The “problem” of food? Psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. Men think about sex more than women, really? The young's living woes. Simple, online banking start-up. China's working class might, crumbling?

THE “problem” of food. Is there really such a problem? This freaks me out. Nobody gets “hungry” in this Western part of the universe... In the UK as much as 30 percent of vegetable crops are not harvested due to their failure to meet retailers' exacting standards on physical appearance, it says, while up to half of the food that is bought in Europe and the US is thrown away by consumers. As much as half of all the food produced in the world – equivalent to 2billion tons – ends up as waste every year, engineers warned in a recent report. The UK's Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) blames the "staggering" new figures in its analysis on unnecessarily strict sell-by dates, buy-one-get-one free and consumer demand for cosmetically perfect food, along with "poor engineering and agricultural practices,” inadequate infrastructure and poor storage facilities... I remember the days when whatever that was served on dinner table had to be eaten—no complaints, no excuses, no qualms whatsoever—and no speck of rice grain left on my plate... 

LONG come coming. Once thought to be exclusively biologically-based, psychiatric research now looks to social and cultural factors to explain and find treatments for schizophrenia. The side effects of antipsychotics are not very pleasant. While they damp down the horrifying hallucinations that can make someone’s life a misery, it is not as if the drugs restore most people to the way they were before they fell sick. How many more gruesome crimes—perpetrated by mental psychosis—are going to pummel society's fiber for us to realize that it's not just medications that bog down each time a person goes deadly... To signal how much psychiatry had changed since its tweedy psychoanalytic days, the National Institute of Mental Health designated the 1990s as the “decade of the brain.” Psychoanalysis and even psychotherapy were said to be on their way out.

A COUPLE of evolutionary psychologists recently published a book about human sexual behavior in prehistory called “Sex at Dawn.” Evolutionary psychologists who study mating behavior often begin with a hypothesis about how modern humans mate: say, that men think about sex more than women do. Then they gather evidence — from studies and statistics — to support that assumption. Finally, and here’s where the leap occurs, they construct an evolutionary theory to explain why men think about sex more than women. Blahblahblah.. Men do talk and brag and—and anchor their macho fixation—via a flood of sex talk. Problem is, when it is already happening, one shot—blam!--the talk fizzles out to limped surrender. This, while the woman is just warming up.

WE already see so many young college graduates toiling on wait staff and blue collar jobs, just barely earning enough to pay rent, put gasoline on their cars and attend to student loan debt. And the woes aren't about to ease up. There's a growing body of evidence suggesting that today’s young adults are also drowning in credit-card debt — and that many of them will take this debt to their graves. More than three-quarters of renters between the ages of 18 and 24 spend more than they earn every month, according to a survey of 1,000 renters (of all ages) by Rent.com. This is the case even though 17 percent of respondents in that age bracket say they’re willing to live with roommates to save money. More than 20 percent overspent their income by more than $100. That’s every single month. And since they haven’t built up their credit histories yet, it’s a safe bet that these young adults are paying relatively high interest rates on the resulting credit card debt.

SIMPLE is an online banking start-up company based in Portland, Ore., that offers its customers free checking accounts and data-rich analysis of their transactions and spending habits. Co-founder  Josh Reich, a software engineer from Australia, started the outfit, with Shamir Karkal, after Josh decided enough is enough with banks that charge overdraft fees and who endure painful customer service calls to fight them. Reich is confident that Simple’s minimalist approach — it promises not to charge any fees for any services — will draw fans and customers. Two years ago, company has already signed up 20,000 and has processed transactions worth more than $200 million. I hoping the Big Guys don't take a liking with Simple and buy it out.

ARE the Chinese transforming into a white collar nation—sliding away from its vaunted working class might? Guangzhou, a city of 15 million, is the hub of a manufacturing region where factories make everything from T-shirts and shoes to auto parts, tablet computers and solar panels. These days, however, many factories are desperate for workers, despite offering double-digit annual pay increases and improved benefits. Still, these don't suffice. Factory jobs don't offer much future. Millions of recent college graduates in China want higher salaries. Hence, an imbalance ensues. Jobs go begging in factories while many educated young workers are unemployed. A recent national survey of urban residents showed that among people in their early 20s, those with a college degree were four times as likely to be unemployed as those with only an elementary school education. With factories crumbling, this could be the downfall of China...