Word: systemic
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
French president Nicolas Sarkozy drew heat last month when he suggested that countries should factor happiness into their statistics for growth. After all, Sarkozy campaigned on promises of wealth creation, and rejigging the data to include France's welfare system, famously generous holidays, and je ne sais quoi seems like an easy way to fulfill a promise he is struggling to keep...
Bartercard's bank-like system - which includes monthly statements and an interest-free line of credit - also provides security and accountability that informal bartering can't. Members must pass a credit check and sign a contract pledging to deliver goods in a timely manner. In terms of barter rates, a service that costs $600 is equivalent to 600 trade pounds; members constantly police one another, ensuring that their advertised barter rates match the rates they charge the public. (See 10 ways your job will change...
...year through the service, uses his credit to pay the hotel's $650-a-month flower bill, and recently refurnished eight of the hotel's rooms without spending a penny. He's also purchased jewelry through barter and then resold it to hotel guests for a profit. The system works for personal use, too. Hill's wife has spent the hotel's barter credits on cosmetic dental work and perms, and the family recently went on a ski holiday in France on barter pounds...
...month after President Obama said he would scrap his predecessor's plans to place a U.S. missile-defense shield in Poland, Vice President Joe Biden announced that the East European ally would, in fact, host interceptors in a revamped version of the system. Obama's decision to remove Poland from the antiballistic-missile program had irked Warsaw, which viewed the deal as providing integral protection against potential long-range attacks...
TIME's promotion of a pension-based retirement system scares me. Private pension plans are only as good as the insurer that backs them--in many cases the federally run Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). The PBGC's future solvency, like Social Security's, is dubious at best. Say what you will about market-based retirement vehicles, but it will be a cold day in hell before I relinquish the security of my nest egg to a government with an uncanny ability to mismanage everything...