Difference between revisions of "Category:Economics"

See also Globalization and Entrepreneurship

Consumption, Labor,

Sustainability

and Third World Development and Population

A range of ideas on economics exist, from Free Marketeers (an idea in ascendancy in the US for some time, though currently in disrepute), to social entrepreneurs (who seek to use markets to improve the lives of poor people, see the UCSC Atlas of Global Inequality and Gapminder to get some sense of this), to the idea of suicidal capitalism (the idea that growth for growth's sake on a finite planet will be catastrophic). One problem with relying on GDP to measure progress is that it leaves out important factor, so many prefer Genuine Progress Indicator.

NPR's Planet Money does an excellent job of clarifying economic issues (in fact they won a Pulizer Prize). They were ahead of the curve in their "Giant Pool of Money" that led to Great Recession, and continue to cover it. (audio podcasts)Transcript). See also The Grapes of Wrath page).

News, Articles and Reports

According to Oxfam’s new report, eight men own the same wealth as the 3.6 billion people who make up the poorest half of humanity: The gap between rich and poor is far greater than had previously been estimated, with big business and the super-rich fueling the inequality crisis by dodging taxes, driving down wages, and using their power to influence politics. 1/17.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership—a trade and investment agreement involving 12 countries comprising nearly 40 percent of global output—confirms what even its most apocalyptic critics feared in terms of labor and environmental law. 11/15.

Viking Economics: How The Scandinavians Got It Right – And How We Can Too. author interview (text); interview (audio); Extended Resistance Studies talk (video). 30 min audio interview[ 10 min video interview another 12/16 audio interview); . See Ecotopia and Richard Wolfe on worker co-ops below.

UCSC's Chris Benner, a professor of environmental studies and sociology, co-wrote the book with Manuel Pastor, a UCSC alumnus and former UCSC professor now with the University of Southern California. Equity, Growth, and Community looks at almost 200 U.S. metropolitan regions to better understand what makes a city economically sustainable.

How Will We Reach an Ecological Civilization and Who Will Build It?By Chris Williams, Truthout 11/15.

Citbank (America’s third-largest bank), recently published a report looking at the economic costs and benefits of a low-carbon future. ..because of savings due to reduced fuel costs and increased energy efficiency, the Action scenario is actually a bit cheaper than the Inaction scenario. 9/15

Renewable Energy ‘Creates More Jobs Than Fossil Fuels’ 11/14.

World Leaders Say Addressing Climate Change Offers Unprecedented Opportunities for Economic Growth 9/14 see Economics and Sustainability.

Study: Green economy lost fewer jobs in the recession 9/14. See Green Jobs.

Researchers Assign Monetary Value to Nature to Promote Sustainability 6/14.

Carbon War Room funds large scale projects to fight climate change.

Is the “invisible hand” always benign? Or can it be bad? Free-market fans love the idea that “spontaneous order” emerges from local decisions. But what prevents “spontaneous disorder”? Does prudence reliably trump profit? Disorderly superbug and climate change situations say no. Darwin’s Wedge scenarios are where individual incentives diverge from group goals. Cooperation and altruism are more powerful and common in complex systems. "Survival of the Fittest" is commonly misunderstood. See also Mazzucato book below. More on this can be found on Good Newspage. See also Systems Thinking.

Economix graphic novel of history of economics bibliography audio interview. Up Front 5/7/14.

RE-Volv, a San Francisco-based nonprofit organization, is working to make solar more financially accessible to local community groups. The organization is building a program that allows community centers to make the switch to clean energy with no upfront costs. see Solar.

Mobility Hasn’t Changed, But It Means Less Than It Used To because of growing inequality. 1/14.

Inequality: The combined wealth of the world's richest 85 people is now equivalent to that owned by half of the world's population – or 3.5 billion of the poorest people – according to a new report from Oxfam... According to the report, 210 people have become billionaires in the past year, joining a select group of 1,426 individuals with a combined net worth of $5.4 trillion. It added that the wealth of the richest one percent of people in the world now amounts to $110 trillion, or 65 times the total wealth of the bottom half of the world's population. "This massive concentration of economic resources in the hands of fewer people presents a significant threat to inclusive political and economic systems," the report said....(in US 400 ppl have as much as bottom half; six Walmart heirs alone have as much as botton 40%) 1/14.

Carbon Tax Demystified by Grist. Carbon tax vs C&T.

Swiss Showing the World How to Take on Pay Inequality A growing movement. Switzerland is one of Europe's richest countries but does not have a minimum wage law. But growing public activism over pay inequality since the 2008 financial crisis has already led to two referendum drives on CEO pay. In March 2013, Swiss voters overwhelmingly passed one of the world's strictest controls on executive pay, forcing public companies to give shareholders a binding vote on compensation. Voters ignored the business lobby's claim that such curbs would undermine the country’s investor-friendly image. Next month, November 24, a separate proposal to limit monthly executive pay to no more than what the company's lowest-paid staff earn in a year, the so-called 1:12 initiative, faces a popular vote. Now, on Friday, Swiss activists submitted over 130,000 signatures to the Swiss Parliament likely forcing another referendum - this one to create a new law guaranteeing all Swiss nationals a basic income of CHF 2,500 a month ($2,756 US). 10/13.

Good News, Bad News Two trends that could facilitate the transition to a more stable economy - declining fertility rates and the rise of renewable energy. Garnering data over the last 40 years, he demonstrates a "remarkable drop in fertility" in the US, Europe, the richer East Asian countries including China, and even South Asia and Africa. According to the more optimistic end of UN projections, if such trends continue global population [12] would peak at 8 million by 2050 before declining to near 6 billion by 2100 - a process which could be sped up with appropriate policy measures. Simultaneously, Grantham argues we may be on the cusp of "a great technological leap that for the first time is accompanied by less energy use – the technologies of solar, wind power, and other alternatives as well as electric grid efficiencies and improved energy storage." 7/13. How we got here.

None of the world’s top industries would be profitable if they paid for the natural capital they use(aka "externalities").The majority of unpriced natural capital costs are from greenhouse gas emissions (38%), followed by water use (25%), land use (24%), air pollution (7%), land and water pollution (5%), and waste (1%). 4/13

Green tech incubtor, venture capital.

Green Job Growth Outpaced All Other Industries 2010-2011 3/13

Environmental Debt. Would you rather pay more for electricity, gas and mass transit infrastructure today or try to rebuild and recover from ever more extreme droughts, hurricanes or wildfires in the future? Guess which will be more expensive and painful? 3/13

Is Solar Energy the Next Great Crowdfunding Experiment?

After Ruining America, the Era of Giant Chain Stores Is Over. The coming implosion of big box retail implies tremendous opportunities for young people to make a livelihood in the imperative rebuilding of local economies. 3/13.

EDF: How we use economics to create and shape markets to reward cleaning up, not polluting. In California, EDF is quantifying the economic value of threatened ecosystems and finding investors, like utilities, who will benefit from their restoration. Our goal is to develop a national model for saving irreplaceable natural resources.

Feed in tariffs democratize energy creation, is helping Germany and China to take the lead in solar. 1/13.

World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, says we must spend $700 billion annually to wean ourselves off fossil fuels that have been linked to a rise in extreme weather-related disasters in recent yearsDavos world economic forum plan 1/13.

A new piece in Nature highlights emerging efforts at modeling the earth’s key ecosystems, in an effort to better inform policy decisions on issues like climate change and biodiversity conservation.

"The Women Who Were Right About the Economy" aka Great Recession 1/13. see also here and Women.

Land and water grabs in developing Third World countries 1/13.

CRS/CBO study that shows rich are not job creators suppressed. See also CBO. 11/12.

GDP Cannot Capture the Economics of Climate Change; an alternative measure 7.12.

America the Possible: Manifesto for a New Economy article based on the book by Gus Speth (see below).

UN report on green jobs 6/12.

White paper on the importance of sustainable capitalism 3/12.

Study: Green economy lost fewer jobs in the recession 2/12.

Cleveland's Green, Large-Scale Co-Op Model Gains Steam In A Decaying Economy. The Evergreen model draws heavily on the experience of the Mondragon Cooperative Corporation in the Basque Country of Spain, the world's most successful large-scale cooperative effort (now employing 100,000 workers in an integrated network of more than 120 high-tech, industrial, service, construction, financial and other largely cooperatively owned businesses). BBC audio and more, including aquaponic greenhouse. video. (See also Urban agriculture page.)

The Rise of the New Economy Movement: Activists, theorists, organizations and ordinary citizens are rebuilding the American political-economic system from the ground up. ...The Evergreen Cooperatives in a desperately poor, predominantly black neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio are a leading example. They include a worker-owned solar installation and weatherization co-op; a state-of-the-art, industrial-scale commercial laundry in a LEED-Gold certified building that uses—and therefore has to heat—only around a third of the water of other laundries; and a soon-to-open large scale hydroponic greenhouse capable of producing three million head of lettuce and 300,000 pounds of herbs a year. 5/12

"Debunking myths about free-market environmentalism" 3/11

ECONOMICS IN A FULL WORLD By: Daly, Herman E., Scientific American, September 2005, Vol. 293, Issue 3

Prosperity without Growth? - The Transition to a Sustainable Economy (2009 report). Ahead of the G20 Summit in London, the report calls on leaders to adopt a 12-step plan to make the transition to a fair, sustainable, low-carbon economy.

Interactive/Infographics

Hans Rosling created Gapminder.org, video overview. 2009 TEDtalk

The Billion Dollar-o-gram puts it all in context.

"The State of Working America" by the Economic Policy Institute. (infographic).

Jobs in America (now and 1972).

Inequality stats/graphs 9/12.

UCSC's own Atlas of Global Inequality

People

(See also Eco-heroes)

Muhammad Yunus founder of the Grameen Bank, which makes micro-loans all over the world, empowering people in many ways, not least of which to give them the option on not exhausting their local habitats in order to survive in the short term. Yunus was awarded the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize. His book.

Robert Reich Saving Capitalism video *** Robert Bernard Reich (/ˈraɪʃ/;[1] born June 24, 1946) is an American political economist, professor, author, and political commentator. He served in the administrations of Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter and was Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1997. Reich is currently Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. He was formerly a professor at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government... He has published 14 books, including the best-sellers The Work of Nations, Reason, Supercapitalism, Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future, and a best-selling e-book, Beyond Outrage. He is also chairman of Common Cause and writes his own blog about the political economy at Robertreich.org.[7] The Robert Reich – Jacob Kornbluth film Inequality for All won a U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award. Robert B. Reich: Technological Change and the Inevitability of Unconditional Basic Income 2016.

Raj Patel writer, activist, academic and author of Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System is a researcher at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, and a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley. His more recent book on economics is The Value of Nothing first chapter and short video here, also covered in longer video and full talk (highly recommended) Commonwealth Club talk audio 1/10, (Realplayer). Democracy Now interview.

Economist Jeffrey D. Sachs visits Google's Mountain View, CA, headquarters to discuss his book, Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet This event took place on April 9, 2008 Watch video. Audio interview with Jeffrey Sachs, an economist interested in ecological and social justice issues. 2011 Google talk on US.

James "Gus" Speth video "On a Post-Growth Society". American-style consumer capitalism is simply unsustainable, warns former White House adviser James Gustave Speth in his 2008 book, The Bridge at the Edge of the World. (video interview at UC Berzerkely) (another video on economy vs ecology). A co-founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council, Speth has been an environmentalist for more than three decades. Speth is dean and professor in the practice of environmental policy at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. audio interview.Gus Speth, elder environmental statesman, has grown ever more convinced that our politics and our economy are so corrupted, and the environmental movement so inadequate, that we can no longer hope to address the climate crisis, or our deep social ills, by working strictly within the system. The only remaining option, he argues in his forceful new book, America the Possible: Manifesto for a New Economy overview, (interview) 4/12video. Article overview.

