El boom del mezcal está acabando con la diversidad del agave

By the digits

Since it began scrutinizing tech giants on competitive grounds in the 2000s, the European Commission has collected over $12 billion in fines.

The share of present underdevelopment and inequality in Africa is 40% according to calculations by Ali Mazrui.

The average number of women on S&P 500 corporate boards was 11.

There was an increase in the number of workers who received government wage supplements in exchange for cutting their hours after the financial crisis.

One big number

The ratio is the difference in average pay between CEOs and workers at the 350 largest US companies in 2019. In 1965, the ratio was 21:1. What happened? The erosion of unions and the globalization of manufacturing has led to a decline in the power of labor. San Francisco is trying to stop runaway CEO compensation by taxing companies that pay their CEO more than 100 times their median employee salary.

Charting inequality

In the world's most populated countries, the very highest earner is getting a bigger piece of the pie. Between 1980 and 2015, the share of pre-tax income going to the top 1% more than doubled in China and India.

The highest educated workers make a lot more money, which leads to the rise in inequality. If income is to be distributed more equally, it either means broadening access to education or pushing laws to force employers to give the poor a raise.

Quotable

“I believe in capitalism, but I think that the way things are working right now, it’s broken. There’s too many people that aren’t participating. It’s about opportunity, and we have to figure out how we fundamentally solve this problem. … If you naively believe that we don’t need to prop some people up for awhile, well, I believe that’s wrong. I think it’s a public-private partnership that needs to be done; I think it’s government with business, not government [doing things] to business.” —Chuck Robbins, chairman and CEO of Cisco, on the future of capitalism

Commonly held question

Is GDP the best measure of how the economy is doing?

A single figure, universally understood, and widely used for almost a century, is still the dominant economic indicator. The creation of alternatives is being spurred by growing awareness of its weaknesses in measuring wellbeing and other factors important to a nation's economic health. One group of economists came up with a way to calculate free digital goods and services. Some countries are collecting statistics on emotional and physical health, and on whether people find their lives meaningful. The measures hope to better reflect people's economic reality and guide policies to improve it.

Person of interest

Western capitalism is asking questions about its identity, and Mariana is ready with the answers. The Italian-American economist believes that governments should do more than just fix market failures, they should embrace their entrepreneurial spirit to steer the direction of innovation and economic growth. Her approach appeals to politicians who want to make governments stronger and more dynamic rather than smaller, and her influence even extends to space.

Keep reading

Four novel takes on how to identify and fix the world's economic problems.

• One Billion Americans: The Case for Thinking Bigger. Author Matt Yglesias’s big idea is to grow the US population to that eye-popping number. His argument: A population growth agenda would force the US to address a bunch of basic American problems, from unaffordable housing to lack of childcare. 
• Capital and Ideology. A follow-up to Capital in the 21st Century, Thomas Piketty’s new book widens its scope to focus on inequality in places like India, Brazil, Russia, and China. His findings earned the tome a frosty reception in China.
• The Limits of Markets. London School of Economics’ Paul de Grauwe argues the “market or state” debate is obsolete, warning that the nature of swings between the two can be dangerously disruptive.
• What Money Can’t Buy. This video series led by Harvard philosopher Michael Sandel explores the moral limitations of markets. Each episode begins with a provocative question—for example, should you be able to profit off someone else’s death?—and follows a group of students as they debate the answer.

Fun fact

You probably heard about the excesses of developed market economies, from $400 jeans flecked with fake mud to Chernobyl tourism. The term was popularized in the 1970s by Belgian economist Ernest Mandel, who referred to the post-World War II period when large multinational corporations gained strength. The kind of jargon that is supposed to make the user sound smart without saying much about our economic structure has evolved.

Brief history

It used to be that workers put in their hours as and when they wanted to, based on what they needed to make ends meet. It wasn't until the industrial revolution that factory bosses instituted a regular workweek. Today's 40-hour workweek was a triumph of social campaigning, though some find it too long.

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