Here are two of his recent stories:
THE US economic slump has lasted so long that more than half of the 14 million Americans without a job can no longer claim unemployment benefits.
Only 48 per cent of the US jobless are receiving cheques, while 75 per cent were receiving benefits early last year.
The dramatic fall is despite the unemployment rate remaining stuck above 9 per cent and emergency measures put in place by Washington to stretch payments further than at any time since World War II.
Advertisement: Story continues below As Americans have lost their benefits, the number claiming emergency food stamps has surged to a postwar high of 45 million, compared to 26 million at the peak of the 1990s recession.
Unlike in Australia, the jobless cannot remain in dole queues indefinitely. Only workers in the US who have been laid off qualify. College graduates and school leavers unable to find work are ineligible for assistance. In the current downturn, retrenched employees receive payments - typically, about half the median wage, or $US300 ($A293) a week - for a maximum of 99 weeks.
The period is derived from a complicated formula. Employers pay a state payroll tax that funds up to 26 weeks of regular benefits for workers who lose their jobs. Depending on the depth of the economic downturn, state governments are able to borrow money from the federal government to offer an extended benefits program. On top of that, Washington can enact emergency procedures to top up benefits further.
A combination of those provisions stretched total benefit payments to about 65 weeks in the 1974-75 recession, and to about a year in the downturn in the early 1980s.
US President Barack Obama managed to win approval for an extension of benefits in last year's push and pull with Republicans over continuing the George Bush-era personal income tax cuts.
But Congress will soon have to decide whether to continue funding Washington's share of the 99-week benefits program. Should it fail to extend the program, a further 2 million unemployed stand to lose their benefits come February.
As it stands, the program is ''uniquely generous'' compared to provisions during previous postwar recessions, says Gary Burtless, a labour markets specialist and Brookings Institution fellow. The shorter duration of previous slowdowns meant the longest average time that people relied on jobless benefits was 21 weeks in the early 1980s. By contrast, the average in this downturn is about 40 weeks.
''[The 26-week offer] was a good safety net for a shorter recession,'' Carl Van Horn, an economics professor at Rutgers University, told Associated Press. It assumes ''the economy will experience short interruptions and then go back to normal''
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/world/american ... z1fXRlWm6b
We need to talk about capitalism, say CEOs
Simon Mann
December 3, 2011
Professors from the Harvard Businees School, above, have identified ten major threats to capitalism. Photo: Greg Newington
Three professors from the world's pre-eminent business school have co-written a study that at first blush looks to fall more into the genre of horror story than business text.
But in identifying 10 powerful forces that threaten the existence of the capitalist system - the most successful engine of economic growth the world has known - the dons of the Harvard Business School appear to have drawn a line connecting the fears of the boardroom and those of the protesters of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Income disparity, resource depletion and potentially cataclysmic climate change were recognised by CEOs in a series of conversations conducted by Harvard as among the potential ''disruptors'' of global prosperity. The financial meltdown of 2008 and the Occupy movement are clear manifestations of those fears.
Advertisement: Story continues below ''And we would expect more [of the same],'' says co-author Joseph Bower. ''Because people really feel outraged.''
Professor Bower and his colleagues note in their study the broad concerns of the 46 business thinkers brought together in forums on three continents, but by far the most widely held was ''the tendency of capitalism, as it currently functions, to produce extreme disparities of income and wealth''.
Said one unidentified Asian business leader: ''Herein lies a major challenge, because the world has become very much more prosperous as a result of market capitalism. The rich have become richer. The poor in most cases have become richer. But the gap between the rich and the poor has grown wider … There is the growing sense of being left out, even as people are getting better off.''
One European executive said: ''What was the good of capitalism? Was it the fact that we were building a very large, very well off - not wealthy but well off - middle class? We are not doing this any more.''
The Harvard project coincided with the Business School's centenary. What better way to celebrate it than to examine the state of the system that had nurtured its own rise to prominence? By then, it had conferred nearly 56,000 MBAs on men and women, many of whom went on to head prominent companies in the US and around the world.
The school brought together chief executives and business leaders in 2007 and early 2008 for its series of discussions. They included Australia's David Murray, the former Commonwealth Bank boss who is now chairman of the Future Fund.
Using its famous case-method approach to inquiry, it took as a starting point the then most recent World Bank growth projections and batted around the issues. Capitalism at Risk: Rethinking the role of business, just published, is the result.
Joining in the talks were executives such as Jeffrey Immelt of General Electric, John Elkann of Fiat and Bertrand Collomb of Lafarge.
That capitalism has delivered for billions is not at issue: in the last decades of the 20th century, 97 per cent of countries enjoyed increased wealth, according to the World Bank. But the executives cited as potential threats the powerful forces within financial markets, environmental degradation and political populism, terrorism and war, migration and pandemics.
''History tells us that when an awful lot of people are disenfranchised, they have no incentive to play by the rules, and given today's communications availability, weaponry … that's an issue we have to really think about,'' one said.
Unsurprisingly, they back business, not government, to ameliorate strains on the system through innovation and activism. ''Good government is crucial, to be sure,'' write the Harvard professors. ''But government … needs the support and engagement of business to function effectively.''
In the US, the argument for higher taxes on the wealthy has coalesced around billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who has become a poster boy for the Obama's administration's campaign to raise revenues, resisted by Republicans.
''Finding a way to mobilise the entire relevant business community - and others - to help support the needed taxes simply makes sense,'' the Harvard dons conclude.
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/world/we-need- ... z1fXSiMPiS