Nancy Folbre « Dr Alf's Blog

Economix Blog (Photo credit: John Niedermeyer)

Economix Blog header (Photo credit: John Niedermeyer)

This is a controversial article by Professor Nancy Folbre, writing in the Economix column in the NYT. Check it out!

Nancy Folbre: The Twilight of the Public Corporation – NYTimes.com.

The timing of the article is interesting, with the US presidential elections looming. The Republicans argue that President Obama is anti-business, whereas the Democrats argue that big business is not doing enough for growth, especially in jobs and investment.

However, it is true that many big corporations are sitting on mountains of cash, rather than taking risks, with senior executives still taking home enormous compensation packages.

The next ten years will see the emergence of Chinese multi-nationals who are likely to give the Western multinationals a serious run for their money.

For me, it’s not good enough for multinationals to turn to the developing World for growth and neglect their home or mature markets which gave them growth for many decades. We have seen that the OECD has cited Unilever giving Europe a third World marketing strategy.

What do you think?

Economix Blog header (Photo credit: John Niedermeyer)

This is a brilliant, must-read article from Professor Nancy Folbre, writing in the Economix blog of the NYT. Check it out!

Nancy Folbre: Writing Off Poor Children – NYTimes.com.

This is a timely article given the polarization of politics in the US but there are important lessons for other struggling economies in Europe, like the UK, Greece and Spain.

Personally, I agree that there is a case to address the challenges of poor children with tax-payers’ money but it must be done efficiently & effectively.

What do you think?