5 big predictions for 2021

A deeper appreciation for science and less unnecessary spending could be in our future.

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  • The "Fauci effect" has helped produce a record number of medical school applications.
  • We'll soon no longer be able to avoid the reality of climate change, prompting more decisive action.
  • Work from home trends are likely to continue and, in many cases, become permanent.
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Why East Germany is a map zombie

Three decades after the demise of the GDR, its familiar contours keep coming back from the dead.

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  • East Germany has been dead for a little more than three decades.
  • But the former GDR just keeps popping up on all kinds of maps.
  • It's a sign that life in the east of Germany is still very different from the west.
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This is how we can design a more sustainable digital economy

The biggest risk comes from doing nothing at all.

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The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored just how interconnected our world is.
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The neoliberal era is ending. What comes next?

The next era in American history can look entirely different. It's up to us to choose.

  • The timeline of America post-WWII can be divided into two eras, according to author and law professor Ganesh Sitaraman: the liberal era which ran through the 1970s, and the current neoliberal era which began in the early 1980s. The latter promised a "more free society," but what we got instead was more inequality, less opportunity, and greater market consolidation.
  • "We've lived through a neoliberal era for the last 40 years, and that era is coming to an end," Sitaraman says, adding that the ideas and policies that defined the period are being challenged on various levels.
  • What comes next depends on if we take a proactive and democratic approach to shaping the economy, or if we simply react to and "deal with" market outcomes.

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Why the US must break the grip of huge monopolies

Monopolies wield an immense amount of economic and political power and influence. So what can we do to make the economy more equitable?

  • According to Vanderbilt law professor and author Ganesh Sitaraman, America has a monopoly problem—a problem that is almost universally acknowledged as such, yet little is done about it.
  • Sitaraman explains how monopolies of today share DNA with trusts of the 19th century, and how the increased concentration and consolidation of these corporations translates to increased power both economically and politically.
  • "We need to think about reinvigorating our anti-trust laws and the principles of anti-monopoly that gave spirit to those laws and to lots of other regulations," he argues. Restoring faith in government and the economy starts with dismantling the things that make people question its allegiances and priorities.
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