200
On June 2nd, 2014, I posted the first essay on Fifty Year Perspective, titled “Technology and the Future of Work.” Now, eight years later, this is my 200th essay. Topics have covered economy, technology, international relations, environment, politics, employment, inequality and more. (A complete list of all 199 essays and their publication dates is below.) Essays described changes occurring in subject areas, with sustainability being the core principle, that is, will following the current course lead to a desirable future?
Going forward, I am planning to post less frequently, but examine broad topics in depth. For example, I have considered documenting probable permanent changes due to Covid-19, like commercial real estate values or health problems related to anti-vaccine movements.
Another thread could track the many technologies that are addressing global warming. Many of those technologies are in their infancy. Others are proven but need to be scaled up. Various forms of carbon capture exist but are too expensive and need to improve and spread. Work is underway around the world, often with government seed money.
While long-term challenges like inequality and global warming are yearning for resolution, successfully addressing them is hindered by polarization and threats to our democracy. Examining a variety of subjects – redistricting, judicial independence – may find new policy directions acceptable to a wide audience. Civil conversations about gun control or abortion are hard to come by, but introducing new perspectives may reveal possibilities heretofore not considered.
I want this project to be interactive, so I plan to add a comments feature to essays. I have been warned this will open the door to all manner of obnoxious spam from bots that scour blogs and auto post tons of junk into comments forms. I hope to manage the flow and block offensive comments from appearing.
If you have thoughts or suggestions, I’d like to hear from you. An interactive blog will greatly benefit from sharing of ideas. The list below may jar a thought. Please use the “Contact” button on the home screen until a comments feature is operational.
It’s your turn.
| Blog Title | Date Posted |
| Cooperation Is Essential to Existence | 5/22/2022 |
| Fifty Years in China | 5/8/2022 |
| Natural Disasters and Conflict | 4/24/2022 |
| Risking Deglobalization | 4/10/2022 |
| Why DID Putin Wait Until Trump Was Out of Office to Invade Ukraine? | 3/27/2022 |
| Good Economy? Bad Economy? Two Answers | 3/13/2022 |
| Preparing for the Next Pandemic | 2/27/2022 |
| Balancing Market Freedom and Government Policy | 2/13/2020 |
| Anemic Post-Recession Job Recovery | 1/30/2022 |
| Social Mobility and Fairness Correlated to Populism | 1/16/2022 |
| Legitimacy of One-Pary Government in China | 1/2/2022 |
| Fear | 12/19/2021 |
| Technology Is About to Make Economics and Politics a Lot More Fraught | 12/5/2021 |
| Desalination | 11/21/2021 |
| Are Workers Gaining the Upper Hand? | 11/7/2021 |
| The Challenging Course to Reviving the Post-pandemic Economy | 10/24/2021 |
| How European Citizens View America | 10/10/2021 |
| Climate Migration | 9/26/2021 |
| Inequality Tracked Through Six Decades of Graphs Part 2 of 2 | 9/12/2021 |
| Inequality Tracked Through Six Decades of Graphs Part 1 of 2 | 8/29/2021 |
| Building Physical and Social Infrastructure | 8/15/2021 |
| Social Values and the Role of Government | 8/1/2021 |
| A Different Kind of Recovery | 7/18/2021 |
| Who Is Helped by Proposed Legislation? | 7/4/2021 |
| Can/Must the Social Contract Change? | 6/20/2021 |
| Can/Must Capitalism Change? | 6/6/2021 |
| 2020 Census Count Confirms Social Trends | 5/23/2021 |
| Legacy of Fantasy | 5/9/2021 |
| Mandatory Vaccination | 4/25/2021 |
| “I’m from the Government and I’m here to help.” | 4/11/2021 |
| China’s Challenges Foreign and Domestic | 3/28/2021 |
| Lessons from the Great Recession | 3/14/2021 |
