- Old School Nouveau.
Puerto Rico.
(posts are not mine unless stated.)
Too Big to Succeed? Three China Scenarios to 2050
ieet.org
Subscribe to:Expect increased nationalism, including the flexing of military muscle, from China between now and 2050. Although I predict a surge in nationalistic sentiment and policy-making, one cannot rule out the…
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(Source: futuramb)
When Economic Policy Threatens Cultural Security
In times of economic crisis, a nation’s artistic and cultural programs often suffer harsh fates. The financial woes facing Greece have forced the struggling country to levy strict economic austerity measures to combat years of government corruption and deficit spending.
These drastic measures have forced the Greek Ministry of Culture to begin firing up to 50% of its personnel , including archaeologists, civil servants and guards assigned to protect and preserve cultural heritage sites and museums. Such cutbacks already have resulted in the looting of museums in Olympia and Athens.
Government plans to raise funds by allowing advertising at Greek cultural heritage sites, such as the Acropolis, have been met with shock and outrage. In a particularly ironic twist, as Greek archaeologists struggle to find funding for legitimate excavations and face the threat of unemployment, smugglers of illicit antiquities continue to thrive.
From the public suicide of a single citizen to protests involving thousands, Greeks have taken to the streets to protest the dire economic situation, and the resulting threat to Greek cultural heritage. Unfortunately, after almost two years of violence and civil unrest, an end to this crisis and the subsequent threat to cultural security seems nowhere in sight.
For similar news stories visit http://culturalsecurity.net/newssummary.htm
Images courtesy of http://www.opednews.com/articles/Greece-in-flames-Cassandr-by-Eric-Walberg-120214-446.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/may/04/markets-give-greek-bailout-lukewarm-reception
(via sans-nuage)
A new study from researchers at Jay W. Forrester’s institute at MIT says that the world could suffer from “global economic collapse” and “precipitous population decline” if people continue to consume the world’s resources at the current pace.
Smithsonian Magazine writes that Australian physicist Graham Turner says “the world is on track for disaster” and that current evidence coincides with a famous, and in some quarters, infamous, academic report from 1972 entitled, “The Limits to Growth.”
Produced for a group called The Club of Rome, the study’s researchers created a computing model to forecast different scenarios based on the current models of population growth and global resource consumption. The study also took into account different levels of agricultural productivity, birth control and environmental protection efforts. Twelve million copies of the report were produced and distributed in 37 different languages.
Most of the computer scenarios found population and economic growth continuing at a steady rate until about 2030. But without “drastic measures for environmental protection,” the scenarios predict the likelihood of a population and economic crash.
In a speech to the Associated Press today, President Obama today boasted that his signature domestic policies were basically conservative (he labeled them “centrist”): his individual mandate, he said, was pioneered by conservatives and the Heritage Foundation; his cap-and-trade policy was first proposed by Bush 41; federal spending is lower now than it was during any year of the Reagan administration, etc. Even the successes most touted by his supporters — the Detroit bailout, TARP, the withdrawal from Iraq — were started by Bush 43. Obama’s foreign policy and civil liberties assaults also, of course, were largely shared by his predecessor and are frequently praised by the Right.
What is needed most — a strong countervailing force to these policies coming from a place other than the neoconservative Right and corporatist oligarchs — is exactly what is missing.
