Journal Review in Current Events and World Affairs

It is difficult to stay up on all the current events in world affairs, as there is always some conflict going on or some negotiation between nations. And then there are the rogue nations, and the United Nations, and groups trying to get together to figure out a solution which is fair for all concerned, that won't lead to problems of unintended consequences. This is easier than it sounds, and it's easy to get lost in the political international rhetoric.

Yes the United States is involved in that rhetoric just as much as any other nation and each nation tries to serve its own self interests, or the interests of their leaders. One way to stay up on all the current events and happenings is to take a professional journal which discusses these topics, where the editors pour through articles which appear in all sorts of other publications, and they pick the best ones out for you to read. There is such a journal which I'd like to recommend to you. It's one that I often read through, as there are quite a few good articles. The name of the Journal is;

"Current - Required Reading Recommended by Leading Opinion Makers," published by Routledge - Taylor and Francis publishing in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. ISSN: 0011 - 3131.

Let me give you some for instances, in the October 2010 issue; number 526 there were several great articles. One was "Too Bad Not to Fail," by William J Quirk, which questions the CDO markets and the derivative markets. And the rest of the journal focused on China, which has been in the news quite a bit lately one article took us looking pretty far ahead to the year 2020 with an article titled "The Gathering Storm - America in China in 2020" by Ian Bremmer.

The next article was "China Turns on the Charm" by Helle C Dale. Both of these articles also appeared in world affairs magazine in the July August issue of 2010. You see, it's not easy to go and read all the various magazines, and writings from all the top universities on such topics, but it is even better to see that someone else has gone through all the articles and picked out the best ones for us to read. There is a lot of value in that, especially for someone who runs a think tank like I do. Thus, I would like to recommend this particular journal to you, if these topics are of interest. Please consider all this.

Lance Winslow is the Founder of the Online Think Tank, a diverse group of achievers, experts, innovators, entrepreneurs, thinkers, futurists, academics, dreamers, leaders, and general all around brilliant minds. Lance Winslow hopes you've enjoyed today's discussion and topic. http://www.worldthinktank.net/ - Have an important subject to discuss, contact Lance Winslow.

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Aftershock: The Next Economy And America's Future by Robert B Reich - Current Affairs Book Review

America's economic Crash of 2008 was directed almost universally at Wall Street. In his September release, entitled, Aftershock: The Next Economy And America's Future, Robert B. Reich argues differently. He believes the real problem is structural: There's an increasing concentration of wealth at the top, while middle class Americans struggle to maintain a decent standard of living.

Reich served in three national administrations, most recently as Secretary of Labor under President Clinton. He's written numerous books, and is a university professor of public policy.

Three stages of modern American capitalism substantiate Reich's message. The first stage (1870-1929) was one of increasing concentration of income and wealth. Stage two (1947-1975), featured more broadly shared prosperity; and stage three (1980-2010) is one of increasing wealth concentration. Reich says it's vital for our future to begin a fourth stage where broad-based prosperity reigns.

Reich profiles Marriner Eccles, a business tycoon during the Great Depression. Largely forgotten today, Reich believes Eccle's analysis of the underlying economic stresses of the Great Depression are relevant to the Crash of 2008. His assumption of a quick national recovery proved wrong, as we know today. President Roosevelt summoned him to Washington DC to share his financial acumen which was based on logic and experience.

Eccles chaired the Federal Reserve Board from 1934 to 1948 (the Eccles Building on Constitution Avenue in Washington DC is his memoriam). History repeats itself today, as there's a vast accumulation of income among the nation's wealthiest people. The result is everyone else experiences reduced purchasing power.

The basic bargain gave workers a proportionate share of the fruits of economic growth. Average workers had enough purchasing power to buy what they produced.

The Great Prosperity years (1947-1975), found America as a whole, implementing the basic bargain. Almost everyone who wanted a job could find one with good wages or at least wages that were trending upward. The US government created the conditions for the middle class to fully share in the nation's prosperity.

Americans developed three coping mechanisms Reich says, to combat the growing concentration of wealth, which today are ineffective. They are:

Women move into paid work. Starting in the late 1970's, women began working to supplement family incomes and offset stagnant or declining male- earned wages. Today, the point of diminishing returns exists, as the cost of hiring outside help or childcare exceeds the apparent benefits of the additional income.Everyone works longer hours. A growing number of people took on two or three jobs, each demanding 20 or more hours. Now, even if they can find more work, they can find no more time.We draw down savings and borrow to the hilt. During the Great Prosperity, the American middle class saved about 9 percent of their after-tax income. In 2008, it slid to 2.6 percent. By 2008, the typical American household owed 138 percent of its after-tax income. Middle class consumers took on huge amounts of debt as a last resort. Median wages had stopped growing and the proportion of total income going to the middle class shrank.