Nobel-winning economist Paul Krugman on why dealing with Global Warming will be good economically

Elinor Ostrom. In 2009, Ostrom became the first woman to receive the prestigious Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences cited Ostrom "for her analysis of economic governance," saying her work had demonstrated how common property could be successfully managed by groups using it.

Ray Anderson, founder of Interface carpets talks about (video) his book Confessions of a Radical Industrialist: Profits, People, Purpose - Doing Business By Respecting the Earth. Entrepreneur Ray Anderson visits Google's Mountain View, CA headquarters to discuss his new book "Confessions of a Radical Industrialist." October 2009. His TEDtalk and book excerpt. interview.

Founder Yvon Chouinard of Patagonia makes some of the best, and most expensive outdoor gear in the world, but the company’s mission is bigger than simply maximizing profit. The mission is: “Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.” company profile. new music project. talk video. A great company to work for. See Social Entrepreneurs

Prof. Richard Wolff is interested in worker-owned enterprises, such as Mondragon, (video). BookTV example "Imagine: Living in a Socialist USA" (video panel discussion includes Richard Wolff (bio). (influence of Marx(video). Capitalism Hits the Fan (2011 video): last hundred, especially thirty, years history (computers, women, outsourcing). 2013 Bill Moyers interview. A Brief History of Capitalism(2014 audio). Weekly podcast.

UCSV's Chris Benner, a professor of environmental studies and sociology, co-wrote the book with Manuel Pastor, a UCSC alumnus and former UCSC professor now with the University of Southern California. Equity, Growth, and Community looks at almost 200 U.S. metropolitan regions to better understand what makes a city economically sustainable.

Books

Naomi Klein’s new book, This Changes Everything,THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING Inspired by Naomi Klein’s international non-fiction bestseller. Filmed over 211 days in nine countries and five continents over four years, is an epic attempt to re-imagine the vast challenge of climate change. ***; excerpt, reviewed by Sandra Steingraber. Colbert interview; extensive interview(2 parts) 9/14. Builds on her earlier Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism; some of the underlying myths of capitalism are summarized in a great TEDtalk by Klein on "Why We Are Addicted to Risk?" (includes the underlying myths that drive environmental and economic problems, in opposition to the Precautionary Principle). She likes:

Capitalism in the Web of Life: ECOLOGY AND THE ACCUMULATION OF CAPITAL By JASON W. MOORE

Economix graphic novel of history of economics bibliography audio interview. Up Front 5/7/14.

Joseph Stiglitz talks about his book,The Great Divide: Unequal Societies and What We Can Do About Them, about the rising inequality in the United States and what can be done about it.(Book). 6/15.

The Entrepreneurial State: debunking private vs. public sector myths. Many business leaders, entrepreneurs, and libertarians claim that the private sector leads the way always, and government at best follows by decades and at worst impedes the process with bureaucratic regulations. Mariana Mazzucato proves otherwise. Many of the most profound innovations—from the Internet and GPS to nanotech and biotech—had their origin in government programs developed specifically to explore new fields that might eventually attract private sector interest. Ignoring this entrepreneurial risk-taking role of government has fuelled an illusory story about government’s role in the economy, and also fuelled the dysfunctional dynamic that socializes private risk and fails to reward public risk. This is not only bad for the future of innovation eco-systems, it’s a key driver of inequality. Mazzucato is a professor of the Economics of Innovation at Sussex University. LongNow talk 3/14.

Yanis Varoufakis is author of [The Global Minotaur ] which expalin the lead up, aftermath and way forward out of 2008 crash oveview. See also Globalization.

