 million street children in the world.

AVERT, an international HIV and AIDS charity, recently estimated the number of children orphaned due to AIDs in sub-Sahara Africa at 14,800,000. Another study, conducted in Eastern and Southern Africa in 2005, in 65 towns and cities, found that the age of street children ranged between 6 – 17 years – the majority being 9 – 14 years old; of which 74% were boys and 26% were girls.

Economic displacement and the spread of HIV/AIDS have largely contributed to the increase in the numbers of street children. Deprived of their innocence and forced to live as scavengers, street children engage in all sorts of risky behaviour in order  to survive. They roam around in gangs and those who are younger, are sold off as sex slaves by older children; adult exploitation is commonplace.

Most of the children are known to take drugs to suppress fear, hunger and cold. Not suprisingly, HIV among street children is very common. There are an estimated 2.3 million children living with HIV – this number could be even larger considering this estimate was made in 2009 by AVERT.

Many support workers have expressed how overwhelming it can be when dealing with the growing army of street children and the difficulties of knowing how or where to deploy the little resources at their disposal. Traditional means of locating vulnerable children on the street – which involves deploying a limited number of volunteers to patrol the streets – have not been effective.

The emergence of  socially conscious and electronically sophisticated youth from middle-class backgrounds, who live in developing countries but think in a global way offers some hope. This generation of innovative youth activists, armed with the basic technological know how, which doesn’t require fancy mobile apps and smartphones can galvanise themselves to solve this problem.

Mobile technology and crowd-sourcing can be used as tools to identify areas most frequented by street children. All that is required are young participants willing to use their mobile phones to send SMS messages regarding the location of street children. The information gathered can then be combined to map out the distribution of children living on the streets and then passed on to NGOs  working towards reintegrating traumatized street children into society.

Crowdsourcing has been used to run some great projects in a few countries in Africa and Asia that use SMS to spread out information gathered by users to solve water and sanitation challenges. NextDrop, a project run by a group of students from  UC Berkeley, found a way to crowdsource clean water information which helped people find the nearest source of water and predict availability.

At present, street children remain a visible presence on the streets of many major cities; however, crowdsourcing  can be a very effective tool in helping grass-root NGOs in distributing their sparse resources effectively in developing countries faced with this serious social crisis that has resulted in armies of vulnerable children being alienated from society with almost no prospect of being reintegrated into society.

Useful links: The Rise of Crowdsourcing – Wired, Street Kids International, Unabated attack on the poor Underclass in Britain

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‘Future minds’ by Richard Watson

Right from the very first page, Richard Watson’s book ‘Future Minds’ hooks the reader and gives us a glimpse into the effects  of prolonged use of social networking sites and constant connectivity without much time left for reflection. The wide availability of portable devices that are internet enabled means that mastering the strength to shut down can be next to impossible.

Watson injects some humour in his writing by interestingly predicting a time in the future, when we will all be able to plug thought/emotion reading devices into our brains – technology that will adjust accordingly to what we are thinking or how we are feeling.

Google’s predictive search field is an early forerunner of what is to come and though many of us may deny it, Watson believes we are rapidly becoming cyborgs and he brilliantly articulates how this technology is already impacting the ability of most people to think with originality.

Our brains, as well as those of our children, are being rewired in a way that will in the long run interfere with our ability to think at a deeper level. The growing use of social networking sites such as twitter means that most of us are reduced to taking in information in snippets, which will ultimately narrow our thinking capabilities. There is no doubt that deep thinking, a skill required for creativity and the cultivation of original ideas is slowly being lost to electronic devices. (Listen to: Five Minds for the Future )

With an avalanche of information being hauled at us in this age of constant breaking news, the attention span of most people has been considerably  reduced. Multitasking on computers means we can no longer read a long piece of writing let alone a book with sustained focus. Watson goes on to say that the availability of vast information on the internet has not made us experts but has increased ignorance and misinformation.

