Questões de Concurso

The perils of prosperity
Source: The Economist
April 27th 2006 (Adapted)

    Midway through the first decade of the 21st century, economic growth is pulling millions out of poverty. Growth, so devoutly desired yet often so elusive for developing countries, is occurring in China and India on a heroic scale. Yet once affluence is achieved, its value is often questioned. In the 1960s and 1970s, economists started worrying about environmental and social limits to growth. Now Avner Offer, professor of economic history at Oxford University, has added a weighty new critique to this tradition.
    “The Challenge of Affluence” accepts that the populations of poor countries gain from growth, but says that the main benefits of prosperity are achieved at quite modest levels. Its central thesis is that rising living standards in Britain and America have engendered impatience, which undermines well-being. The fruits of affluence are bitter ones, and include addiction, obesity, family breakdown and mental disorders.

The future of work
Source: Newsweek
Jan 30th, 2006 (Adapted)

    Many of the rich world’s notions about old age are dying. While the streamlining effects of international competition are focusing attention on the need to create and keep good jobs, those fears will eventually give way to worries about the growing shortage of young workers. One unavoidable solution: putting older people back to work, whether they like it or not. Indeed, cutting-edge European economies like those of Finland and Denmark have already raised their retirement ages, reversing the postwar trend toward ever-earlier retirement. Others are under severe pressure to follow suit, as both the European Commission and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) have recently warned their members that their future prosperity depends on a growing contribution from the elderly.
    This erosion of one of the cornerstones of the good life – relaxed golden years – has not gone unremarked. In the last year, Belgium, Italy and France have all been hit with massive protests against pension reforms that would, among other things, have raised the retirement age.