| Maersk Line’s Role in Globalization | 2/28/2021 |
| China’s Demographic Time Bomb | 2/14/2021 |
| Did the 2020 Pandemic Change Everything? Part 2 of 2 | 1/31/2021 |
| Did the 2020 Pandemic Change Everything? Part 1 of 2 | 1/17/2021 |
| Making the Case for Stimulus | 1/3/2021 |
| News About the News | 12/20/2020 |
| How Might This Turn Out? | 12/6/2020 |
| “Stakeholder Capitalism Metrics” | 11/22/2020 |
| Social Cohesion Lost | 11/8/2020 |
| Thoughts on Morality and Freedom | 10/25/2020 |
| Another Industry Disrupted | 10/11/2020 |
| What Did You Do in the Lockdown? | 9/27/2020 |
| Pandemic: Warning and Reality | 9/13/2020 |
| Vanishing Liberal Democracy | 8/30/2020 |
| Alternative Truths and Consequences | 8/16/2020 |
| Live Free and Die | 8/2/2020 |
| The Rise and Rise of the Nation State, by Nigel Holloway | 7/26/2020 |
| The Idea of America | 7/12/2020 |
| Redistribution and Pre-Distribution | 6/28/2020 |
| “Build Back Better” | 6/14/2020 |
| After Covid-19: Opportunities and Threats | 5/31/2020 |
| Roots of Populism | 5/17/2020 |
| Democracy, More or Less | 5/3/2020 |
| Democratizing Primary Elections | 4/19/2020 |
| Infrastructure Is a Priority | 4/5/2020 |
| Inflation | 3/22/2020 |
| A History of Sand | 3/8/2020 |
| Free College Tuition | 2/23/2020 |
| Immigation Imperative | 2/9/2020 |
| Inequality and Tax Policy | 1/26/2020 |
| Yold | 1/12/2020 |
| Reunification | 12/29/2019 |
| Confronting Consumerism | 12/15/2019 |
| Thomas Piketty on Inequality | 12/1/2019 |
| Fifty Year Retrospective | 11/17/2019 |
| Blaming the Economists | 11/3/2019 |
| Destroying Monsters | 10/20/2019 |
| Populism Wins and Losses | 10/6/2019 |
| Using Atmospheric CO2 to Produce Protein for Food | 9/22/2019 |
| Capturing and using Atmospheric CO2 | 9/8/2019 |
| Allies and Adversaries, and Inconsistencies | 8/25/2019 |
| Combating Authoritarianism | 8/11/2019 |
| From Democracy to Dictatorship | 7/28/2019 |
| Seeking Center | 7/14/2019 |
| Insurers Acknowledge Climate Change | 6/30/2019 |
| Immigration Policies Will Change | 6/16/2019 |
| Who Will Buy Your Cars? | 6/2/2019 |
| Good AI | 5/19/2019 |
| Nuclear Energy | 5/5/2019 |
| Ian McHarg’s Earth Day Lecture | 4/21/2019 |
| Africa’s Outlook | 4/7/2019 |
| Japan and China | 3/24/2019 |
| Made in Japan | 3/10/2019 |
| Regulating Artificial Intelligence | 2/24/2019 |
| Artificial Intelligence: Benefits and Stresses | 2/10/2019 |
| Democracy in 2018 | 1/27/2019 |
| A Populist Agenda | 1/13/2019 |
| Too Big (Part Two) | 12/30/2018 |
| Too Big (Part One) | 12/16/2018 |
| Governing 1,417,332,945 People | 12/2/2018 |
| Climate Change Revisited | 11/18/2018 |
| Tourism | 11/4/2018 |
| A Plan to Address Income Inequality | 10/21/2018 |
| Technology and the Work Force | 10/7/2018 |
| Diverging Demographic Destinies: A Fifty Year Perspective | 9/23/2018 |
| Market Trends Impacting Inequality | 9/9/2018 |
| China’s Marshall Plan | 8/26/2018 |
| Attacks in Cyberspace | 8/12/2018 |
| Universal Health Insurance | 7/29/2018 |
| Confronting Political Discontent | 7/15/2018 |
| Who Will Lead? | 7/1/2018 |
| Considering Political Discontent | 6/17/2018 |
| Time for Remedial Kindergarten | 6/3/2018 |
| Early Twentieth Century Progressivism | 5/20/2018 |
| African Continental Free Trade Agreement | 5/6/2018 |
| Two Authors on Authoritarianism | 4/22/2018 |
| Rejection of Expertise | 4/8/2018 |
| Globalization vs Sovereignty | 3/25/2018 |
| Democracy in Retreat | 3/11/2018 |
| Tzfat, Israel | 2/25/2018 |
| Government Policy Impacts Inequality | 2/11/2018 |
| Liberalism in Retreat | 1/28/2018 |
| Endless Conflicts in South Sudan by Nhial Tutlam | 1/14/2018 |
| Latin American Elections 2017-2018 | 12/31/2017 |
| Silicon Savannah | 12/17/2017 |
| Manufactured Beef and Other Delicacies | 12/3/2017 |
| Divisions Within U.S. Political Parties | 11/19/2017 |
| The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea | 11/5/2017 |
