Category: Economics
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Burning Questions and Political Facades
Against the ravenous tiger of fire, we give the rich a rifle and the poor a feather. In 1971, an engineer at Ford motors called Lou Tubben invited all of his fellow company engineers to a presentation he’d put together about gas-tanks. Driving around with a whole lot of highly flammable liquid is, when you…
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The Cloud of All-Knowing | Democracy and Demagogues in the Age of Data
“True power is not the strength to force someone into slavery, but to make them happily lock their own manacles, as if chains were adding to their liberty.” Yesterday The Observer published a long and detailed piece that attempted to join (some of) the dots between the ‘big data’ socio-political technology firm Cambridge Analytica, and…
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From Russia, With Chaos
Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been re-reading Peter Pomerantsev’s book Nothing is True and Everything is Possible, each page pushing me towards the same, slightly counterintuitive conclusion: if you want to understand Trump’s America, you need to look to Putin’s Russia. I first read the book when a colleague – a history teacher I’d…
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Robots Should Pay Tax | How Much Does a Stormtrooper Make Each Month?
Chances are, your job is under threat. Chances are, in 20 years, you could be being replaced by a robot. Automation is coming, and it won’t look much like Star Wars. The problem is, what happened to C3PO’s human predecessor? Or his 6 million predecessors – the highly trained, skilled translators to and from those languages…
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A White House Where He Is Adored
Very interesting read here about Trump’s ‘Southern White House.’ ‘He comes down here because he needs constant applause,’ one Palm Beach resident notes. ‘He’s adored within the confines of that club.’ What is becoming clear is that Trump is not adored among the worker-bees of the White House. His solution – flying off to where…
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Hans Rosling
So sad to hear of his death yesterday. This video – that I’ve used countless times in lessons – captures the man and his message perfectly. A brilliant communicator.