The Economist Boris Johnson is busy accumulating power in Number 10 The emperor Nero was reportedly in the habit of dipping dissidents in tar and using them to light his dinner parties. Boris Johnson has not so far shown an inclination to use his ministers as human torches…
By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram* SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 2020 (IPS) – Meeting the President of the Republic of Korea in September 2019, President Donald J Trump bragged that the “US economy is the envy of the world”. Trump reiterated such claims in his State…
The Economist Covid-19 presents economic policymakers with a new sort of threat It mixes demand and supply effects The only thing we have to fear is fear itself, or so reckoned Franklin Roosevelt. In many an economic downturn that is true—an anxiety-induced reluctance to…
By Thalif Deen* UNITED NATIONS, Feb 21 2020 (IPS) – The United Nations, which has long preached the irrefutable concept of income equality to the outside world, is now accused of condoning wage…
Reed Hundt* – Boston Review Ben Bernanke, Timothy Geithner, and Henry Paulson still have not reckoned with the failures of neoliberal planning in the wake of the financial crisis More than a decade after the financial crises of 2008, the shortcomings of the government’s response…
The Economist After data protection, artificial intelligence, competition and more. The Brussels effect, cont BERLIN AND SAN FRANCISCO – MARK ZUCKERBERG might not have liked everything he heard, but Facebook’s boss got the timing right for a recent visit to Brussels.
By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram (*) SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 18 2020 (IPS) – In an annual ritual early in the year, most major economic organizations have released forecasts for the global economy in 2020. Incredibly, almost as a reminder of where financial…
By Thalif Deen* UNITED NATIONS, Feb 17 2020 (IPS) – When President Saddam Hussein ran one of the world’s most authoritarian regimes in the militarily-volatile Middle East during 1979-2003, US newspapers routinely described him as “the strongman of Iraq” — as most journalists…
By William Hartung* – TomDispatch.com When it came to war, this year’s State of the Union Address, given by a president who had, at least in part, been voted into office for criticizing America’s “endless wars” and the military high command that fought them, was eerie…
THE ECONOMIST The government steps up support, not to boost growth but to ensure social stability RARELY HAVE plans in China fallen apart so swiftly, so publicly. On January 12th the leaders of Hubei declared that the province’s GDP would grow by 7.5% this year.
