Expanding the Legacy
Intensive Care
Just like a particle accelerator produces a string of strange phenomena, a pandemic-stressed economy churns out elements that do not comply to long-standing theories. Negative interest rates and like oil prices are but two of the curios that breeched the walls of convention. The former already existed in the pre-corona...
Newspapers
Most news cycles only last a few days. Major events may capture the readers’ attention for perhaps a week or two before they are demoted to the inside pages only to drop out altogether a few days later. The intensity of news coverage is also inversely proportional to the distance...
Nostalgia
During the early 1980s, the architect of the Brazil’s ‘economic miracle’ was vilified almost unanimously after he sacrificed monetary stability on the altar of growth. Between 1979 and 1985 Delfim Netto, now 91, was in charge of economic planning under the country’s last military dictator, General João Figueiredo. However, after...
Chapter 22: Raining on China’s Parade
Tuesday, April 14, 2020 – Sensing a unique opportunity to take a shortcut to the global top spot, China is putting in a sustained effort to turn tragedy into triumph and expand its standing and reach in the wake of the pandemic. The Chinese government is pretty pleased with its...
$160 Billion in Emergency Aid
World Bank President David Malpass has joined IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva in urging bilateral creditors to extend debt relief to poor countries struggling to cope with the corona virus. “Many countries will need debt relief. This is the only way they can concentrate any new resources on fighting the...
Oops, I Did It Again
Argentina has defaulted on its public debt – again. The country is familiar with the script that follows and unlikely to be intimidated by upset creditors. In fact, Argentina is seen blazing a trail for others grappling with debt loads that have become unsustainable after the corona pandemic unhinged economies,...
Chapter 9: Pandemic Puts Eurobonds Back on the Table
Thursday, March 26, 2020 – The leaders of nine Eurozone countries on Wednesday refloated the previously discarded idea of issuing Eurobonds, a collective debt instrument backed by the combined securities of participating countries, as a way of pooling risk and mitigating the economic impact of the corona pandemic. The appeal...
Dawn of a Kingdom Reformed?
There are changes afoot in the kingdom. They may well reshape the country to beyond recognition. For the first time in its history, women are invited to play an active role in the nation’s economy. Abuses of power for personal gain are no longer tolerated. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman...
The Revenge of the Nation State
The corona pandemic rapidly engulfing the world has led to a sudden reversal in the plight of the nation state as a concept. Rescued from well-deserved oblivion, even smaller countries that have traditionally embraced multilateralism as the only viable way to further their interests, the nation state resurfaced with an...
When the Dismal Science Fails
Ideology is merely a narrative that seeks to justify and perpetuate privilege and inequality. In his latest book, French economist Thomas Piketty (49) needs well over one thousand pages to substantiate his premise: throughout the course of human history the property-owning classes have propagated seemingly coherent and utterly believable, yet self-serving, stories that rationalise the unequal division of wealth and income – and by extension impose and maintain an orderly social stratification.