Sharing Revolution: The essential economics of the commons by Jessica Conrad. (download the free e-book). See also Consumption.

In What Has Nature Ever Done For US?, Tony Juniper advocates Putting an economic value on nature might be the only way to save it. 2011 audio interview includes Prince Charles."Taken together, the loss of natural services is believed to be costing the global economy more than 6 trillion dollars per year, or equivalent to around 11 per cent of world GDP. By contrast, the estimated cost of meeting global targets to avert the impending mass extinction of species is put at about US$76 billion, or about 0.12 per cent of annual GDP."

Mark Tercek, the former investment banker at Goldman Sachs became CEO of The Nature Conservancy in 2008. His new book, Nature’s Fortune: How Business and Society Thrive by Investing in Nature (Basic Books, 2013), argues that nature provides enormous economic benefits to society, business and consumers, and that, if we can figure out how to value and pay for those benefits, we can slow down and even reverse the degradation of nature that threatens our well-being.

But Will the Planet Notice?: How Smart Economics can save the World by Gernot Wagner EDF holds that how smart economic policies can do much more than so many of the “green” behavioral modifications, lifestyle changes, that are so often championed by environmentalists. audio interview. Gernot Wagner stops by Google Talks for a discussion about his latest book and editorial: "But Will the Planet Notice?" also video 11/11.

Overbooked: The Exploding Business of Travel and Tourism by Elizabeth Becker addresses environmental and economic aspects of the #2 industry in world (literally, in terms of ocean dumping).

There is a growing body of economic research on the conflict between economic growth and sound climate policy, led by ecological economist Herman Daly at the University of Maryland (video, article), as well as Peter Victor at York University video, Tim Jackson, book, (video) of the University of Surrey, and environmental law and policy expert Gus Speth (see below).

World on the Edge: How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse by Lester Brown (see eco-heroes) 2011 (video interview) 6/11

America Beyond Capitalism Professor Gar Alperovitz goes beyond capitalism with worker coops, public banks and local economies. video interview (part 2 includes Mondragon co-op).

Charles Eisenstein, Sacred Economics: Money, Gift, and Society in the Age of Transition (Evolver, 2011). (videos): A breakthrough in thinking… Sacred Economics explores time-tested and emerging concepts of the new economics, including local and negative interest currencies, resource-based economics, gift economies and the restoration of the commons.

Green Gone Wrong: How Our Economy Is Undermining the Environmental Revolution by Heather Rogers video interview.

Poor Economics addresses the pitfalls of current aid programs and advocates for a radical new approach to thinking about poverty. audio interview. 5/11

Excerpt from Jeremy Rifkin's The Third Industrial Revolution: How Lateral Power is Transforming Energy, the Economy, and the World, Palgrave Macmillan 2011. excerpt 2 on education and politics etc). audio interview and book excerpt) KQED 10/11.

David Suzuki has a new book (audio interview) "a, brief, astonishingly readable and uplifting book called The Legacy: An Elder's Vision for our Sustainable Future."

What Environmentalists Need to Know about Economics Jason Scorse

In Green Gone Wrong "environmental writer Heather Rogers blasts through the marketing buzz of big corporations and asks a simple question: Do today’s much-touted "green" products—carbon offsets, organic food, biofuels, and eco-friendly cars and homes—really work? Implicit in efforts to go green is the promise that global warming can be stopped by swapping out dirty goods for "clean" ones. But can earth-friendly products really save the planet? This far-reaching, riveting narrative explores how the most readily available solutions to environmental crisis may be disastrously off the mark." Grist link/review

The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis By Jeremy Rifkin. Intro/ Excerpt. Overview

Life Inc.: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take It Back by Douglas Rushkoff (video clip) Chapter One and subsequent chapters

The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability by Professor James Gustave Speth

Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage by Daniel C. Esty, Andrew S. Winston

Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future amazon link by Bill McKibben

Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution, by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins (see also eco-heroes), and L. Hunter Lovins (Back Bay Books, 1999). Its simple message—we can save the planet and make money at the same time—laid the blueprint for the 21st-century sustainability movement. Download free chapters. Here are several related videos. Overview McHenry Stacks HC106.82 .H39 1999.

