What would Bill do?

While Silvio Berlusconi shines on this week’s cover and TIME analyses the state of the 3rd economy in the Eurozone (a country with a black market that is probably 1/5th of its 2 trillion dollar Economy, the more interesting stuff happens in an interview with good-old Bill Clinton.

Bill Clinton talks to TIME about possible solutions to the current US-econonomic crisis that both Republicans and Democrats would understand. The interview end ironically with the question why Bill Clinton is not a Tea-party favorite? After all, he balanced the US budget and cut the size of government.

Meanwhile in the US, Tea-party favorite Herman Cain is troubled in sex-scandals which could finish off his chances. But for the moment, they haven’t.. why is that?

Cain has two factors on his side. Many of the Tea Party outsiders who are drawn to his campaign don't care about old harassment charges and dismiss news coverage of the allegations as a left-wing conspiracy.

Second, there is a perfect precedent in presidential politics of campaigns overcoming personal scandals by discrediting the women in question and the news organizations that cover them…. Bill Clinton.

Scotland

TIME portrays Alex Salmond. Schotlands’ First Minister, 57, a stocky, jovial character renowned for both his charisma and his temper, began his push for Scottish independence more than two dozen years ago,
What would an independent Scotland look like?

Free Scotland would, he says, still have the Queen as head of state. It would consider an alliance with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, though it would insist that England remove its nuclear-submarine base at Faslane and its Trident-missile bunker at Coulport. Scotland would join the European Union and, like Ireland, would allow anyone to apply for citizenship if they could prove Scottish roots back a couple of generations. It would keep the British pound until the right moment came to join the euro. But no matter what the currency — and this is perhaps the biggest reason the country is taking Salmond's drive for independence so seriously these days — Scotland would keep all its money for itself.
A Sunday Mirror poll out in mid-October found that 49% of Scots and 39% of Britons overall support independence, up from 11% and 6%, respectively, five months ago. Salmond plans to hold a referendum on independence before the end of his term in 2015, and he's already working hard to ensure success.

A story to watch in the next years.

Hilary Clinton: the rise of smart Power

Now that Muammar Gaddafi is gone it’s time to make up the balance and see if the followed strategy which has lead to success is a model for a new kind of diplomacy and military intervention. TIME portrays US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton’s role in the whole affair and admideres her working style which has led to a UN Security council resolution authorizing US.-led military intervention. Something that can be seen as a diplomatic miracle when you have to face with a possible Russian veto which is traditionally used to counter possible American military action in the world.

Clinton explains the Libya intervention coalition : her goals is to assert US leadership in the most values-centered way, using the new tools and techniques available for diplomacy and development--so-called smart power--to build more-durable coalitions and networks ... Libya was a chance for the US to demonstrate what it means to really put together a strong coalition in which their usual allies participated but new allies as well.

Clinton replies in the Q&A to criticism that this new style of leadership is too much of “leading from behind”. According to her because of US diplomacy there wouldn’t have been a UN Security Council resolution and there would not have been such a powerful military intervention that got the job done.

TIME Magazine october 24

One of the best features in TIME magazine every week is “the curious capitalist”, a piece on strange things in the world economy and lessons to learn from it.

If you really want China to do something, never pressure them in public to do it. China has been pushing the value of their currency lower, until last week when politicians in the US congress decided to make China’s monetary policy a highly politicized discussion point.

Because of China’s currency values, politicians struggle with the fact that China can export so cheaply to other countries and American businesses export so many jobs to China.

One of the strange things that the article mentions is that figures show the exact opposite. Maybe China’s is benefiting most from their currency policy, but despite that US export to China rose 468% in the last decade.

This article plus a good view on why questioning the faith of Republican politicians is a bad idea and an extensive view on why the war in Afghanistan can never be won are just a few of many reasons why you should subscribe to TIME magazine.

Steve Jobs 1955-2011

Can Washington do anything about creating Jobs?

It doesn’t look like it. Last week both parties blocked each other’s job creation plans in the US Senate. This weeks’ Time has an interesting item which explains other initiatives on job creation in the country. Several governers use their contacts to lure employers to the state. More interesting however is the private sector, where Starbucks has come up with a new initiative.

Starbucks CEO Howard Schulz plans to pool a great amount of cash to be lent on good terms to existing and start-up businesses. The coffee-roaster will kick in 5 million dollars but hopes to raise more money from customers by appealing to patriotic fealings of its 7 million daily US costumers. With the money Starbucks will act as a micro finance organizations providing loans to new entrepreneurs. The kind of people that have been having serious troubles getting loans from banks since the crisis began.

This all in a time when President Obama has declared that the US has gone “soft” and isn’t at the top of its game anymore. Evidence for this can found in survey’s by the World Economic Forum on competitiveness. But more importantly, also in surveys with hard data, the US is slipping away looking at their innovation skills. The most crucial figures can be found in education policy where figures put the USA on the 51st place regarding science and math education, in a list of countries.

But this weeks’ TIME most and for all explores the life of Steve who recently passed away (1955-2011). We get an insight in his life, his work, his passion and what his inventions meant for the world.

The Healing Game

The Rugby World Cup is well underway and almost all the favorites have shown their form. This year’s tournament is held in New Zealand, a nation which has had a pretty rough year. TIME interviews player Corey Flinn, one of New Zealand’s Rugby stars, who normally plays for the local team of Christchurch. The lives of Christchurch changed when around lunchtime on Feb. 22, the ground began to shake during a massive earthquake. 22 days later it became clear that because of the damage on the Rugby stadium, the seven games of the 2011 Rugby World Cup that were scheduled to take place in Christchurch would be moved to other venues. To a city obsessed with the sport, the announcement felt like a kick when Christchurch was already down. Read this article to get a good picture on the meaning of Rugby for a nation like New Zealand.

In this week’s focus on the American elections in 2012 is on the role of religion in the Republican primaries. It seems that new candidate Rick Perry has held an open air event in Texas which was attended by religious leaders of the country. All attendants could raise questions about Perry’s religious beliefs. Perry was praised for it by religious leaders saying that they have never seen someone submit themselves to that kind of scrutiny. It will lead to great support by religious groups. It seems that besides the state of the economy, (unfortunately) the role of religion is getting more important…

TIME - The world after Gaddafi

How the lessons of Iraq paid off in Libya

The international intervention in Libya has been done with the memory of the Iraq invasion constantly on the minds of international leaders. In deciding whether to intervene, President Obama was clearly trying to avoid the mistakes of Iraq. First there was the precondition that an international coalition would only intervene if the war was initiated by local rebels. Any international action had to be requested by the locals. Secondly any international action had to be done with regional legitimacy so that it would not be condemned as another form of Western imperialism. Thirdly, action would have to be multilateral with a big role for European allies in cost sharing.

With Libya, the Obama Administration was determined to pursue the operation only if the costs could be kept manageable and shared. The fact is that the Libyan operation has been remarkably cost-effective. The direct costs of the Iraq war so far are about $1 trillion, 5,000 American troops’ lives and 10,000 Iraqi soldiers’ lives. The direct costs of the Libya operation so far have been less than $1 billion, about 0.1% of what has been spent on Iraq—and with no American military casualties and minimal Libyan deaths....

This is the total picture of the costs. There is unfortunately until this moment no idea what the future for Libya will look like.