from the prospect

picked up the feb edition of the prospect at heathrow to accompany me during the wait having missed my initial flight back. highly recommended if you're left of center and interested in longer analytical pieces across a similar range of topics covered by the economist

a few extracts that i fancied

in fact

(1) keeping a medium sized dog has the same ecological impact as driving a 4.6l land cruiser 10,000km a year

(2) tiger wood's affairs were the cover story of the new york post for 20 consecutive days - one more than 9/11

(3) traders at goldman lost money on only one day of 65 in 3Q 2009. on 36 days they made more than $100m in profits

(4) the entrance of the vagina has specialised nerve endings called merkel receptors (homage mme chancellor?)

for richer, for poorer by paul romer

interesting article by romer calling for developed nations to work with poorest countries to build what he terms 'charter cities' in the latter. these would be greenfield model cities, established on currently uninhabited plots, run along rules and norms of the developed world. these would offer inhabitants of the poorest nations, at their choice and in full awareness of the rules and norms they are to live by, a chance to experience living in a well-functioning urban system. such cities are to be run by the local inhabitants of each city (perhaps after an initial stabilisation period of administration by developed nation delegates), within the framework of the rules and norms laid down. this would develop administrative talent who could move on (perhaps with seed monies provided by a portion of the wealth created at charter cities) to establish subsequent cities. in romer's words 'to my mind the choice is not whether the world will urbanise, but where and under what rules'; he envisions building these model cities to cater to the ~3b working poor who are expected to move into cities over the next few decades. romer cites hong kong as arguably the first charter city and learning from its establishment and hand-over to china (now under the one country two systems framework) argues that developed and poor country partners should enter into a formal treaty ensuring that the the charter city's rules and norms would not be interfered with. i think he's on to something but three immediate issues pop to mind: (1) developed countries can contribute the rule-book and top administrators (for the first few years) but who pays for the initial start-up costs, infrastructure etc, and where would one find initial administrators below the top levels to staff the roll-out of the project?; (2) if anything there will be more takers than spaces catered for in these model cities, so how would migration control be handled? perhaps there is a need to think of a new system of informal housing to complement formal housing e.g. authorities could set up labour intensive enterprises that manufacture cheap building materials from collected waste in zones of informal housing so excess migrants could work to build their own housing safely and sustainably; (3) the formal treaties has to be designed and executed with care else there could be serious and long-term sovereignty and economic implications (think a new, subversive form of colonisation); so perhaps a global body to oversee all charter cities?