Expanding the Legacy
Expanding the Legacy
The US Federal Reserve celebrated the death of inflation with a bold interest rate cut. As the Federal Open Market Committee mulled its next move during a highly-anticipated meeting yesterday, its twelve members just hoped, and perhaps even prayed (this is, after all, America), that the reports of inflation’s death are not ‘greatly exaggerated’. The benchmark federal fund rate receded to five percent.
The withdrawal of banks from the high streets and neighbourhood corners is unsurprising. Today, most banks derive no more than three percent of their turnover from ‘traditional’ business operations such as fees and lending depositors’ cash to companies wishing to expand or families looking to buy a home. In 2022, the total assets of the financial sector in the UK amounted to a truly staggering $16.88 trillion - well over five time the aggregate output of the country’s entire economy. Those assets comprise mostly claims on other banks.
He lapped up life daringly, mastered the art of rebellion, and looked far beyond the horizon to find adventure and clam his restless soul. Just before the implacable woke crowd could ‘cancel’ him, biographer Sue Prideaux snatched Paul Gauguin from its claws. The French postimpressionist painter seemed ripe for the picking: the perfect candidate to be knocked off his pedestal, thrown from his perch, and relegated to the scrapheap of art history. It was not for a lack of trying that the über politically correct posse failed in its pursuit.
To placate its critics, the German government has temporarily reasserted control over the country’s borders. The measure is meant to stem the flow of immigrants entering the country to submit unfounded asylum claims. As of tomorrow, checks will take place on incoming traffic by roving border patrols.
The Republican campaign for the presidency is being shredded by an epic catfight between Trump groupies vying for the love and attention of their idol. Get the popcorn! Also: Kamala Harris Takes Advice from Chinese Sage and American Cheapskates Fail to Pay Up for Defence of Ukraine.
Whichever way US voters decide on election day, it’s the day after that causes most concern. A win by Donald Trump is unlikely to be contested by his opponents but promises to usher in a man who vowed to don the mantle of a dictator on his first day in office. Conversely, it is a foregone conclusion that a loss will be bitterly contested by Mr Trump.
The year now drawing to a close, began rather inauspiciously when, on 6 January, an unruly mob assaulted and ransacked the Capitol in Washington, shaking the world’s (arguably) most revered democracy to its very foundations and laying bare the fault lines of a political environment turned toxic. President Donald Trump...
A land of geographical and political extremes, Chile seems to have rejected moderation as the nation elevated a former student protest leader to the presidency. However, the electorate did so reluctantly. It faced an almost impossible choice between a right-wing apologist for authoritarian rule and a left-wing radical. Leading the...
For years on end, central bankers in Europe and the United States have implored providence to deliver a modicum of inflation. Over the past five years, the Eurozone slid twice into deflationary territory. As recently as August 2020, the consumer price index retracted by 0.2% (year-on-year), prompting President Christine Lagarde...
Amongst political philosophers, it has of late become fashionable to hail China as a model of effective governance. The country’s rapid development – according to the World Bank the fastest sustained growth of a major economy ever in world history – seems to imply that it has found an alternative,...
In a diplomatic tour de force, the US government managed to impress on its partners and allies in NATO and the European Union the clear and present danger of a Russian spring offensive against Ukraine. All duly expressed grave concern regarding the recent deployment of Russian troops and hardware in...
Credited with reviving the politically moribund SPD (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands), and boasting a CV brimming with public administration experience, Olaf Scholz was, until quite recently, considered somewhat of an oddball by the social democrat rank and file for his robot-like body language and speech. It earned him the nickname ‘scholz-o-mat’....
Almost two months to the day after the September 26 federal election Germany, a three-party coalition was unveiled, tasked with ushering in the post-Merkel era with social democrat Olaf Scholz (63) at the helm as chancellor. With the SPD (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands) at its core, the coalition rests on a...
A charming chauvinist, addicted to adventure, and in his personal life often as ruthless as the characters depicted in his fast-paced novels, Wilbur Addison Smith conquered the apex most writers quietly aspire to but seldom reach: the ability to ignore critics, speak freely, and disregard societal and political convention. Mr...
Reports of its premature passing are greatly exaggerated. Maligned by many and ill-understood by most, globalisation is far from death – or dying. The Corona Pandemic, now into its second year, did expose weak links in cross-border supply chains and the perils of just-in-time manufacturing. Operational efficiency, it would seem,...
She a master of detail yet sustains a grand vision of securing a multilateral approach to cross-border issues that affect nearly all. An enviable political astuteness and the ability to come up with fresh solutions to tired problems have propelled Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to ever greater heights, shattering countless glass ceilings...