fallacy of poverty reduction:
An analysis of the sources of growth during the period 2000-01 to 2004-05 shows that the composition of growth during the period was pro-rich rather than pro-poor. It was fuelled mainly by the services sector, (particularly banking and communications) which contributed 60 per cent of GDP growth during the period and the manufacturing sector – primarily manufacture of automobiles, luxury consumer electronics, cement and textiles – which contributed 30.4 per cent of GDP growth during this period.
(...) It is clear that GDP growth during the period was overwhelmingly pro-rich since none of the sectors which mainly constituted the growth were either producing goods for the poor or directly providing employment to them.
(...) Our own poverty estimate also takes account of the inconsistencies in the Sindh sub-sample and yields a poverty reduction estimate of only 0.6 percentage points with poverty declining from 31.3 per cent in 1998-99 to 30.7 per cent in 2004-05. One can conclude therefore that, there has been no significant poverty reduction during the period 1998-99 to 2004-05. This conclusion is consistent with the sources of growth analysis based on national income data.
(...) In the three years after 2004-05 the demand-supply imbalances in the economy resulting from design errors of the economic policy led to accelerated inflation, particularly food inflation, severe shortages of flour, electricity, gas and fuel. The accelerating inflation rate particularly for items in the poor man’s basket would be expected to have worsened the poverty situation.

no room for two states:
The total land area designated for a Palestinian state, as a proposed solution to the conflict, amounts to no more than 10 per cent of the actual territory under dispute, which is historic Palestine. Moreover, that designated area is not geographically contiguous, but rather consists of disconnected and isolated patches of territory. If and when that state is founded, it will not have an army or any autonomous means to defend itself and its borders will be subject to constant surveillance by land, sea and air. But if it is to be founded at all, that phantom state will first have to recognise Israel's right to 90 per cent of the disputed territory, the purely Jewish character of that state and, hence, its right to remain eternally open to Jews from around the world, along with the right of that state to an immensely powerful army equipped with every available type of weapon, including nuclear missiles.
(...) Clearly, then, the so-called Palestinian state that is supposed to arise from the current "peace process" is never going to lead to a just and lasting solution to the conflict. Indeed, that conception of a state has been specifically designed to help Israel ward off what it regards as the foremost threat, which it unabashedly terms the "Palestinian demographic bomb". With considerable perseverance and dexterity, Israel managed to steer negotiations currently taking place with the Palestinian Authority into a long, dark tunnel, the only glimmer of light at the end of which is a congenitally disfigured state that will ultimately prove a means for inflaming tensions rather than ending them.

uncomfortable spotlight in davos:
The price of attendance isn't cheap: each CEO spends roughly $60,000 a year to attend. But once they have made it onto the invite list they can look forward to schmoozing with their peers in Davos and hobnobbing with celebrities.
(...) One of the world's best-known CEOs, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, admitted to fellow participants that he had become skeptical of the very notion of capitalism. He told the Wall Street Journal that he had seen the failings of capitalism first-hand on visits to places such as the South African slum of Soweto, and had discussed them with dozens of experts on disease and poverty.
(...) At one of the most widely attended events of the week, Gates called for a "creative capitalism" that uses market forces to address poor-country needs that he feels are being ignored. "We have to find a way to make the aspects of capitalism that serve wealthier people serve poorer people as well," Gates said. "I'm an optimist, but I'm an impatient optimist. The world is not getting better fast enough, and it's not getting better for everyone."

the ownership society:
Well before the ownership society had a neat label, its creation was central to the success of the right-wing economic revolution around the world. The idea was simple: if working-class people owned a small piece of the market–a home mortgage, a stock portfolio, a private pension–they would cease to identify as workers and start to see themselves as owners, with the same interests as their bosses. That meant they could vote for politicians promising to improve stock performance rather than job conditions. Class consciousness would be a relic.