Category Archives: Economics

Previews: Best Books On Foreign Affairs For 2024

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Foreign Policy Magazine (December 31, 2023): The Best of Books 2024 Here are 30 major nonfiction titles coming out this year on Foreign Policy’s radar, from economic manifestos to histories of forgotten eras to new assessments of great-power competition in the 21st century. New titles include:

The Everything War: Amazon’s Ruthless Quest to Own the World and Remake Corporate Power 

The Everything War: Amazon's Ruthless Quest to Own the World and Remake  Corporate Power: 9780316269773: Mattioli, Dana: Books - Amazon.com

by Dana Mattioli (April 23, 2024)

From veteran Amazon reporter for The Wall Street Journal, The Everything War is the first untold, devastating exposé of Amazon’s endless strategic greed, from destroying Main Street to remaking corporate power, in pursuit of total domination, by any means necessary.

In 2017, Lina Khan published a paper that accused Amazon of being a monopoly, having grown so large, and embedded in so many industries, it was akin to a modern-day Standard Oil. Unlike Rockefeller’s empire, however, Bezos’s company had grown voraciously without much scrutiny. 

Foreign Agents: How American Lobbyists and Lawmakers Threaten Democracy Around the World

Foreign Agents

By Casey Michel (August 2024)

A stunning investigation and indictment of the elements in United States’ foreign lobbying industry and the threat they pose to democracy.

For years, one group of Americans has worked as foot-soldiers for the most authoritarian regimes around the planet. In the process, they’ve not only entrenched dictatorships and spread kleptocratic networks, but they’ve secretly guided U.S. policy without the rest of America even being aware. And now, journalist Casey Michel contends some of them have begun turning their sights on American democracy itself.

New Cold Wars : China’s Rise, Russia’s Invasion, and America’s Struggle to Defend the West

New Cold Wars by David E. Sanger: 9780593443590 | PenguinRandomHouse.com:  Books

By David E. Sanger (April 2024)

Three decades after the end of the Cold War, the United States finds itself in a volatile rivalry against the other two great nuclear powers–Xi Jinping’s China and Vladimir Putin’s Russia–in a world far more complex and dangerous than that of a half century ago

.New Cold Wars–the latest from Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author of The Perfect Weapon, David E. Sanger–is a fast-paced account of America’s plunge into simultaneous confrontations against two very different adversaries. For years, the United States was confident that the newly-democratic Russia and increasingly wealthy China could be lured into a Western-led order that promised prosperity and relative peace–so long as they agreed to Washington’s terms. By the time America emerged from the age of terrorism, it was clear that this had been a fantasy.

The Economist Magazine – December 23, 2023 Preview

Holiday double issue

The Economist Magazine (December 20, 2023): The latest issue features the ‘Holiday double issue’; On safari in south Sudan – The planet’s biggest conservation project is in its least developed nation; Global warming and wine – New vineyards are popping up in surprising places; old ones are enduring; Penguins and prejudice in America – When two male penguins hatched an egg in Central Park, they set off an enduring controversy; China’s new love of the beach – China’s beach culture is a microcosm of society…

The US Navy confronts a new Suez crisis

Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping threaten global trade

For the world to prosper, ships must reach their ports. They are most vulnerable when passing through narrow passages, such as the Strait of Malacca or the Panama Canal. So a recent surge of attacks on vessels in the Red Sea, the only southern conduit into the Suez Canal, poses a grave threat to global trade. The Houthis, militants in Yemen backed by Iran, have fired over 100 drones and missiles at ships linked to more than 35 countries, ostensibly in support of the Palestinians. Their campaign is an affront to the principle of freedom of navigation, which is already at risk from the Black Sea to the South China Sea. America and its allies must deal firmly with it—without escalating the conflict in the Middle East.

Economists had a dreadful 2023

Mistaken recession calls were just part of it

Spare a thought for economists. Last Christmas they were an unusually pessimistic lot: the growth they expected in America over the next calendar year was the fourth-lowest in 55 years of fourth-quarter surveys. Many expected recession; The Economist added to the prognostications of doom and gloom. This year economists must swap figgy pudding for humble pie, because America has probably grown by an above-trend 3%—about the same as in boomy 2005. Adding to the impression of befuddlement, most analysts were caught out on December 13th by a doveish turn by the Federal Reserve, which sent them scrambling to rewrite their outlooks for the new year.

