DANIEL LIPPMAN – The Economist rates Trump presidency among its top 10 global risks

A Donald Trump presidency poses a top-10 risk event that could disrupt the world economy, lead to political chaos in the U.S. and heighten security risks for the United States, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit. Electing Trump could also start a trade war, hurt trade with Mexico and be a godsend to terrorist recruiters in the Middle East, according …

ISMAEL HOSSEIN-ZADEH & ANTHONY A. GABB – Financial Oligarchy vs. Feudal Aristocracy

Under the feudal mode of production, peasants were often allowed to cultivate plots of land for themselves on a rental basis. However, those tenant farmers rarely succeeded in becoming landowners in their own rights because a major share of what they harvested was taken away by landlords as rent, often leaving them with a bare subsistence amount of what they …

Josh Hoxie – Affluenza: An Outrage in All Its Forms

Which is worse, letting a rich kid off easy for a heinous crime or allowing an ultra wealthy adult to drain public coffers through bribery? These two scenarios may seem completely unrelated, but they both illustrate the corrupting influence of modern inequality—treating those at the top differently than the rest of the country. Consider the case of Ethan Couch. Ethan …

Deena Stryker – Is the Idea of Europe Doomed?

On September 11, 1989, the Hungarian socialist government, still under Soviet control, opened its border with Austria, allowing thousands of Hungarians and other Eastern Europeans to cross the famous Iron Curtain into the West. That unprecedented action was later officially recognized by Germany as having created a situation that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall, two months later, …