Showing 1 - 8 of 8
Trump's deals are weakening the rule of law
News, Richard K Sherwin, Published on 09/08/2025
» European Union trade commissioner Maros Sefcovic described the recent US-EU trade agreement in unvarnished terms. Agreeing to a 15% tariff on most exports to the United States and promising to purchase $750 billion (24 trillion baht) worth of American energy over three years and to invest another $600 billion in the US (not including an unspecified amount in additional orders of US-made military hardware) was "clearly the best deal we could get."
The climate challenge as a development opportunity
Oped, Navroz K Dubash, Published on 06/06/2025
» When climate change is framed as a global problem requiring collective regulation of greenhouse-gas emissions, developing-country governments see little reason to prioritise the issue over others. After all, the rich, industrialised countries who contributed disproportionately to the problem are themselves backing away from decarbonisation and climate-finance commitments, while low-income countries bear the brunt of the costs of climate change. Decision-makers in developing countries understandably conclude it may be more rational to hunker down and focus on climate resilience rather than emissions reductions.
US can't rely on inflation shamanism
News, James K Galbraith, Published on 23/09/2024
» Google "shamanism" and you will find that it is "a tradition of part-time religious specialists who establish and maintain personalistic relations with specific spirit beings through the use of controlled and culturally scripted altered states of consciousness." Every element of that definition applies to monetary policymaking today, as illustrated by the reaction to the US Federal Reserve's Sept 18 decision to cut the short-term interest rate by 50 basis points.
America's 'new' China narrative hits the stands
Oped, James K Galbraith, Published on 24/08/2023
» Three recent articles in The New York Times have signalled a "new" narrative about China. Only weeks ago, China was America's fearsome "peer competitor" on the world stage. But now, we are told, it is a wounded dragon. Once a threat by dint of its inexorable rise, now it poses a threat because it is in decline.
The banks the world badly needs
Oped, Lawrence H Summers & N K Singh, Published on 27/07/2023
» The world is literally on fire. Experts estimate that another Covid-level public health threat is likely to emerge in the next generation. Rising interest rates have left dozens of countries with unmanageable debt burdens. And for the first time in nearly half a century, the global economy is fracturing rather than coming together.
Musk's covert war on free speech
News, Richard K Sherwin, Published on 17/10/2022
» In 1897, the American newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst sent illustrator Frederic Remington to cover the Cuban War of Independence. When Remington relayed that "there will be no war," Hearst allegedly cabled back: "You furnish the pictures, and I'll furnish the war."
Soft power and Trump's 'winning' trade policy
News, Andrew K Rose, Published on 28/03/2019
» The latest US trade data put into stark figures the results of President Donald Trump's "winning" trade policy. Having talked up his tough line on competitors, stopping other countries "ripping off" the US and slashing America's trade deficit, he can now proudly boast … a deficit at its highest level in a decade.
Africa's man-made water crisis
News, Asit K. Biswas and Cecilia Tortajada, Published on 22/02/2018
» About a decade ago, at a meeting of South African mayors convened by Lindiwe Hendricks, South Africa's then-minister of water and environmental affairs, we predicted that an unprecedented water crisis would hit one of the country's main cities within 15 years, unless water-management practices were improved significantly. That prediction has now come true, with Cape Town facing a shutdown of its piped water network. The question now is whether African leaders will allow our other projection -- that, within the next 25-30 years, many more of the continent's cities will be facing similar crises -- to materialise.