Despite the surfeit of instantly available information, the gulf of misunderstanding among faiths and civilizations seems to have grown wider.

Finally, green economy advocates promise a surfeit of green jobs. But economic research convincingly shows that while subsidies can buy extra jobs, they eventually have to be financed with increased taxes, costing an equal number of jobs elsewhere.

Fiscal prudence and stable inflation rates are cornerstones of today s relatively healthy global economic environment. But for countries that have scope to invest more, particularly those that are holding a surfeit of precious development dollars in idle US Treasury bills, the time may be ripe to reassess the balance of risks.

For example, many China observers believe that accountability there needs to increase at this stage of the country s economic, social, and political evolution. Others argue that Western democracies have the opposite problem a surfeit of narrow, politically assertive interests leads to underinvestment and poor tradeoffs between present and future opportunities and performance.