Showing 1 - 10 of 62
What's to blame for inequality?
Oped, Keun Lee, Published on 01/09/2025
» Over a decade ago, Nobel laureates Daron Acemoglu and James A Robinson, together with their co-author Thierry Verdier, contrasted America's "cutthroat" brand of capitalism with Western Europe's "cuddly" version. The qualities that make cutthroat capitalism more conducive to innovation, they argued, also lead to higher levels of inequality, while cuddly reward structures tend to lead to lower growth and higher welfare. Today, inequality is soaring, notably in the United States. Do policies aimed at boosting innovation risk making a bad situation worse?
US fiscal state is everyone's issue
Oped, Paola Subacchi, Published on 28/05/2025
» As Donald Trump's "big, beautiful" tax bill heads to the US Senate, investors everywhere are growing increasingly uneasy. On May 16, the credit-rating agency Moody's downgraded US sovereign debt from its long-held triple-A status to Aa1 -- following similar decisions by Standard & Poor's (in 2011) and Fitch Ratings (2023). Given the sheer volume of US debt -- which now stands at $36 trillion, or 124% of GDP -- and rising interest costs, these institutions have concluded that US debt metrics are no longer in line with those of similarly rated sovereigns.
Will the global economy stall?
News, Eswar Prasad and Caroline Smiltneks, Published on 21/04/2025
» The timing could hardly have been less propitious. Just as the world economy was showing signs of stabilising, the odds of a policy-induced global recession have risen significantly. The latest update to the Brookings-FT Tiger index reveals a mixed picture, with the financial index declining and private-sector confidence crumbling even as macroeconomic data (which lag the other indicators) suggest a more benign scenario.
Tariff trap
Oped, Postbag, Published on 08/04/2025
» Re: "Trump tariffs hammer global stocks, dollar and oil", (BP, April 4).
Fortress North America? My brain hurts
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 08/03/2025
» 'Today the United States launched a trade war against Canada, their closest partner and ally, their closest friend," said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on March 4. "At the same time, they're talking about working positively with Russia. Appeasing Vladimir Putin, a lying, murderous dictator."
First as tragedy, then as farce: that's Trump
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 03/03/2025
» Hegel wrote that "all great world-historic facts and personages appear twice." It was Karl Marx who said that Hegel forgot to add that these repeating events happen "first as tragedy, then as farce." You know, like Adolf Hitler and Donald Trump.
How Italy managed to beat fascism after WWII
Oped, Mark Gilbert, Published on 22/01/2025
» Americans are alarmed by their country's stark political divisions. But they shouldn't despair. After WWII, Italy was even more politically polarised than today. Yet by the mid-1950s, it had succeeded, against the odds, in turning the page on its fascist past and constructing a contentious but functioning democracy.
Democracy is in need of workers
Bartosz M Rydliński, Published on 12/12/2024
» Donald Trump shocked the world in 2016 when he was elected US president, winning swing states in America's Rust Belt, including Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, that had traditionally backed Democrats.
The link between climate and talk of 'remigration'
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 12/10/2024
» 'Remigration": the word had a harmless origin, as a term academics used to describe the phenomenon of migrants who failed to thrive in their new home and decided to go back to their birth country.