The Great Recession officially began in December 2007. The biggest difference between it and the Great Depression is what happened next after the bubbles burst. The Great Depression inspired government policies that led to new economic order. Social insurance, improvements in the nation's infrastructure, schools, public universities, and other initiatives, created a more secure, prosperous and productive America. The Great Recession has produced no new economic order.

"Technically, the Great Recession has ended," says Reich, "But its aftershock has only begun." Reich says jobs will return over time, however they'll provide lower wages than Americans are accustomed to.

Globalization and outsourcing of American jobs overseas are often blamed for the nation's high unemployment rate. But, Reich reminds us, those factors don't tell the whole story. Automation is key too, as many service jobs including bank tellers and telephone operators are now extinct.

Based on current national conditions, Reich forecasts Election 2020. The platform of the Independent Party could triumph, with its "clear and uncompromising message." Included are zero tolerance of illegal immigration, increased tariffs on all imports and abolishment of The Federal Reserve Board. Its extreme agenda would be detrimental to US interests home and abroad.

Americans will become increasingly outraged if the US economic system appears outrigged to favor the rich. Among their concerns are Wall Street bailouts, hefty political campaign contributions by the wealthy to protect their interests, and elite educational opportunities for privileged children.

Reich proffers nine primary solutions to help restore the basic bargain to middle class Americans. He admits that some of his proposals are initially costly, but, over time, the benefits outweigh financials. Three highlights include:

A reemployment system vs. an unemployment system. Today, most job losers never get their jobs back, and long-term unemployment is high. Implement wage insurance. Here, any job loser who accepts employment that pays less than his or her former position would be eligible for 90 percent of the difference for up to two years. By then, many workers would have acquired additional skills, rendering the reward of similar past pay.Public goods. Sizably increase public goods such as public transportation, museums, libraries and recreational facilities. Keep them free vs. the trend in "user fees." Public goods improve quality of life and help partly compensate for stagnant or declining wages.Money out of politics. As inequality has widened, large corporations, Wall Street, and their executives and traders have distorted political decisions with their hefty donations. Recent Supreme Court decisions protecting campaign contributions as forms of free speech need to be reversed. In the meantime, all political donations should go through a "blind trust," so that no candidate ever know who contributed what.

These are challenging times for our nation indeed, as we adjust to the growing pains of globalization. Despite housing foreclosures, continued high unemployment, lower earnings, less economic security, widening inequality and soaring pay on Wall Street, Reich concludes on a voice of optimism.

He emphasizes that America, when faced with a depression, an enveloping war and other moral urgencies, has always risen to the occasion. "We will choose reform, I believe, because we are a sensible nation, and reform is the only sensible option we have."

To learn more about Reich's perspective on restoring the basic bargain to save middle class America, visit his blog at http://robertreich.org.

Timothy Zaun is a blogger, speaker and freelance writer. Visit him online at http://timzaun.com/.

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The Current Affairs of the Present Period Will Repeat - It is the Nature of Things

Whether we are facing a long drawn out election process or a recession, some things never change. As we watch the news events of current affairs unfold we often get caught up in the moment and yet something inside us tells us, "oh, we have been through this before!" And so goes the saying; "Those who fail to understand history are doomed to repeat it!"

Thus, the sound and fury of current affairs and news events once again repeats in an endless cycle. Still, some say that; "It is different this time." Yah, sure, that's what they all say and in the end we see those words were wrong, just like before in the ever re-running loop of human endeavors. To best illuminate my point about current affairs, I would like to point to a book you should read:

"20-years Censored News" by Carl Jensen and Project Censored.

This book is a hoot and it has cartoons in it by Tom Tomorrow, which makes it quite humorous and you'll indeed get a laugh out of it, and with that said this whole book would be funny if, it were not indeed so close to reality that it is scary. Take the current events of today, Obama running for president with lots of popular support as if he could do no wrong. Meanwhile the US is on the brink of another war this time with Iran, who promises us that it is not building nuclear weapons, yet continues to enrich uranium.

Then compare these events to the events of past periods; The Russians in Cuba, Henry Kissinger's Essays and the fall of Howard Dean, thanks to the massive media attack. You see the current events and news is still being censored, but somehow every thinks and still believes in it. Funny really and that is what this current affairs book is all about.