Paul Hawken also wrote The Ecology of Commerce (1993). At last -- a business guru who talks about something other than fatter profits. A calm and illuminating discussion of how the economic order must adapt to environmental realities.

Prosperity without Growth Economics for a Finite Planet By Tim Jackson with forewords by Herman Daly, Bill McKibben, Mary Robinson and Pavan Sukhdev

Ecological Economics: Principles And Applications Herman E. Daly, Joshua Farley

Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science by Charles Wheelan. Said to be a lively and readable introduction to the subject.

The Vulnerable Planet : a short economic history of the environment / John Bellamy Foster S&E Stacks - GE140 .F68 1999

Joshua Karliner's book, The Corporate Planet: Ecology and Politics in the Age of Globalization (Sierra Club Books, 1997) is a good research tool for the impacts of corporate globalization.

In Why Nations Fail, a pair of economists argue that a lot comes down to politics. To research the book, the authors scoured the world for populations and geographic areas that are identical in all respects save one: they're on different sides of a border. The two Koreas are an extreme example. But you can see the same thing on the border of the US and Mexico, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and dozens of other neighboring countries. (audio).

Rules For Revolutionaries: The Capitalist Manifesto for Creating and Marketing New Products and Services by Guy Kawasaki talk 2009 and Michele Moreno.

In Why Corporation 2020, Pavan Sukhdev examines the many critical planetary boundaries that we are approaching, from greenhouse gas emissions to the nitrogen cycle, freshwater and land use, and food security, and argues that sweeping changes are needed to reform the way we deal with the earth’s resources. Sukhdev makes an arresting case for including the private sector in these changes, arguing that a new corporate model is needed in the next decade to avert irreparable ecological harm. (free e-book).

Video

Naomi Klein’s new book, This Changes Everything,THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING Inspired by Naomi Klein’s international non-fiction bestseller. Filmed over 211 days in nine countries and five continents over four years, is an epic attempt to re-imagine the vast challenge of climate change. ***

Sites:

Commonwealth Club:

Robert F. Kennedy argues that the solution to all environmental problems is a truly free market. 6/11 (See also Eco-heroes)

Robert Reich Saving Capitalism video *** 10/15. Robert B. Reich: Technological Change and the Inevitability of Unconditional Basic Income 2016.

Capitalism in an Era of Climate Change Commonwealth Club panel discussion 4/11.

Environmental Debt: By focusing on developing the economy for decades, politicians and business leaders have done little to account for the environmental costs of growing industry. Now, economies worldwide are struggling to cover the increasing expenses of pollution and health care – But who is going to pay?

Economics of Good and Evil: In his best-selling books in the Czech Republic, former advisor to Vaclav Havel Sedlacek shows how economics is woven out of history, myth, religion and ethics. Come listen to a fascinating ride that will take you from the Epic of Gilgamesh through the Bible and the Greeks to today’s pop culture in film – a fresh look at economics as part of our culture.

LongNow:

Dmitry Orlov: Social Collapse Best Practices

Six Easy Steps to Avert the Collapse of Civilization 4/10.

TEDtalks:

James Glattfelder studies complexity: how an interconnected system — say, a swarm of birds — is more than the sum of its parts. And complexity theory, it turns out, can reveal a lot about how the economy works. Glattfelder shares a groundbreaking study of how control flows through the global economy, and how concentration of power in the hands of a shockingly small number leaves us all vulnerable. TEDtalk. See Systems Thinking 1/15.

Theme: The Quest to End Poverty

Mariana Mazzucato offers a bold contrarian view: States aren't only market regulators and fixers, but "market makers" -- actively creating a vision for innovation and investing in risky and uncertain areas where private capital may not see the ROI. 11/13.

