Wednesday, May 19, 2010

In a Koons' Age

It's been years since I was first introduced to Jeff Koons'... (word choice, word choice...) work, through this brilliant cartoon. If you haven't heard of Koons, lucky you: I can think of no better introduction.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

German banker bailout

Euro-Bankers Demand of Greece: The wealthy won’t pay their taxes, so labor must do so, by Michael Hudson

Wondering just what is going on with the economy in Europe, with what is called "the Greek bailout"? Why not turn to the same witch-doctor economists whose massively wealth-destroying failure to warn about the present crisis hasn't yet convinced them to put down the magic eight ball and stop making predictions and explaining economic events through the lens of their thoroughly discredited ideology? If that interests you, turn on the TV or open a newspaper. If you want to read analysis by one of the rare economists who did predict the current mess, check this out.

Monday, May 10, 2010

Like wealth on white

Why some countries are poor and some rich - a non-Eurocentric view by Deniz Kellecioglu

Such an excellent paper, on why lighter skin color is closely correlated with greater economic wealth across the globe, between and within countries. Since the consensus in biology is that human concepts of "race" have no validity as biological categories but only as social constructs, this stark finding cannot be based on inherent "racial" superiority or inferiority. If you can't answer the question of why some countries are poor and some are rich, then you should read this article.

"...the lightest[-skinned] human ethnic group have [sic] about 1,6 times more GDP per capita than the second lightest group, six times more than the third group, and almost 12 times more than the fourth group. Put differently, the darkest ethnicities have only nine percent of the GDP levels of the lightest ones. This confirms the indication that there is a substantial orderly connection between nuances of morphological traits and economic levels in the world today."