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Merrill Goozner

Merrill Goozner is the senior correspondent for The Fiscal Times and a Prospect contributing editor. His blog can be found at http://www.gooznews.com/

Recent Articles

Medicine as a Luxury

Merrill GooznerJan 04, 2002

It's generally recognized that people have the right
to eat. When famine
breaks out, relief agencies rush food to the hungry. Politics and war may get in
the way (indeed, they are often the causes of the famine). Sometimes relief
efforts are too small or come too late. But the advanced industrial world usually
acts as if it has a moral obligation to respond to a hunger crisis.

In recent years, humanitarians have been taking a similar approach to
global public health. Shouldn't we be rushing medicine to people who need it, no
matter where they live and no matter how much money they have in their pockets?

The Porter Prescription

Michael Porter, management consultant extraordinaire, has now brought his theory of competitive advantage to the inner city. Bold new ideas -- or an old elixir in a new bottle?

Merrill GooznerDec 19, 2001




PORTER AND HIS CRITICS

Thomas D. Boston and Catherine L. Ross, eds., The Inner City, Urban Poverty, and Economic Development in the Next Century (Transaction Publishers, 1997).

Thomas D. Boston and Catherine L. Ross, eds., "Responses to Michael Porter's Model of Inner City Redevelopment," Review of Black Political Economy, Fall 1995/Winter 1996.

Air Piracy

Merrill GooznerDec 19, 2001

Free Market Shock

Merrill GooznerDec 19, 2001

The California energy crisis isn't over: it's only in
remission, thanks to a massive statewide commitment to conservation, a mild
summer, and the judicious retreat by energy conglomerates from their extortionist
pricing tactics. But the state's electricity consumers have been left with
permanently higher utility bills, and the state's taxpayers have been slapped
with a tab of nearly $10 billion to pay for the past year's price spike.
Democratic Governor Gray Davis is demanding a rebate. We'll see how far he gets
with FERC, the Republican-run Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Patenting Life

Merrill GooznerDec 19, 2001

The backlash against gene patenting is heating up, and not a moment too soon. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has already granted more than 1,000 patents on human genes or their fragments, with over 20,000 pending. The patent office plans to issue new guidelines by the end of the year: Researchers will now have to indicate a gene's function--its "specific and substantial credible utility"--and its chemical code to get a patent.

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