Published on May 18, 2014
1. Europe: From division to unity to fragmentation As the Iron Curtain was coming down, Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Double Life of Veronique (1991) not only captured elegantly the emotional impact of Europe’s post-war division but also conveyed a brooding angst about the promised ‘European Union’. Kieślowski’s device was [...] Read more
Published on May 18, 2014
"Hi, I'm Moby and I'm a vegan." (To which you, I'm assuming, respond: "Hi, Moby." See, even if you've never been to a 12-step meeting you've probably seen one on the television, as almost every series has to have a scene involving a 12-step meeting. Or so it seems). So, here's my qualification, or how I came to be a vegan. When I was two weeks [...] Read more
Published on May 18, 2014
A new study sponsored by Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center has highlighted the prospect that global industrial civilisation could collapse in coming decades due to unsustainable resource exploitation and increasingly unequal wealth distribution. Noting that warnings of 'collapse' are often seen to be fringe or controversial, the study attempts to [...] Read more
Published on May 18, 2014
Is it possible that the US and other major global economies might not return to full employment and strong growth without the help of unconventional policy support? I raised that notion – the old idea of “secular stagnation” – recently in a talk hosted by the International Monetary Fund. My concern rests on a number of [...] Read more