In this age of quick-retrieve information, many of us appear to be very knowledgeable but if you were probe a little deeper, there’s a good chance that you would find that most of our knowledge is very shallow. Generation Y and Z are mainly experts at scanning the screen for snippets of information and often end up with a distorted view of whatever information they may encounter because of their inability to focus for sufficient periods of time.

Far from being a predictable book aimed at attacking nascent technological advancements, Richard Watson lauds the benefits of technology. A good example he uses, is the psychological impact that the internet has had on people who portray themselves in a certain light on the internet; he delves into a discussion of how being bold and ambitious through the use of blogs and social media can help people build a certain amount of confidence which often tends to manifest itself in real life.

Watson also offers solutions as to how we may be able to strike a balance. He offers a fine lesson on “digital dieting” that is sure to make you want to examine your surfing habits and to go into technology detox.

He also issues a stark warning regarding the sharing of information which seems to be overdone on social networks and is drifting towards a lack of mental privacy. Watson goes on to conclude that “we think we are using the internet, but perhaps it will end up using us.” He mentions that the internet is not spreading knowledge and that ” ignorance could be increasing over time because the sheer volume of digital dross and distraction is drowning out learning and wisdom”.

Useful links: Net addiction weakens mental capability – The Times of India, Addiction to internet ‘is an illness’ - The Observer

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For once in my life, I felt the shopping experience was like going to a U2 concert at Wembley. Westfield, the new sexy mega-mall in Stratford City was besieged last weekend by hordes of curious shoppers who wanted to see first hand what all the fuss is about a gigantic building that cost a whopping £1.5 billion Pounds to build.

So was the money well spent? The answer is a mixed bag; yes, it does have an exciting feel to it – from the moment you walk over the rusty looking bridge linking old Stratford to the new City, you literally get the feeling that you’re transitioning into a new world; like Alice in Wonderland, you are handed a map of this Mecca of hedonism and within moments you almost  forget the global economic mess we’re  in.

The shops are the usual cluster – Gap, Primark, River Island, Next, Top Shop, Apple, WH Smith, Waitrose, Carphone Warehouse, Adidas, Dorothy Perkins, Zara, among many others – which does feel a tad bit repetitive and bland, but the futuristic special effects – large hanging flat screens displaying colourful electronic adverts, floor-standing touch-screen maps - that the creators of this new shopping Zion have interspersed at different points of the complex easily distract and entertain the wandering mind with sufficient eye-candy.

And just in case you really get bored and are not fooled by all the electronic phantasmagoria, you can catch a movie in the ultra-modern, fully automated Vue cinema located on the top floor or grab a tasty bucket of KFC chicken if you’re lucky enough to find an unoccupied seat in the eating area.

In reality, walking through throngs of people on the opening weekend, as you can imagine was next to impossible – and at times, darn right frightening – but this luxurious fantasy shopping escapade wasn’t completely impervious to the economic storm raging beyond its toughened glass and steel walls.

‘Shoppers’ – including myself – weren’t really doing any buying – it was more like we were leaving mental markers all over the place, the same way dogs leave territorial urine during walks with their owners; marked shops will be revisited in better economic times.

All in all, the new Westfield – and next year’s Olympics – do bring with them a spice of excitement to one of the poorest sections in London – where unemployment and poverty are rife; hopefully, this new era of transformation will seep prosperity into the lives of its indigens.

Useful links:  How to tackle adult illiteracy- The Guardian, Stratford City: Open for business – The Independent

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Have you ever found yourself in a situation were you to defend your ethnicity? Or have you ever felt that your race or skin colour has influenced the kind of treatment that you received from another member of the public?

These are valid questions which, no doubt, many people of various backgrounds have justifiably had in any multicultural society. Quite recently, some politicians in Europe pronounced the failure of multiculturism in the European context.

In such societies, you have different ethnic and religious groups living in separate parts of the city which virtually sets a kind of demarcation or tribal boundaries between the disparate groups.