Global Witness co-founder Charmian Gooch exposes how a global architecture of corruption is woven into the extraction and exploitation of natural resources. 7/13 TEDtalk.

Hans Rofling on poverty Amazing TEDtalk video. ****

James B. Glattfelder aims to give us a richer, data-driven understanding of the people and interactions that control our global economy. He does this not to push an ideology -- but with the hopes of making the world a better place.

TEDtalk by Paul Gilding, author of The Great Disruption: Why the Climate Crisis Will Bring On the End of Shopping and the Birth of a New World. 3/12

Charmian Gooch: Meet global corruption's hidden players 3/14.

Richard Wilkinson: How economic inequality harms societies (TEDtalk video). ***

Related Banned TED Talk by Seattle entrepreneur Nick Hanauer backstory. See also CRS/CBO study that corroborates also suppressed.

Jacqueline Novogratz tells a moving story of an encounter in a Nairobi slum with Jane, a former prostitute, whose dreams of escaping poverty, of becoming a doctor and of getting married were fulfilled in an unexpected way. patient capitalism TEDtalk video.

Credit rating agencies, with their power to downgrade credit ratings for entire nations, have come under intense scrutiny and recent events have put their acceptance and transparency into question. What if there was an alternative, free from the limitations and weakened legitimacy that encumbers the big three agencies? Annette Heuser, executive director of the Washington branch of the German Bertelsmann Foundation, has created a blueprint for a new, non-profit solution to loosen the agencies’ iron grip. 2/14.

Rob Harmon: How the market can keep streams flowing TEDtalk 3/11.

Jacqueline Novogratz shares stories of how "patient capital" (microfinance, Africa) can bring sustainable jobs, goods, services -- and dignity -- to the world's poorest. TEDtalk video

Paul Collier’s book The Bottom Billion (an excerpt) shows what is happening to the poorest people in the world, and offers ideas for opening up opportunities to all.

Capitalism:Ilan Ziv's documentary trailer. *** Facebook blog. Audio excerpts: overall summary around min 30; Karl Polanyi. chapter trailers

Vinod Khosla Discusses Investments in Food: Faux Meat, Dairy-Free Cheese & More, the “legendary” investor Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures, on how he approaches business and investments, including in the food+tech space. TechCrunch.

BookTV *** BookTV example "Imagine: Living in a Socialist USA" (video panel discussion includes Richard Wolf (influence of Marx(video).

Joseph Stiglitz talked about his book,The Great Divide: Unequal Societies and What We Can Do About Them, about the rising inequality in the United States and what can be done about it.(Book). 6/15.

Other sources

Renowned Farmer and Writer Wendell Berry: Confronting the Consequences of Runaway Capitalism 10/13.

Inside Job is a documentary about the financial crisis. Audio interview. See also Heist: Who Stole the American Dream?

Statistician Nic Marks asks why we measure a nation's success by its productivity -- instead of by the happiness and well-being of its people. He introduces the Happy Planet Index, which tracks national well-being against resource use.

Mama Earth: EcoEcon 101 Another gloom and doom film? No! Quite the contrary, this film revels in innovation, invention and creativity. An inspiring road map of successful ways to achieve sustainability through reinventing old business methods and finding new paths to healthy communities, protecting natural resources and attaining a more profitable bottom line.

The Economics of Happiness shows how globalization breeds cultural self-rejection, competition and divisiveness; how it structurally promotes the growth of slums and urban sprawl; how it is decimating democracy. The second half of The Economics of Happiness provides not only inspiration, but practical solutions. Arguing that economic localization is a strategic solution multiplier that can solve our most serious problems, the film spells out the policy changes needed to enable local businesses to survive and prosper.

Hunter Lovins discusses why investing in greater sustainability in the best business strategy of the 21st century. UCTV.

Dirt cookies in Haiti.

