economy - Articles Archive
from April 20, 2007 to January 1, 2005

Web 2.0 is changing the way colleges and universities interact with their students. Photo credit: Nikolay Okhitin In the shift from an intellectual economy of push, to one of pull, the evolving participatory media are making their impact felt . It is no longer enough to pump ... read more

by Rudo de Ruijter Our politicians have shaped the idea many people have of our world. They have divided our world into good and bad. Of course, they are the good guys and the ones they accuse are the bad guys. Simple, isn't it? However, if we ... read more

On July 27, 2000, online video news reporter and California-based Marc Strassman, interviewed Pulitzer-winning author Ross Gelbspan about his recently-published book on global warming, The Heat is On. As the San Fernando Valley, where Solar World, the forward-looking alternative energy digital news magazine published by Marc ... read more

The imminent demise of the US dollar as the kingpin of economic transactions world wide is predicted by several commentators. Johnny 'Silver Bear' comments that the Federal Reserve has kept the printing presses rolling too liberally for too long and he continues: "The Fed has lost ... read more

In the background of the political joust about Iran, a few countries are reshaping the world. They are taking possession of the global nuclear fuel market. New IAEA regulations should keep newcomers away. The US, UK, France, Germany, Russia, China and Japan will become world's nuclear ... read more

Paying without cash and without going through a bank may seem an impossible proposition. Not so, says Ryan Fugger, the architect of Ripple, an open-source bank-independent payment system that is now in Beta release, meaning it's open to play with and test. Photo credit: Mikael Damkier Conceived ... read more

Branded content is nothing short of a punch-drunk-fighters reaction to the paradigm shifting changes in our media and consumption habits. The rules have changed and it seems that interestingly advertisers are in a scramble to get out of the ad spot and into content generation. Soap ... read more

Michel Bauwens concludes his major essay on P2P economics by looking at the opportunities that would lead the economics of peer to peer to become increasingly important forces in the emerging new rich marketplaces created by information surplus, distributed technology, and by those instances where the ... read more

Michel Bauwens takes us further in this explorative journey into better understanding the true nature, characteristics and potential value of peer-to-peer (P2P). Photo credit: Neil Gould In this essay (part II of three - part I ) he explores P2P as an alternative production modality, and gives useful ... read more

Not since Marx identified the manufacturing plants of Manchester as the blueprint for the new capitalist society has there been a deeper transformation of the fundamentals of our social life. Photo credit: Joseph Zlomek As political, economic, and social systems transform themselves into distributed networks, a new ... read more

"When citizens are convinced that interest - which ought to be correctly called usury - on money is necessary, they accept without question the current state of violence, war, poverty, scarcity and lack that continues to dominate the world in a negative fashion as we progress ... read more

A Justice of Peace (civil judge) in the southern Italian town Lecce has decided that the Italian Central Bank's practice to retain the seignorage on paper money for its own profit is illegal and that the money should be turned over to its rightful owners - ... read more

Conceived by Ryan Fugger and quite formally defined by Sylvain Poirier, Ripple is a P2P monetary system based on trust that already exists between people in real-world social networks. By cutting out the institutional middlemen, Ripple is both more community-oriented and more efficient as a means ... read more

Three years after the collapse of Argentina's economy under IMF and World Bank recipes for development, the South American country's budding recovery is stunning international observers. Photo credit: Argentinian mate - Eduardo Cesario Defying the IMF's prescriptions, president Kirchner and his economic advisers have told creditors to ... read more