In England, Southall, for instance, is known for its Asian community and Brixton, for its black community, while certain parts of North London are occupied by the Jewish community. One can quite literally traverse from one end of the City to the other and cut through the thick layers of different racial profiles. Like a mishmash of colours, smells, music, language and dress code.

It has also been reported in the press that the more ethnic an area becomes (and by this I mean an increased influx of non-white residents), the more its indigenous occupants are likely to move out in search of untainted suburbs.

In the wake of the credit crunch that saw many high street brands like Woolworths becoming extinct, the void was filled by many cost-cutting, no-frills, ethnic shops and mini-markets, and if you listened carefully – especially in areas where there presence was nascent – you may have heard the odd whisper of displeasure by some residents who felt they were being swamped.

Following the recent riots in London, which did a Mexican wave across England, comments were made that attributed the uprising and criminal acts to racial tension and poverty. ‘White youths’, remarked one commentator, are becoming black and he felt horrified by this spectre.

So the obvious question to ask is whether there is any way out from this intractable ethnic and tribal morass? Is there a way not to feel threatened when we see other members of different racial and tribal groups moving into our residential areas? Can we learn to accept human variation?

I think the answer is a challenging one. It has very little to do with what we view as the ‘other’ has to become like ‘us’ for there to be peace and harmony, integration exercise.  And, it goes a lot further than the ‘other’ side learning to speak a particular language, as if such a person would deliberately want to be misunderstood by other members in their community. Uniformity faces the problem of disregarding deeper and more important issues that cannot be dismissed by taking language classes or dressing everyone in culture-free attire.

The fundamental heart of the problem lies not in identity purging but in the individual reform of thinking toward someone who is different to us. In moments of irrational and intense feelings, we should ask ourselves why we honestly feel certain emotions towards other racial and tribal groups and whether they are truly justified.

We should also ask ourselves whether the way we feel towards other racial groups enhance a peaceful community or whether it cause further separation. If we are honest with this introspective exercise, we should be able to find that a significant portion of the problem lies at our own doorstep.

Now, if the expression of our cultural identities leads to the suffering or unequal treatment of another person within any particular group or community, then such issues should be addressed and rectified in a fair and balanced manner.

This, of course, also lies at the heart of the matter. It will take a great deal of time before the human species learns to treat fellow occupants of this planet in an equitable manner. Until we do, protests, riots, racial discord, tribal conflicts, group fragmentation, communal, regional and eventually global thermonuclear conflagration, are all in the offing.

Useful links: Show Racism the Red Card, Equality and Human Rights Commission, Sapphire speaks of racism in the arts – guardian.co.uk, State multiculturalism has failed, says David Cameron – BBC News, Merkel says German multiculturism has failed – Reuters

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Humans are creatures of change – from bulky desktop computers to ultra thin hand-held tablets, from automated self service supermarkets, to Near Field Communication mobile phone technology; the way we are structuring and organising our lives is going through a period of rapid upheaval. Just a few years ago, Push-button technology was the dominant platform; however, with the advent of body tracking cameras and touch screen devices, these technological trends portend more individualised customization that cater to a variety of preferences.

In recent months, there has also been a big visible push by multinational companies in bolstering the social networking identities of their brands on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. In a departure from inflexible paper based formats, we can now follow, like, and share short info-clips about our favourite brands with a legion friends spread across the digital globe. (See on Facebook: Gorilla Glass, Vaseline, & Dr Pepper UK)

What’s more, consumers are no longer tethered to one size fits all, but can now rely on cookie based advertising to track their online activities, creating surfing experiences specific to their needs.

What is becoming evidently clear from all this frenetic technological advancements across the multiplicity of competing platforms, is the convergence of communication and content into smaller and more powerful mediums.

The winners of this dynamic epoch will be those who intelligently sift through the mountains of big-data generated by consumers’ digital activity and come up with simple, standardized, interactive platforms that revolve around individual needs. As some commentators have indicated, the idea is to keep abreast of the myriad of micro human activity while keeping an eye on the bigger picture of inexorable change.

