Thought leaders across the web

It’s the burning question many of you have been hurling at me recently: “So instead of idly waiting around for the so-called mysteriously reluctant non-recovering recovery, what should we do to survive this never-ending raging crisis?” Here’s a tiny suggestion. The “best” investment you can make isn’t gold. It’s the people you love, the dreams [...]

The Big Grinning Kahunas that run the world don’t agree on much these days, except one thing: the urgent, vital need for “recovery.” On both sides of an increasingly fractious political divide, there’s a common belief underlying the debates: what we really need is more stimulus, spending, cutting, slashing, or [insert big idea here], and [...]

Here’s a question: What if, just maybe, it’s our way of life itself that’s a bubble? To illustrate why I ask, consider this set of questions: How’s your house price doing? Where would your 401K be, if central banks withdrew life support for banks? How steep is a college education this year (hint: on average, [...]

How would you define a good life? It’s a bafflingly tough question. An even tougher one: does the economy we have today value such a life? Does it help us create one? Here’s what I see when I look not just at the surface, but deep inside the heart of the economy today: Instead of [...]

Healthcare, schools, police, tax breaks: which would you keep, slash, or cut? The axe has to swing, so where, if you were the lumberjack, would you aim it? It’s the central, polarizing question in this age of austerity. Or is it? Maybe relying on cuts to reboot prosperity is a bit like starting a diet [...]

Our forebears struggled, toiled, fought, and sweated for generations to create a future better, wealthier, stronger than their own. The gifts they handed down — democracy, markets, justice, opportunity, reason, equality, liberty — are the fundamental institutions — the building blocks — of enduring, authentic prosperity. So here’s a tiny hypothesis I’d like you to [...]

What if your business isn’t just fundamentally ill-equipped to survive and thrive in the 21st century — but is actually unequipped for it? Indulge me for a paragraph, if you will. Imagine that there was a country in which bailed-out bankers announced extravagant bonuses. OK, that part’s eminently realistic — even mundane. But then imagine [...]

Try this thought experiment: Maybe America’s Great Stagnation isn’t happening because we’re failing — maybe it’s happening because we’re not. To illustrate, consider the most straightforward example: Wall Street megabanks were propped up and lavishly resurrected, and your grandkids will likely still be paying the price — because they were too big to fail. But [...]

Forgive me, but I’d like to ask you a possibly colossally stupid question. Is Charlie Sheen — in addition to being a boorish actor — an apt metaphor for the American economy? Now, don’t freak out. Let’s talk this through. From an economic perspective, Charlie’s just a vehicle to sell ads, ads mostly for mass-produced [...]

Consider a curious set of observations: What’s standing in the way of democracy might just be politics — parties, Congress, lobbyists, the whole glad-handing, schmoozeful K-street shebang, which seems to exist mostly to subvert the will of human people, and replace it with the wishes of corporate “people.” The best investment a company can make? [...]