| “Can We Agree on This?” | 10/22/2017 |
| Europe and Israel 100 Years After Balfour | 10/8/2017 |
| The Balfour Declaration’s 100th Anniversary | 9/24/2017 |
| Changing the Economics of Renewable Energy | 9/10/2017 |
| Is Political Turmoil Bad for Business? | 8/27/2017 |
| Global Leadership | 8/13/2017 |
| New Institutions: Where to Start | 7/30/2017 |
| Needed: Improved International Institutions | 7/16/2017 |
| The European Union’s Challenges | 7/2/2017 |
| Analyzing Twelve Months of Western Elections | 6/18/2017 |
| Highs and Lows of Commodity Dependence | 6/4/2017 |
| Job Security and Automation | 5/21/2017 |
| Public Distrust of Science | 5/7/2017 |
| Feast and Famine | 4/23/2017 |
| The Bear in the Room | 4/9/2017 |
| A History of Inequality | 3/26/2017 |
| Populism in Democracies | 3/12/2017 |
| Obit: The World’s Foremost Authority | 2/26/2017 |
| Brexit and European Migration | 2/12/2017 |
| 2500 Years of Globalization | 1/29/2017 |
| Experimenting with a Universal Basic Income | 1/15/2017 |
| Technology Creates and Destroys Jobs | 1/1/2017 |
| Delivering on Promises | 12/18/2016 |
| Lessons of Brexit and Trump | 12/4/2016 |
| China – Two Current Perspectives | 11/20/2016 |
| Living With Water | 11/6/2016 |
| Urbanization in Sub-Saharan Africa | 10/23/2016 |
| Converging Trends in Aging and Employment | 10/9/2016 |
| The Other European Migration Challenge | 9/25/2016 |
| September 11, 2001-2016 | 9/11/2016 |
| NATO’s Adaptations | 8/28/2016 |
| Zero Marginal Cost | 8/14/2016 |
| Artificial Intelligence Summarized | 7/31/2016 |
| Swiss Defeat Basic Income | 7/17/2016 |
| Brexit from the Irish Perspective | 7/3/2016 |
| The Promise of 3D Printing | 6/19/2016 |
| Oil Exporters Adjust to Price Decline | 6/5/2016 |
| Liberal Democracy and Illiberal Democracy | 5/22/2016 |
| Preparing for Industries of the Future | 5/8/2016 |
| Information Technology’s Impacts on Politics | 4/24/2016 |
| Turkey: At the Crossroads of Geography and History | 4/10/2016 |
| Money and Politics in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election | 3/27/2016 |
| One Strategy for Addressing Food Insecurity | 3/13/2016 |
| Populist Movements | 2/28/2016 |
| Reducing Inequality Benefits Everyone | 2/14/2016 |
| The Peace to End All Peace | 1/31/2016 |
| The Changing Role of Corporations | 1/17/2016 |
| Human Intervention | 1/3/2016 |
| Tourists and Terrorists | 12/20/2015 |
| International Arms Trade | 12/6/2015 |
| Mamluks in the Arab Spring | 11/22/2015 |
| Globalization’s Defects | 11/8/2015 |
| Competition for Multinational Corporations | 10/25/2015 |
| New Economy Jobs | 10/11/2015 |
| Singapore at 50 Years | 9/27/2015 |
| Visualizing Policy Decisions | 9/13/2015 |
| Of Popes and Politics: “Everything Is Connected” | 8/30/2015 |
| Reclaiming U. S. Leadership | 8/16/2015 |
| A Basic Income for All | 8/2/2015 |
| “Robots Are Us” | 7/15/2015 |
| Inequality: Getting Better, Getting Worse | 6/28/2015 |
| Six Months Until Paris Climate Conference | 6/11/2015 |
| Money and Influence | 5/25/2015 |
| Disappearing Youth: The World Population in 2050 | 5/3/2015 |
| Money and Morals | 4/12/2015 |
| Examining Inequality | 3/22/2015 |
| Global Conflicts: Connecting the Dots | 3/10/2015 |
| Redefining State Sovereignty | 2/9/2015 |
| Technology Is Solving Some Energy Problems in Developing Countries | 1/22/2015 |
| Progress in Use of Renewable Energy Sources | 12/30/2014 |
| Replacing Jobs Lost in Recession | 12/10/2014 |
| Climate Change, Natural Resources, and Geopolitics in the Arctic | 11/22/2014 |
| Paris 2015 UN Climate Change Conference | 10/28/2014 |
| Labor Force Participation Trends | 10/12/2014 |
| A Role for Business in Social and Environmental Progress | 9/3/2014 |
| Investors Concerned Over Climate Change | 8/10/2014 |
| Why Are They Growing Tomatoes in Qatar? | 7/20/2014 |
| Demography As Destiny | 6/26/2014 |
| Technology and the Future of Work | 6/2/2014 |