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A Management
Consulting Company
dedicated to creating
a more secure and prosperous world
Foster and Brahm, Inc. (http://www.fosterandbrahm.com) is a management consulting company based on Dr. William Foster and his associates many years of experience with global networking technology. The world is rapidly changing because of the Internet and information technology. Foster and Brahm provides strategic advice to corporations and governments on how to leverage technology to better meet their missions. His clients have included the US Congress, the US Executive Office of the President, 20 Federal Agencies, GE Information Services, Netscape, CIX (the world's first Internet Service Provider Association), SCIC, Stanford University, University of Arizona, MITRE, The Defense Group, the Center for Advanced Procurement and Supply (CAPS), Arizona Research Institute for Solar Energy (AzRISE) and the United Nations World Water Assessment Project.
 
William A. Foster
PhD-University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ. 1996-2001.
email: wfoster8560@yahoo.com
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Dr. Foster has 25 years of experience in industry, academia, and government. He specializes in the convergence of governance and information technology. For the past 10 years, Dr. Foster has been studying the Diffusion of the Internet world-wide. His dissertation on The Diffusion of the Internet in China was published in 2001 by Stanford University. His research team, the MOSAIC Group, has studied Internet diffusion in 40 countries (see http://mosaic.unomaha.edu/gdi.html). Dr. Foster has also conducted research in Ghana, Mexico, and India. Though the world has one Internet, the Internet is implemented in different ways in different countries. Understanding these differences is essential for corporations operating in these countries. It is also important for governments to understand the options open to them in terms of telecom, environmental, technology, and monetary policy given the way we have all become so interconnected..
Dr. Foster is currently a Faculty Associate in Arizona State Universities' Science, Technology, and Society (STS) Program. He works with his students to understand the emerging role of nanotechnology, applied genomics, the Internet, and alternative energy in a global context. His syllabi and evaluations are available under the Courses at ASU link.
Dr.
Foster can be reached at
wfoster@FosterandBrahm.com or at
520-440-0807.
Academic News
STS 317 Class Assignment (10/31/2012)
During the Fall of 2008, I read a very revealing book called "Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises (Wiley Investment Classics) by Charles P. Kindleberger. The book traced 500 years of what happens when there is mania and deeply wrestled with whether a lender of last resort should step in to stem the crash after a panic.
I was not convinced that a lender of last resort should always step in. Looking at the Financial Crisis of 2008, I was afraid that the US Government could not be the lender of last resort and the only one who could be would be the Bank of China. At the time, this was an untenable and unpopular position.
But the choices that the Obama Administration have made: first with the Bank and AIG Bailout, then the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, then with the use of inflationary Fed Policy, and then with the ARRA funds through the Department of Energy have created a situation that the US Government can no longer be the lender of last resort.
Only China can play that role. Or no one can.
This has dramatically changed global politics as many countries are uncertain about how they feel about China playing this role and how it alters the real politics of the planet we are trying to create.
Please write a 700 word essay that addresses this issue.
William Foster, PhD
Faculty Associate
Science, Technology, and Society
Arizona State University Polytechnic
Any comments to the assignment above welcomed. Please email comments to: wfoster8560@yahoo.com
This page was last updated on April 13, 2011