What you think depends on who you are!

Read "The think-tanks that miss the target," Charlemagne, The Economist, June 7, 2007.

This is an interesting comment on the relationship between the sources of financing and the quality of thinking in Think Tanks:

Too many Brussels think-tanks accept large chunks of their funding from EU institutions and national governments. Others depend on big corporate sponsors, so that the lines between research and lobbying become queasily blurred. Both forms of dependence are worsened by competition for the same pool of what Brussels considers star speakers: European commissioners, top officials and a few senior members of the European Parliament. Nobody seems able to change the default formula for Brussels policy seminars: good coffee and croissants, dull speeches and a brief exchange of conventional wisdom. The painful comparison is with Washington, DC, where the best think-tanks refuse public money, compete to set the agenda with provocative ideas, and enjoy extraordinary access to administration and Congress alike.