Previews: The Economist Magazine – Dec 16, 2023

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The Economist Magazine (December 14, 2023): The latest issue features ‘The media and the message’ – Journalism and the 2024 presidential election; ‘Can you have a healthy democracy without a common set of facts?; Iran’s regime is weaker than it looks, and therefore more pliable, and more…

Can you have a healthy democracy without a common set of facts?

America’s presidential election is a test of that proposition

Journalists should not spend much of their time writing about journalism. The world is more interesting than the inky habits of the people who report on it. But this week we are making an exception, because the discovery and dissemination of information matters a lot to politics. Don’t take our word for it: “A popular government,” wrote James Madison in 1822, “without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy; or, perhaps both.” Were Thomas Jefferson offered a choice between a government without newspapers and newspapers without a government, he said that he would choose the press (though that is probably going a bit far).

Iran’s regime is weaker than it looks, and therefore more pliable

America should deter it from escalating the Gaza war, but also engage with it

Twelve months ago Iran was reeling from protests sparked by the death in custody of a young woman who had been arrested for showing too much hair. Its theocratic regime was increasingly isolated, as Arab states forged closer ties with its enemy, Israel. The economy was a mess, adding to popular anger at Iran’s ageing supreme leader and inept president. The Islamic Republic had not seemed so vulnerable in decades.

Previews: The Economist Magazine – Dec 9, 2023

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The Economist Magazine (December 7, 2023): The latest issue features Israel and Palestine: how to get to peace – For there to be any hope, both Israelis and Palestinians need new leaders; What if Trump stumbles? – And what might happen if Trump dropped out; Make or break for renewables – Supply-chain dysfunction, rising interest rates and protectionism are making life tough; Our books of the year – This year’s picks transport readers to mountain peaks, out to sea and back in time

Israel and Palestine: How peace is possible

A peace process can go wrong in many ways, but a real possibility exists that it could go right

How to stop over-medicalising mental health

What the world could learn from Britain’s flawed approach

A messy contest is coming to a head behind Donald Trump

Our poll tracker sheds light on that competition. It may yet matter

Previews: The Economist Magazine – Dec 2, 2023

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The Economist Magazine (November 30, 2023): The latest issue features ‘Blue-Collar Bonanza’ – Why conventional wisdom on inequality is wrong; Is Putin winning?; America’s most conservative court; Political Islam after Gaza, and more…

A new age of the worker will overturn conventional thinking

Around the rich world, wage gaps are shrinking

Few ideas are more unshakable than the notion that the rich keep getting richer while ordinary folks fall ever further behind. The belief that capitalism is rigged to benefit the wealthy and punish the workers has shaped how millions view the world, whom they vote for and whom they shake their fists at. It has been a spur to political projects on both left and right, from the interventionism of Joe Biden to the populism of Donald Trump. But is it true?

A religious revolution is under way in the Middle East

Demonstrators shout slogans during a protest in support of the Palestinian people in Cairo, Egypt

Can it survive the Gaza war?

Old stereotypes are haunting the Middle East once more. The biggest butchery of Israeli civilians since the state’s creation, carried out on October 7th, has been followed by a slaughter of Palestinian civilians. America, which has funded, armed and defended Israel is again an object of ire. So are its Western allies. Together they are blamed for facilitating Gaza’s pummelling and the displacement of its people. A truce which began on November 24th, and which was set to expire as The Economist went to press, had led to the release of 81 hostages and 180 Palestinian detainees as of November 28th.

Previews: The Economist Magazine – Nov 25, 2023

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The Economist Magazine (November 25, 2023): The latest issue features The Climate report – Some progress, must try harder….

Progress on climate change has not been fast enough, but it has been real

And the world needs to learn from it

The agreement at the conference of the parties (cop) to the un Framework Convention on Climate Change, which took place in Paris in 2015, was somewhat impotent. As many pointed out at the time, it could not tell countries what to do; it could not end the fossil-fuel age by fiat; it could not draw back the seas, placate the winds or dim the noonday sun. But it could at least lay down the law for subsequent cops, decreeing that this year’s should see the first “global stocktake” of what had and had not been done to bring the agreement’s overarching goals closer.

Lessons from the ascent of the United Arab Emirates

How to thrive in a fractured world

In Argentina Javier Milei faces an economic crisis

The radical libertarian is taking over a country on the brink

Clean Energy: The Global Race For Lithium Batteries

Financial Times (November 19, 2023) – Lithium is the ‘new oil’ of the clean energy era, crucial to the production of batteries for electric vehicles. The FT investigates this booming industry – and the controversies surrounding it – on a journey from Chile to Norway and the UK.

