The Globalist Podcast (May 24, 2024): China has launched two days of military drills around Taiwan as “punishment” following the territory’s inauguration of its new president.
Then: a “commitment for peace” between South Sudan’s government and rebel forces, and the EU signs off on a new bill legislating artificial intelligence. Plus: television news, a report from Lisbon by Design and this week’s ‘What We Learned’.
REASON MAGAZINE (May 23, 2024) – The latest issue features ‘It Was A Very Safe City’ – Crime and homelessness in America...
The U.S. confronts a growing homelessness problem. Does Miami have the answer?
Government mismanagement, not sentencing reform or sparse social spending, deserves the blame.
Seasonal businesses can’t get the short-term labor from abroad that they need.
Ending U.S. aid would give Washington less leverage in the Middle East. That’s why it’s worth doing.
Economies must adapt to baby busts instead
As birth rates plunge, many politicians want to pour money into policies that might lead women to have more babies. Donald Trump has vowed to dish out bonuses if he returns to the White House. In France, where the state already spends 3.5-4% of gdp on family policies each year, Emmanuel Macron wants to “demographically rearm” his country. South Korea is contemplating handouts worth a staggering $70,000 for each baby. Yet all these attempts are likely to fail, because they are built on a misapprehension.
Governments’ concern is understandable. Fertility rates are falling nearly everywhere and the rich world faces a severe shortage of babies. At prevailing birth rates, the average woman in a high-income country today will have just 1.6 children over her lifetime. Every rich country except Israel has a fertility rate beneath the replacement level of 2.1, at which a population is stable without immigration. The decline over the past decade has been faster than demographers expected.
The death of the president changes the power dynamic
A new generation of AI chips is on the way
The rainbow nation needs an alternative to decline under the ANC
Rishi Sunak’s election call makes no sense, but is good news
The Globalist (May 23, 2024): The latest from George Parker as the UK’s prime minister, Rishi Sunak, sets the date for a general election.
Also in the programme: Nina dos Santos discusses Emmanuel Macron’s visit to New Caledonia following violence in the French territory. Plus: business news with Rachel Pupazzoni and we speak to Julie Finch of Hay Festival as the hallowed literary gathering begins.
The Globalist (May 22, 2024): We assess why Israel shut down the Associated Press Gaza live video feed. Then: why the Finnish government has proposed emergency legislation to prevent any further migrants from entering the country via the border with Russia.
Plus: we discuss the latest World Economic Forum Travel & Tourism Development Index, look at Dakar’s independent art scene and speak to this year’s Booker Prize winner.
The Globalist (May 21, 2024): Mass protests take place in Mexico as the nation prepares for its general elections.
Meanwhile, Emmanuel Macron calls a third meeting of his defence and security council to discuss the unrest in New Caledonia. Plus: Thailand’s plan to recriminalise cannabis, Japan’s changing attitudes to female emperors, Dakar’s independent art scene and the latest fashion news.
In search of the new world order in Munich
Naturally, I too will be staying at the Bayerischer Hof.
—Franz Kafka
The Hotel Bayerischer Hof in Munich is an indestructible fortress of Mitteleuropean culture where tour guides like to pause. Richard Wagner repaired to the Hof for tea after his opera performances in Munich; Sigmund Freud fell out with Carl Jung in the Hof over the status of the libido; Kafka stayed at the Hof when he gave his second, and final, public reading to a hostile audience. A decade later, Hitler learned to crack crabs at the Hof under the supervision of a society hostess, and Joseph Goebbels counted on its rooms for a good night’s rest. The Hof weathered the revolutions of 1848; it withstood the revolution of 1918–19, in which the socialist leader Kurt Eisner was assassinated in front of the hotel and Bavaria briefly became a workers’-council republic; it rebuffed the Nazis’ attempts to buy it in the Thirties; and, after it was nearly destroyed by an Allied bombing raid in 1944, it was reconstructed with beaverlike industry. Today its wide façade of three hundred and thirty-seven rooms imposes itself over the small Promenadeplatz like a slice of meringue cake too large for its plate. Every February, hundreds of diplomats, politicians, academics, and arms dealers convene here for the Munich Security Conference.
Does the rise of index funds spell catastrophe?
Money—where it comes from, where it goes—was on my mind as I drove from Brooklyn to Philadelphia last fall, a Friday the thirteenth. I spent most of the trip on a Zoom call with my wife and our doula, discussing what combination of night nurses, babysitters, and nannies we’d need come the birth of our twins, our second and third sons. Nary a dollar figure was uttered, seemingly out of respect, just as those attending a funeral avoid naming the actual cause of death.
R. Kikuo Johnson’s “Genuine Style” – The artist depicts all the luxuries the city has to offer.
Since Roe v. Wade was overturned, G.O.P. efforts to ban abortion have backfired with voters in many states—and they could do so again in November.
At 100 Centre Street, another man charged with falsifying business records had a good day in court.
The Globalist (May 17, 2024): Michael Cohen returns to the witness stand for cross-examination on his third day of testimony.
Then: South Africa asks the International Court of Justice to order Israel to immediately withdraw from Rafah and we hear from the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Stephen Adly Guirgis. Plus: your weekend drinks menu with Maxim Kassir, head sommelier at The Aubrey, Mandarin Oriental.
The Globalist (May 14, 2024): We hear the latest as Israel invades Rafah from north and south.
Plus: the UK arrests three men for assisting Hong Kong’s intelligence services, the Norwegian Refugee Council reports on a record number of internally displaced people around the world, the latest in arts and culture, and a preview of Cannes Film Festival.
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