Scenes from the recession - The Big Picture - Boston.com

Scenes from the recession - The Big Picture - Boston.com

A photodocumentary showing images of the recession in the United States and Asia.

The informal economy

If I talk about "informal economy" most of you might think I am talking of activities such as drug trade, prostitution, etc. However, the term refers to all economic activities that are not supervised or overseen by the government, and this applies from the overstock Gap or Polo sales in Sarojini Nagar (a huge market in Delhi) to your 10-year old kid's weekend lemonade stand by a bike trail. The informal economy has its advantages, such as no taxes by governmental institutions or lack of regulations, and disadvantages like "protection" from thugs, police or security contractors (which can easily be higher than taxes) or health hazards.

More on the informal economy in the video below, via Marketwatch. By the way, De Soto's Mystery of Capital in your project 2 reading suggestion list deals with this matter extensively. This could be interesting material for a final project as well:

Water in the free market

This might go into the debate of whether the free market ensures usability and access of life-sustaining resources like water:

QUILLAGUA, Chile — During the past four decades here in Quillagua, a town in the record books as the driest place on earth, residents have sometimes seen glimpses of raindrops above the foothills in the distance. They never reach the ground, evaporating like a mirage while still in the air...

More in The New York Times...

Class dismissed in Swat Valley

Recently Pakistani authorities recognized Taliban control of the Swat Valley, a region near Afghanistan. One of the very first measures of the Taliban last year, besides executing political rivals, was to blow up schools for girls.

This moving short documentary profiles an 11-year-old Pakistani girl on the last day before the Taliban close down her school. Via New York Times Video.

An economic iron curtain?

The global economic crisis has had a major impact in other regions of the world beyond the U.S. Iceland, UK, Germany, China and Japan have been all over the news recently. Eastern Europe, however, is struggling even more after numerous investors from Western Europe, India, and East Asia have pulled out their investments in industry and real estate. New York's World Focus has more on this:

The hazards of unclean water

These news are not "fresh," and I already posted on the cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe, but since this is an issue that came out in the classroom recently, I thought it worth posting about it again.

Via BBC News Online: if you want to learn about the hazards of unclean water, you need not look further than Zimbabwe or Bangladesh.

Fareed Zakaria and the "post-american" world