Video timeline: 00:00 Lithium and the energy transition 01:13 Global lithium reserves 01:33 The process 03:03 The communities 04:05 Water reserves 05:29 The investors 07:40 Lithium supply and China 08:41 The policymakers 09:35 Cornish mining revival 12:16 The markets 15:28 Chile’s lithium policy 18:02 Direct lithium extraction 19:54 The indigenous perspective 22:58 Recycling batteries 25:30 The future

#lithium #lithiumbattery #energy #electricvehicle #zerocarbon #emission

Previews: The Economist Magazine – Nov 18, 2023

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The Economist Magazine (November 18, 2023): The latest issue features The World Ahead 2024 – 90-page guide to the coming year; How the young should invest – Markets have dealt them a bad hand. They could be playing it better; Better ways to fund science – Too much of researchers’ time is spent filling in forms; The best films of 2023 – They featured cattle barons, chefs, composers, physicists and whistleblowers…

Donald Trump poses the biggest danger to the world in 2024

What his victory in America’s election would mean

Ashadow looms over the world. In this week’s edition we publish The World Ahead 2024, our 38th annual predictive guide to the coming year, and in all that time no single person has ever eclipsed our analysis as much as Donald Trump eclipses 2024. That a Trump victory next November is a coin-toss probability is beginning to sink in.

Will Japan rediscover its dynamism?

People shop along the streets of Shinsaibashi in Osaka, Japan

Rising prices and animal spirits give it a long-awaited opportunity

Global investors are giddy about Japan again. Warren Buffett made his first visit to Tokyo in more than a decade this spring; he has built up big holdings in five trading houses that offer exposure to a cross-section of Japan Inc. Last month Larry Fink, ceo of BlackRock, the world’s biggest asset manager, joined the pilgrimage to Japan’s capital. “History is repeating itself,” he told Kishida Fumio, the prime minister. He likened the moment to Japan’s “economic miracle” of the 1980s. Even disappointing gdp figures released on November 15th will not dent investors’ optimism.

Previews: The Economist Magazine – Nov 11, 2023

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The Economist Magazine (November 11, 2023): The latest issue features How Scary is China? – America must understand China’s weaknesses as well as its strengths; The Omnistar is born – How artificial intelligence will transform fame; Giorgia Meloni’s “mother of all reforms” is a power grab – Italians should reject their prime minister’s demagogic proposal, and more….

How artificial intelligence will transform fame

The omnistar is born – Those complaining the loudest about the new technology stand to benefit the most

How scary is China?

Superpower politics – America must understand China’s weaknesses as well as its strengths

Giorgia Meloni’s “mother of all reforms” is a power grab

Constitutional chicanery – Italians should reject their prime minister’s demagogic proposal

Previews: The Economist Magazine – Nov 4, 2023

Too good to be true: The contradiction at the heart of the world economy

The Economist Magazine (November 2, 2023): The latest issue features The contradiction at the heart of the world economy – Threats abound, including higher-for-longer interest rates; Why Israel must fight on – Unless Hamas’s power is broken, peace will remain out of reach; unless Hamas’s power is broken, peace will remain out of reach; Donald Trump’s tariff plans would inflict grievous damage on America and the world – You may think his worst ideas won’t get far. Sadly, on trade he has been singularly influential…

Too good to be true: The contradiction at the heart of the world economy

The world economy is defying gravity. That cannot last. Threats abound, including higher-for-longer interest rates

Even as wars rage and the geopolitical climate darkens, the world economy has been an irrepressible source of cheer. Only a year ago everyone agreed that high interest rates would soon bring about a recession. Now even the optimists have been confounded. America’s economy roared in the third quarter, growing at a stunning annualised pace of 4.9%. Around the world, inflation is falling, unemployment has mostly stayed low and the big central banks may have stopped their monetary tightening. China, stricken by a property crisis, looks likely to benefit from a modest stimulus. Unfortunately, however, this good cheer cannot last. The foundations for today’s growth look unstable. Peer ahead, and threats abound.

Why Israel must fight on

Israel’s bombardment of Gaza is taking a terrible toll. But unless Hamas’s power is broken, peace will remain out of reach

Trade wars: episode II

Donald Trump’s tariff plans would inflict grievous damage on America and the world

You may think his worst ideas won’t get far. Sadly, on trade he has been singularly influential