GM Rolls Out New Electric Mini-Car

By Dee-Ann Durbin – An all-electric version of the mini-car will debut this week at the Los Angeles Auto Show. It goes on sale this summer in California, Oregon, Canada and South Korea, where it’s made. Other markets will follow.

The Spark EV will also be cheaper than most of its electric rivals, GM says. Exact pricing hasn’t been revealed, but the car will start for less than $25,000 in the U.S. when a $7,500 federal tax credit is factored in. The electric Nissan Leaf starts at $27,700 with the tax credit. Like all electrics, though, the Spark is much pricier than its gasoline-powered equivalent. The gas-operated Spark starts at $12,245. more> http://tinyurl.com/btal9jq

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And the World’s Most Educated Country Is…

By Samantha Grossman – Despite the ongoing financial woes across the globe, though, many think that college is still worth the investment. A new study shows that we’ve continued to flock to institutions of higher learning, enrolling at record rates over the past few years.

The top 10 most-educated countries are:

1.  Canada
2. Israel
3. Japan
4. United States
5. New Zealand
6. South Korea
7. United Kingdom
8. Finland
9. Australia
10. Ireland

more> http://tinyurl.com/8vhe2ys

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Euro crisis: of morality and bankers

London Book Fair
(Photo credit: FlickrDelusions)

Editorial – Speaking during this week’s London Book Fair, the Toulouse-based economist Paul Seabright deftly summed up why such huge, painful efforts simply aren’t paying off. Politicians, he said, remain hellbent on painting the euro crisis as a morality tale – a saga of profligate southern Europeans and virtuous northern Europeans – when it is anything but. Until the eve of the banking crisis, Spain had sounder public finances than Germany. Similarly, the idea that Athens was covering up the level of its debt only gets you so far. Anyone who cared to inspect the figures could see that by 2008 Greece had become the fifth-largest importer of arms in the world – behind China, India, the United Arab Emirates and South Korea, despite having a far smaller economy than any of those countries. As Mr Seabright put it, such information, denoting just how wildly Greece was spending on the wrong things, was “in plain view” of any supposedly cautious German banker who cared to look.

The implication is clear: rather than devote efforts to ruining the lives of southern Europeans, a far more effective way to deal with the continent’s crisis would be to restructure the banks, then rein them in for good. The alternative is to trust in austerity for the public and generously allow the banks to “deleverage” and shrink their balance sheets at their own pace. more> http://tinyurl.com/6u838w3

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