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US infrastructure deficit (Khaleej Times) American vice-president Joe Biden quipped recently that if a passenger
were to be taken blindfolded to Hong Kong, he would on arrival feel he was in
America, looking at the modern airport. But if the same person was
brought to New York’s LaGuardia Airport, he would say: “I must be in some
Third-World country.” America’s ranking in terms of infrastructure in the World
Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness report has fallen sharply.
The
American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) estimates that the US needs to spend
$3.6 trillion over the next six years to boost its infrastructure, especially
in roads, highways, bridges and urban facilities. President Barack Obama wants
Congress to allot $302 billion for upgrading the nation’s roads and railways. Unfortunately,
unlike in many other parts of the world, much of the spending on infrastructure
in the US is done by the federal and state governments, with insignificant
public-private initiatives.
Many
Americans are also reluctant to pay toll on roads; consequently, governments do
not want to introduce such fees on interstate highways, though many of the
roads are nearing the end of their 50-year life span. Traditionally, building
and repairing of roads is funded by a federal tax on petrol, but with a gradual
decline in the number of vehicles, the money is inadequate to fund
improvements. The crisis in America calls for new thinking and a greater role
for private players to bridge the widening infrastructure deficit.
2 Global warming to hit Asia hardest (Robin McKie in The Guardian) People in coastal regions of Asia, particularly those living in cities, could face some of the worst effects of global warming, climate experts will warn this week. Hundreds of millions of people are likely to lose their homes as flooding, famine and rising sea levels sweep the region, one of the most vulnerable on Earth to the impact of global warming, the UN states.
The report – Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability – makes it clear that for the first half of this century countries such as the UK will avoid the worst impacts of climate change, triggered by rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. A combination of a high-risk region and the special vulnerability of cities make coastal Asian urban centres likely flashpoints for future conflict and hardship as the planet warms up this century. Acrid plumes of smoke – produced by forest fires triggered by drought and other factors –are already choking cities across south-east Asia. In future, this problem is likely to get worse, say scientists.
Other potential crises highlighted by the report include the likelihood that yields of major crops such as wheat, rice and maize are likely to decline at rates of up to 2% a decade, at a time when demands for these crops – triggered by world population increases – are likely to rise by 14%. At the same time, coral reefs face devastating destruction triggered by increasing amounts of carbon dioxide dissolving in sea water and acidifying Earth's oceans.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/mar/22/global-warming-hit-asia-hardest
3 Long-time unemployed may never work (Binyamin
Appelbaum in The New York Times) The long-term unemployed “are an unlucky
subset of the unemployed.” They tend to be a little older, a little more
educated, a little less white – but really they’re not that different from the
broader pool of people who have lost jobs in recent years. Except for one
thing: There is a good chance they’ll never work again.
These are the sobering conclusions of a new paper by
three Princeton University economists including Alan B. Krueger, the former
chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors. The paper is
part of a growing body of research showing that the prospects of people who
lose jobs deteriorate rapidly unless they find new jobs quickly.
The basic argument made by the new paper, and others
like it, is that the long-standing relationship between movements in inflation
and unemployment, which appeared to break down during the Great Recession and
its aftermath, can be restored by writing off long-term unemployment. People
are only counted among the long-term unemployed if they say they are still
looking for jobs. As time passes, people tend to give up, and those who do are
no longer counted as members of the labor force.
So why do the people who persist in trying become less
successful with time? “Either because, on the supply side, they grow
discouraged and search for a job less intensively or because, on the demand
side, employers discriminate against the long-term unemployed, based on the
(rational or irrational) expectation that there is a productivity-related
reason that accounts for their long jobless spell,” the new paper says.
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/20/unemployed-you-might-never-work-again/?_php=true&_type=blogs&src=rechp&_r=0
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