The Food and Drug Administration seems to be moving closer to approving genetically modified salmon for sale in the United States.  While 80 to 90 percent of corn and cotton in the United States are genetically modified (GM) this would be the first time a GM animal is sold for human consumption.  The fish developed by AquaBounty Technologies has an added growth gene that enables it to grow twice as fast and fifty percent larger.  Opponents, ranging from fishermen and their regional elected officials...

As Yogi Berra said, "It's deja vu all over again."  A new report is out about the Internet which raises the concern over a digital divide.  As the Washington Post story ("Survey of online access finds digital divide") sums it up: "A first-of-its-kind federal survey of online access found that Americans in lower-income and rural areas often have slower Internet connections than users in wealthier communities."This new survey of internet usage, Digital Nation: Expanding Internet Usage, was released...

President Obama’s second State of the Union address presented a comprehensive economic philosophy for the progressive movement in this century. The mantra of the conservative movement since Reagan popularized the now-defunct concept of trickle-down economics has been clearly stated and often repeated: tax cuts, less government. Ask anyone what forms the basis of the conservative economic philosophy and those four words will be among the first you will hear. But what is the correspondingly simple...

Many of the facts relating to the globalization of intellectual property (IP) theft over the last decade are not debatable.  For example, IP theft has decreased the market share of U.S. firms and destroyed or prevented the creation of millions of U.S. jobs.  While currently 18 million Americas are employed in IP-intensive industries, the U.S. economy loses over $20 billion annually to IP theft and in 2007 IP theft reduced global trade by 5 to 7 percent. However once one gets beyond a simple fact...

In recent months, Japan has been getting increased attention; not for its economic success, but its supposed failure. Jeff Kingston’s "Contemporary Japan: History Politics, and Social Change since the 1980s" tells a story of Japan in stagnation since the bursting in the early 1990s of its economic bubble (like us, based on excessive real estate values). "The Economist" describes Japan as being in a state of “gentle decline.” The "New York Times" has been running a series on “Japan’s slow disheartening...

Like millions of Americans, I dread getting my quarterly 401k statement. Every time I open one I think, "I guess I won't be retiring at 65." And so it didn't really come as a surprise when the Federal Reserve reported that household net worth plunged $11.2 trillion in 2008, a stunning 18 percent loss in one year. No wonder The New York Times says that "the most recent loss of wealth is staggering." So did this wealth actually disappear? Of course not. My house is still here. The companies in...