ABSTRACT
This introduction is being written at a time when the “Occupy Wall Street” movement is in its third week and continues to gather momentum in the United States of America. On the other side of the Atlantic, European leaders have delayed by two weeks the summit to finalize the bailout plan for Greece and the wider eurozone debt crisis. And to add more drama to the sequence of events, the cover story of this week’s issue of The Economist is entitled “Be Afraid”, with the tagline stating “unless politicians act more boldly, the world economy will keep heading towards a black hole” (The Economist, 2011). Also of note is the passing of the US Senate bill aimed at punishing China and other countries that the US deems are undervaluing their currencies. The Chinese response through its official news agency Xinhua stated that the “US legislation was reminiscent of the Smoot-Hawley tariff act in 1930 that is widely credited with worsening the Great Depression” (Financial Times 2011a).