So what happens next? I predict further inroads into consumer customization happening next; that is, taking the home based cookie following format we are all accustomed to when surfing the net, to the outdoor sphere where flexible, personalized, multi-media experiences and campaigns that know our interests, can follow us wherever we go.

Of course, public resistance to new forms of intrusive technology lurk in the horizon. Privacy has recently become a contentious issue in recent times; to what extent will consumers tolerate electronic monitoring for their benefit? (Read: Privacy in the information age)

So far, the transition from static, impersonal, paper based outdoor poster media campaigns to more engaging, content-flexible digital displays, has been received with enthusiasm. More and more mass-transit stations and streets in the cities of the developed world are switching to dynamic electronic displays. But how will people react when outdoor electronic Billboards suddenly flash personally targeted media content at them?

Or imagine for a moment, riding on a mass-transit bus dotted with an array of concave flexi-electronic screens constantly streaming customized content to passengers clustering in close proximity to their sensors – how would people handle such intrusion? Of course, we can envisage that such technology would come with the provision of the freedom for consumers to opt-out of such public profiling – the same way a person can go into their Facebook privacy settings and adjust how much of themselves they want to reveal.

A solution to this electronic intrusion may be to display aggregated, depersonalised, content to people in close proximity to its sensors. So, for example, lets say a cluster of twenty people were headed down Tottenham Court Road (in London) on their lunch break and they happened to be walking near one of these sensor-display screens; in a fraction of a second, the sensors would have detected their electronic signatures from their hand-helds, pulled up their aggregated surfing habits – including Amazon, itunes, Facebook, twitter, YouTube, GroupOn and LinkedIn – and instantly displayed commercial content relevant to all of them without being identifiably intrusive. So, it would be more of what they have in common as a group, as opposed to singling people out in public.

Whichever way we chose to look at it, the next few decades will be a time of exciting opportunity and rapid change in the way we interact with our environment and fellow humans.

Useful weblinks: Only a’ fool’ would invest Groupon – The Guardian, Download your FREE trial version of CA products now!

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Author and economist, Dambisa Moyo, touches on some very contentious global economic issues currently affecting Western governments and society. She argues that since post-war times, economic policies set by these governments – while altruistically motivated – have ultimately resulted in our current economic debacle.

Economic growth, she expounds, is created by capital, labour and productivity. Moyo believes that the Western economic model is flawed and cannot continue to sustain such grand projects like the American ‘Housing for all’ programme and the Western burgeoning state pension scheme. (Read: The decline and fall of the American empire – The Guardian)

While most references to the genesis of today’s dire economic climate give in to the temptation of pointing the finger of blame at the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Moyo’s approach is more probing and goes to the very heart of the matter. In her latest book –
How the West Was Lost: Fifty Years of Economic Folly – and the Stark Choices Ahead – she tackles these fundamental issues in a manner that may make some socialists squirm.

Indeed, on both sides of the Atlantic, these very same questions are being debated by both the Obama and Cameron administrations. On one side of the equation we have a school of thought that believes in dismantling the behemoth economic architecture of the last fifty years, through cuts and downsizing. While the opposing approach to stability and growth, is to pump in more money and to create an all encompassing and equitable health care system. (Read: ‘Is Obama a Socialist?’ - WSJ.com and Rowan Williams: no one voted for coalition policies - Guardian.co.uk).

The economic jury is still out on these experiments; however, one year deep into the coalition’s cuts in the United Kingdom have been met with public acrimony and more recently by a warning from a group of leading economists who believe the economy is too fragile to cope.

On the other side of the Atlantic, the economic picture is equally gloomy – recent figures released by the Bureau of Labour Statistics show employment rates slowing. However, if forced to choose sides, some may argue – based on Obama’s recent trip to England – that the president’s colourful eloquence inspires hope in people, while his British counterpart’s utterances on certain issues like social welfare and the NHS (National Health service) erodes public confidence in some quarters.

Useful links: Dambisa Moyo website/Twitter page, Protect your photos and music! Use Mozy Unlimited Backup for $4.95

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