When Alan Greenspan urged Congress last week to cut future benefits in Social Security and Medicare, sending elected officials to the barricades, he was if anything understating the magnitude of the problems ahead.

Indeed, the numbers are so big and extend so far into the future that they border on the surreal.

In this "artful, informative, and delightful" book, Jared Diamond convincingly argues that geographical and environmental factors shaped the modern world. A major advance in our understanding of human societies, Guns, Germs, and Steel chronicles the way that the modern world came to be ...

In a pioneering study released last week, the Union of Concerned Scientists asked two independent labs to examine samples of traditional corn, soybean and canola seeds. The labs found contamination in half the corn, half the soybean and more than 80 percent of the canola varieties.

If our market system is to function smoothly, the vast majority of trades must rest on mutual trust ...

The shift of emphasis from physical materials to ideas as the core of value creation appears to have accelerated in recent decades.

New ideas almost invariably build on old ideas in ways that are difficult or impossible to trace.

Ideas are at the center of productivity growth.

"These problems require clear, concentrated thinking, rather than quick legislative or regulatory action."

"Bits are not the same as atoms. We need to reframe the legal discussion ... in a more thoughtful way."

Promoting Innovation and Economic Growth: The Special Problem of Digital Intellectual Property, a new CED policy statement is now available.

The statement includes an overview of copyright law and business innovation, as well as recommendations for overcoming the challenges inherent in digital media.

The increasing move of white-collar jobs overseas is inevitable, says one longtime Silicon Valley activist. So the fight for workers' rights has to go global.

If your job has been offshored to another country, where someone else will do it for a fraction of your former salary, should you:

(a) beg;
(b) rail against the prevailing trend;
(c) get a different, less vulnerable job?

Amy Dean has a more radical, if wonkier, idea.

Dean: "The obligation of the employee is to constantly keep skills upgraded and keep really current in whatever field that you work in. It also means that the social networks that you're a part of become increasingly important, because they become the vehicle that connects you to employment."

Salon: What do you think that Silicon Valley will be like 20 years from now?

It is in the interest of American farmers to maintain some supplies "uncontaminated" by engineered genes.

That may soon cease to be possible.

A report published last week described tests carried out on supposedly unmodified corn, soy and canola seeds, all purchased commercially. Of 18 seed varieties tested, 16 seemed to contain some genetically engineered elements.