A Necessary Balance

In the past, many Native American cultures have treated women and men as equals. In A Necessary Balance, Lillian A. Ackerman examines the balance of power and responsibility between men and women within each of the eleven Plateau Indian tribes who live today on the Colville Indian Reservation in north-central Washington State. Ackerman analyzes tribal cultures over three historical periods lasting more than a century--the traditional past, the farming phase when Indians were forced onto the reservation, and the twentieth-century industrial present. Ackerman examines gender equality in terms of power, authority, and autonomy in four social spheres: economic, domestic, political, and religious. Although early explorers and anthropologists noted isolated instances of gender equality among Plateau Indians, A Necessary Balance is the first book-length examination of a culture that has practiced such equality from its early days of hunting and gathering to the present day. Ackerman's findings also relate to an examination of European and American cultures, calling into question the current assumption that gender equality ceases to be possible with the advent of industrialization.

Keeping Your Balance looks at the challenge that Christians face in maintaining a biblical balance in seven key areas of life.

These include the following: family and ministry; self-denial and liberty; patience and confrontation; the temporal and the eternal; the inner man and the outer man; reality and hope; and striving and trusting.

In each of these categories, the author first highlights the balance that is clearly set forth for the believer in Scripture. Second, a discussion is presented of the symptoms that may be manifested when an individual loses balance in a particular area. The practical life consequences of that imbalance are also examined. An understanding of these tensions is absolutely vital for living a life to the glory of God.

Despite relatively fast economic growth over the past few years, Cape Verde’s public debt to GDP ratio has risenrapidly. Achieving an appropriate balance among public investment, growth, and debt sustainability has become a priority for the Cape Verdean authorities. The IMF-World Bank debt sustainability analysis (DSA) framework has helped the authorities monitor the risks of debt stress. However, the DSA has a number of limitations. This paper intends to complement the DSA by addressing aspects currently not covered by the DSA. The paper evaluates public investment scaling-up strategies in Cape Verde by customizing the Buffie and others (2012) model for Cape Verde and conducting various scenario and sensitivity analysis. The paper assesses Cape Verde’s public debt risks, taking into account the link between public investment and growth. The paper concludes that the size of scaling-up and aspects of the economic structure have significant impact on the outcome of the public investment. A very large surge in public investment may lead to a debt to GDP ratio that reaches dangerous levels based on the usual DSA criteria. A more moderate scaling-up of public investment may contribute better to stable and sustained growth over the medium and long run. In addition, it is critical that the authorities ensure the quality of public investment.