"Lance Winslow" - Online Blog Content Service. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/. Lance Winslow's Bio

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Third World America by Arianna Huffington, Current Affairs Book - Middle Class USA Economic Meltdown

Arianna Huffington, founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post, the sixth most popular online news source, details the state of the nation's middle class. Her new book is entitled, "Third World America: How Our Politicians are Abandoning the Middle Class and Betraying the American Dream." Read her perspective and see if you agree.

Third World America presents in five sections, where Chapter One echoes the book's title. It's replete with stories and statistics highlighting the decline of America's middle class. How do you define "middle class?" It resorts to self-definition says Huffington. "If you consider yourself middle class, you are middle class."

The nation's vanishing industrial base, eroding educational system and decaying infrastructure, are decline contributors; as is high unemployment, where one in six Americans is either out of work or underemployed. Meet Dean B., who, at age 35, was laid off from his IT job in February 2009 and is still jobless. Kimberly B. sold her wedding ring on Craigslist to pay her family's utility bills.

Huffington further explores the plight of the middle class, citing fear as a predominant emotion. Obliterated 401(k) s, dwindling pensions, prolific foreclosures, and hints of future Social Security collapse; feed the anxieties. Many now believe that achieving middle class is luck of the draw, not unlike a prize on a scratch-off lottery ticket.

America's infrastructure is unraveling, Huffington declares, with insufficient remedial state and federal funding. Highways, electrical grids, waterways, railroads, and bridges, are a few of the casualties. Some water pipes, originally laid during the Civil War, are perilously operating.

Think August 2007, when the Interstate 35W steel truss bridge over the Mississippi River, in downtown Minneapolis collapsed; killing 13 people and injuring 145. Previous patchwork repairs proved insufficient.

The nation's school system is anemic, where the US ranks twenty-fifth in math and twenty-first in science among thirty developed countries; as ranked by the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development. In 2009, America's broadband connection ranked fifteenth among industrialized countries.

Middle class America's downslide has been decades in the making. In the late 1980s, technology, outsourcing, and the loss of manufacturing jobs initiated a sputtering middle class economy with stagnant wages.

Ronald Regan's election saw the proliferation of free market beliefs: less governmental intervention could best determine society's winners and losers. Regan also ushered in the era of great divide between wealthy Americans and the middle class; which continues today.

Huffington says that an unregulated free market is sooner or later corrupted by fraud and excess. Witness the bank bailouts and Wall Street debacle of 2008.

American politics is broken, as powerful lobbyists and corporate America rule Washington. In 2010, three examples of regulatory failures due to corporate coddling, were the explosion at the Upper Branch mine in West Virginia; the BP oil blowout in the Gulf of Mexico; and the ongoing aftershock of the financial collapse, including fraud charges against Goldman Sachs. The voice of the middle class is but an echo in the Capitol chambers.

Huffington writes animated analogies to make her points. When discussing influential lobbyists, she says, "And like a swarm of termites reducing a house to sawdust, moneyed interests and their lobbyists are making a meal out of the foundations of our democracy."

Each chapter concludes with a profile of a once successful middle class American, who is now economically struggling. Their stories offer gems of twenty-first century insight, including "Stability is long gone, so you better be doing something you love!"

Third World America's title is extreme, Huffington admits, used to emphasize our nation's possible future, without serious reform. She concludes optimistically, that our descent into a Third World nation "isn't a done deal."

Americans are known for being positive, forward-looking people with a can-do attitude. Stopping the descent to a Third World nation won't be easy. It will take daring initiatives from the private and public sectors and personal responsibility. Now, more than ever, we must mine the most underutilized leadership resource available to us: ourselves. We'll still need the raw power that only big government and appropriations can deliver.

Ultimately, change happens on a local and personal level. Today it's up to us to help each other and ourselves. She advocates breaking up with your big bank. Executives took the governmental bailout, paid themselves record bonuses; yet are unsympathetic to those Americans facing foreclosure. Work instead with community banks and credit unions. The greatest antidote to despair is action; and resiliency is key to survive and thrive in the twenty-first century.

Huffington mirrors Robert B. Reich's message, told in his concurrently released book, Aftershock: The NextEconomy And America's Future. Reich, former Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration, also endorses Third World America.

One book, presents one voice. Although some will argue Huffington's perspective, Third World America is a thought-provoking read on the present and future state of the nation.

To stay updated on Huffington's Third World America viewpoint, visit, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/third-world-america/

Timothy Zaun is a blogger, speaker and freelance writer. Visit him online at http://timzaun.com/.

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