Weekend Reader, 30 Apr 2016

By | 2016-04-30

gdpThe Prosperity Puzzle, The Economist 30 Apr 2016 cover story: How to measure prosperity (Leaders, Short piece); GDP is a bad gauge of material well-being. Time for a fresh approach. The trouble with GDP (Briefing, Long piece); GDP is increasingly a poor measure of prosperity. It is not even a reliable gauge of production.

The Once and Future Superpower, Foreign Affairs, May/Jun 2016. Why China Won’t Overtake the United States: Economic growth no longer translates as directly into military power as it did in the past.

Who Is Xi?, The New York Review of Books, 12 May 2016 Issue. (Bản tiếng Việt: Tập Cận Bình là ai?.)

Trump, Le Pen and the enduring appeal of nationalism, FT 29 Apr 2016. In a globalised era, even a country as big as America can feel small. Mark Mazower on why politicians such as Donald Trump are in fashion.

Global Power Shift, strategy+business magazine, Summer 2016. Winners, losers, and strategies in the new world economic order.

DavidVincenzettiFear This Man, Foreign Policy, May/Jun 2016 cover story. To spies, David Vincenzetti is a salesman. To tyrants, he is a savior. How the Italian mogul built a hacking empire.

How blockchain will revolutionise far more than money, Aeon, 21 Apr 2016. By cutting out the middleman, the blockchain removes human bias and error from transactions and record keeping. Its impacts will be felt far beyond the financial realm – it could revolutionise things such as voting.

Why investors may need to lower their sights, McKinsey Global Institute report, Apr 2016. The forces that have driven exceptional investment returns over the past 30 years are weakening, and even reversing. It may be time for investors to lower their expectations. Also, FT View: Stock markets’ 30-year sweetspot under serious threat, FT, 29 Apr 2016. The prospect of lower returns on equities creates real dangers for retirement plans.

When CEOs Become ActivistsHarvard Business School Working Knowledge, 20 Apr 2016. More and more, CEOs are promoting social causes that lie far outside their core business interests. Research by Mike Toffel and Aaron Chatterjiexplores the rise of CEO activists and the effects on their companies.

The fight to end period shaming is going mainstream, Newsweek, 29 Apr 2016 cover story. (Title in the print copy: Periods with an exclamation mark!) Women around the world are changing laws, mores and even technology to make menstruation safer, cheaper and more a part of everyday life. After centuries of silence and shaming, the period is finally having a moment. Also, The Tampon Tax and Gender Equality, Knowledge@Wharton, 21 Apr 2016. In the fight for gender equality, add this to the fray: Abolishing sales taxes on feminine care products. Several states are considering legislation that would abolish the so-called tampon tax.

How Animals Think, The Atlantic, May 2016 Issue. A review of Frans de Waal’s “Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?Nonhuman minds have a great deal to teach us.

El Nino’s disastrous effects still hindering Asia’s prosperity, The Globe and Mail, 28

Who invented the cash machine? I did – and all I earned was £10, The Guardian, 29 Apr 2016. James Goodfellow patented the first ATM and created the first pin code but, unlike those in the financial industry who command vast salaries, he effectively earned nothing for his all-conquering contribution. Plus five other inventors who made little or no money.

Facebook is a growing and unstoppable digital graveyard, BBC Future, 14 Mar 2016. At some point, there will be more dead Facebook users than living ones – and for those left behind, it is transforming how we experience the death of those around us. (Tiếng Việt: Facebook là nghĩa địa của tương lai.)

Inside the World of Professional Rock Paper Scissors, Priceonomics, 26 Apr 2016. Think rock paper scissors is just luck? Think again.

Apr 30 Special:

Boat people’s stories

The ghosts of Vietnam: The last days of a decorated Canadian vet, National Post, 21 Apr 2016. The Vietnam story, as typically told in Canada, focuses on U.S. draft dodgers streaming north, hippies haunting the Yorkville scene in Toronto, student anti-war marches in Ottawa and Vancouver and Canadian songbirds, like Joni Mitchell and Neil Young, heading to California to write the anthems of the age. But there is an alternative narrative. It involves Tom Sweetnam and about 20,000 other young Canadian men who crossed the border and volunteered to fight with the United States army; 133 of them died.

 

 

 

 

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