Peter Hopkins
President and Co-founder
Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA) Advocate Peter Hopkins gives a unique insight into the battle over online intellectual property protections. According to Hopkins, small content innovators are tackling a problem that is greater than the need for innovation in the tech industry. Read More
Peter is the co-founder and President of Big Think, an online multimedia portal committed to developing the growing conversation about where we are and where we are headed. In that role, Peter has lead the strategic development of Big Think's multi-platform content initiatives, which include partnerships with outlets such as The Washington Post and MSNBC, among others. From time to time, he has also served as one of Big Think's staff interviewers, which has given him the opportunity to speak with luminaries ranging from Supreme Court justices to Nobel Laureates. Peter has appeared in The New York Times, Daily Telegraph, Inc., Fast Company, The Los Angeles Times, as well as on NPR, CNN, Fox News and the Colbert Report, among others. Read More
As President Obama doggedly prioritizes universal coverage over a thorough revamp of the health care system that would deliver truly efficient, sustainable care, “Obamacons”, like me, who helped elect him, have no one to blame but themselves. "Small government" minded in my political philosophy, and ... Read More
Next week, the fifth Summit of the Americas will be convened in Trinidad and Tabago. The quadrennial event will represent Pres. Obama's South American debut and, some will say, a serious test of whether he can rally a more concerted approach to the economic crisis and the other common problems ... Read More
It was disappointing to see so many stories about the incomes earned by many top Obama officials in the year before they entered public service, and to watch them go viral without any context.Much of the press focuses on financial ties between Lawrence Summers and Wall Street, which came in the form ... Read More
It's been a week since the Obama Administration first announced its strategy to stabilize U.S. banks by establishing an orderly plan for them to unwind the so-called "toxic assets" currently weighing down balance sheets. Is it too early to pass judgement?As Paul Krugman declared the Saturday before ... Read More
Outside of how best to solve the current crisis, perhaps the greatest macro question of our moment is what the net effect will be on the balance of global powers when all is said and done. From China's willingness to put forward a bold challenge to the dollar as the future global reserve currency ... Read More
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner spoke at the Council on Foreign Relations on Wednesday. So why did the markets spiral out of control?Geithner briefly sent markets cascading with comments that suggested openness to Chinese proposals to replace the dollar as the global reserve currency, only to jolt ... Read More
It was only a matter of time before the newspaper industry, in a last ditch effort for survival, turned to the courts -- it's the sort of Faustian pact that other old media behemoths have submitted to in their dying moments. Will suing the bejeezus out of outfits like the Huffington Post save the ... Read More
Over the last few weeks, the economy may have a turned a corner. After several years in which public confidence has greatly exceeded any reasonable level based on underlying economic fundamentals, we suddenly face a diametrically different dilemma. Now, the problem is that doom and gloom is the ... Read More
A rose by another other name may not smell quite as sweet, explains Greg Mankiw, who parses the real difference between a 'nationalization' of banks and a 'pre-privatization'. Read More
The cross-cutting matrix of interests that defines our new global landscape is nicely represented in this commercial for the non-profit Citizens Energy featuring founder, and Kennedy family scion, Joe Kennedy extoling Venezualan generosity. Venezuela, under Hugo Chavez's leadership, has been ... Read More
George Soros doesn't see anything that even remotely resembles his idea of what's needed to jumpstart economic recovery and so still can't see the bottom. There's perhaps no one in the world at spotting the opportunities that emerge when political orthodoxy conflict with financial reality than ... Read More
Global investors are increasingly allergic to long-term U.S. securities, such as corporate stocks and bonds, even as they flock to highly secure T-bills. This curious divergence reflects a deepening distrust of U.S. corporate governance in the face of a grudging acceptance that the U.S. government ... Read More
Today, the market pummeled banking stocks as it worked to come to terms with the increasing prospect of a bank nationalization. In a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy, each drop in the ticker makes a bank nationalization that much more likely. However necessary, a bank takeover may become, it ... Read More
The NYT reports on a recent surge in China's foreign direct investment. China is taking advantage of a savings stockpile and cheap energy prices to seure itself reliable flows of energy into the foreseeable future.While similar moves by china in 2005 to buy American firm Unocal were undone by fear ... Read More
Over the last few weeks, President Obama has been beset on all sides with calls for a more hopeful tone, one more in keeping with the tenor of his campaign. Now former Pres. Clinton has joined the chorus, in this interview from Good Morning America.Yet, one need only watch Obama's chief economic ... Read More
It seems increasingly likely that the major world economies, China included, may have to coordinate a truly global response to the crisis, as investors remain unconvinced by everything short of it. Read More
China offered a bid of (relative) confidence in the U.S. economy, stating its intention to continue buying U.S. debt, inspite of concern about the deterioration of American finances and potential depreciation of the dollar.In a speech in New York, Luo Ping, a director-general at the China Banking ... Read More
Amidst all the economic tumult, a medical revolution is quietly unfolding, moving us a step closer to the age of genetic therapies, a step beyond the era of pharmacology and ever closer to cures for scourges like HIV/AIDs. A new study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine offers ... Read More
About Peter Hopkins
I'm the co-founder & President of Big Think, which is dedicated to promoting informed discourse online through video interviews and getting users involved in the conversation. The site launched in beta in January of 2008 and currently features over 1500 expert contributors, from John McCain to Harrison Ford. Before my life at Big Think, I was a PBS producer, where I oversaw a partnership with Google to digitize and archive 5,000 hours of content from the Charlie Rose show and launch a new multimedia website to distribute it.