The Politics of Happiness: What Government Can Learn from the New Research on Well-Being video. A number of problems with conventional economics include using GDP which does not include "externalities" like pollution (and in fact would count the cost of caring for someone unnecessarily made sick by it as a benefit). Here Bok takes the idea a bit further.

Recent films about the economy, American Casino (trailer) and Schmata (history of the garment industry) reviewed. (audio)

Van Jones "A New Green Deal" (see Eco-heroes).

Herman Daly, his classic book Beyond Growth Here is an essay"Can we grow our way to an environmentally sustainable world?" from his new book. "Ecological Economics FAQs" video

Green Collar jobs on PBS Now (video)

PBS News Hour segment on venture capital flowing to green businesses. 6/08

Naomi Klein author of "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism" , video of talk given September 27, 2007. No Logo 2000. Both discussed in this video interview. Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism; some of the underlying myths of capitalism are summarized in a great TEDtalk by Klein on "Why We Are Addicted to Risk?" (includes the underlying myths that drive environmental and economic problems, in opposition to the Precautionary Principle).

The Authors@Google program welcomed Auden Schendler to discuss his book, "Getting Green Done". Auden Schendler is Executive Director of Community and Environmental Responsibility at Aspen Skiing Company, a pioneering green business in the U.S. He worked previously in corporate sustainability at Rocky Mountain Institute. Link.

At Yale Dr. Costanza explores how a cultural transition that respects biophysical boundaries and balances built, human, social and natural capital assets can create a sustainable and desirable future.Link

Audio

Richard Wolff, Marxist economist. Weekly podcast.

Mariana Mazzucato The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Private vs. Public Sector Myths: Government as radical, patient VC. The iPhone, Mazzucato pointed out, is held up as a classic example of world-changing innovation coming from business. Yet every feature of the iPhone was created, originally, by multi-decade government-funded research. From DARPA came the microchip, the Internet, the micro hard drive, the DRAM cache, and Siri. From the Department of Defense came GPS, cellular technology, signal compression, and parts of the liquid crystal display and multi-touch screen (joining funding from the CIA, the National Science Foundation, and the Department of Energy, which, by the way, developed the lithium-ion battery.) CERN in Europe created the Web. Steve Jobs’ contribution was to integrate all of them beautifully. LongNow 3/14.

Nobel winning economist Joseph Stiglitz: The Price of Inequality ([audio talk 6/12/12). video interview

L. Hunter Lovins, President and Founder, Natural Capitalism Solutions; Author, Climate Capitalism: Capitalism in the Age of Climate Change. The time when businesses could operate without regard for their environmental impact is long past. Many companies now calculate their carbon footprint, minimize their packaging, switch to efficient energy sources wherever possible, and some even purchase carbon offsets. The U.S. is no longer in a race to the bottom with Asian manufacturing giants, but a race to sustainability and efficiency. Innovative companies are looking beyond the costs of climate change and toward business strategies that capitalize on new opportunities, innovate and spur economic growth. Time Magazine Hero of the Planet Lovins argues that moving aggressively to solve global warming, peak oil and weaknesses in our energy infrastructure will give us a stronger economy and higher quality of life. Get the inside scoop on sustainable approaches and what corporations of the present and future will need to do to remain competitive. 4/12/11 Link.

Cleveland's Green, Large-Scale Co-Op Model Gains Steam In A Decaying Economy. The Evergreen model draws heavily on the experience of the Mondragon Cooperative Corporation in the Basque Country of Spain, the world's most successful large-scale cooperative effort (now employing 100,000 workers in an integrated network of more than 120 high-tech, industrial, service, construction, financial and other largely cooperatively owned businesses). BBC audio

Websites and Blogs

UCSC's own Atlas of Global Inequality

Avery Lovins Rocky Mountain Institute, new report ReInventing Fire 6/14.

Environmental Economics

Corpwatch.org

Natural Capital Project is using these tools to integrate scientific and economic understanding of natural assets into real land-use and investment decisions.

World military expenditures 2008.

B Corporation are socially responsible and green co's.