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...common purpose. Some might argue that financing artists should be low on our priority totem pole. But artists are taxpayers, rent-payers, and consumers—just like everyone else. This country has 100,000 nonprofit arts groups, which employ some six million people and contribute $167 billion to the economy per year. Of course, in the long term we could use more engineers and science teachers, but right now we really need more working Americans exchanging goods and services...
...dramas. Women account for up to 50% of the world's 100 million-strong migrant-worker population - and there is no effective entity to protect their rights and dignity. In 2008, Indonesians working abroad, commonly as domestic staff in the Middle East and parts of Asia, contributed about $6.8 billion to their national economy via remittances, according to the World Bank. And while statistics are difficult to come by, there are increasing reports of many who are physically abused, raped and - in some cases - killed by their employers. (Read more about the abuse of Indonesian migrant workers...
...just NIMBYism that constrains the U.S. these days, of course. America is close to tapped out financially, with budget deficits this year and next exceeding $1 trillion and forecast to remain above $500 billion through 2019. But sometimes the country seems tapped out in terms of vision and investment for the future...
...nation get back its zeal for what it used to enthusiastically and sincerely call progress. But even though the U.S. is a mature, developed country, many economists believe it has shortchanged infrastructure investment for decades. It possibly did so again in this year's stimulus package. Just $144 billion of the $787 billion stimulus bill Congress passed earlier this year went to direct infrastructure spending. According to IHS Global Insight, an economic-consulting firm, U.S. spending on transportation infrastructure will actually decline overall in 2009 when state budgets are factored in - this at a time when the American Society...
When the economic crisis hit China late last year, by contrast, almost half of the emergency spending Beijing approved - $585 billion spread over two years - was directed at projects that accelerated China's massive infrastructure build-out. "That money went into the real economy very quickly," says economist Albert Keidel of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace...