Thanks Singapore!

Singer's discussion of creating a marketplace for controlling the externality of greenhouse gas emissions seemed to be a well argued position. Already companies like GE are excited about such possibilities because it could create a large demand for energy efficient products that they have been developing; there is a lot of money to be made pursuing greener technologies. Furthermore, developing nations will receive economic income from industrialized nations by virtue of trading their rights to pollute for money, which can be used to build infrastructure and develop human capital. The United States, for all its faults, has consistently led the world on innovation (assembly line, internet, hotpockets©, etc) and this seems to be another challenge that while we may have created a lot of the problem, we are also ideally situated to come up with the solutions. I also liked seeing that graph show that we aren't the worst country when it comes to per capita contributions to global warming. Thanks for that, Singapore!

As for the Stiglitz reading, something kind of struck me as strange: for someone who used to be a big deal at the World Bank, he sure rags on the IMF a lot. Perhaps there is some rivalry, like among siblings, and he needs to prove that his global economic institution is way cooler than those smelly lame IMF kids. Not that he doesn't support his arguments well about some of the poor influences that the IMF has had on resource-rich nations who are trying to avoid exploitation, he just conspicuously leaves out the World Bank much of the time when discussing destructive policies by global economic organizations...