Balancing the other-worldly success of a few in contrast with the challenges many still face is one of the thornier dilemmas of a post-COVID-19 world where those gaps have grown ever wider.
Read moreDon’t Blame Just Trump for U.S.-China Hostility
The Trump administration, with its fixation on trade balances and its view that the Chinese have ripped off U.S. consumers for decades, clearly initiated the current trade war. But the truth is that American animosity to the rise of China can’t all be attributed to President Donald Trump.
Read moreListen, Here’s Why the Value of China’s Yuan Really Matters
The China-US trade conflict is taking a more severe turn. President Trump announced a 10 percent tariff on an additional $300 billion of Chinese imports; the Chinese government responded by allowing its currency, the yuan, to fall to more than 7 to the dollar—the lowest in a decade. The US government then formally labeled China a “currency manipulator,” which carries no formal penalty but sets in motion a process that might lead to sanctions by the International Monetary Fund.
Read moreWhy Taxing the Rich May Not Save Democracy
The government shutdown dominated the news these past weeks, but far more consequential were proposals floated by newly minted presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren and freshman representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to significantly raise taxes on the very rich.
Read morePeter Thiel is a Flawed Messenger with Crucial Message for Tech
PETER THIEL, NEVER one to keep a low profile, made his most recent set of waves with reports that he is prepared to decamp from Silicon Valley to more benign haunts in Los Angeles along with several of his companies. His rationale, according to a piece in the Wall Street Journal, is that the Valley is
Read moreLearning to Love Stagnation
Economic stagnation, in short, has had little impact on the Japanese public’s high quality of life. This realization has led to a wave of new thinking in Japan that emphasizes a “degrowth,” or post-growth, model and focuses on well-being rather than income or output.
Read moreIf the World Is Getting Richer, Why Do So Many People Feel Poor?
In a widely-read statement in his annual foundation letter, Bill Gates took an unabashedly optimistic approach to the world this week. Not only did he tout the massive material progress evident everywhere in the world over the past decades, but he also predicted that as more countries accelerate their transformation from rural poverty to urban middle class societies, poverty as we know it will disappear within the next two decades. “By 2035, there will be almost no poor countries left in the world,” Gates wrote. “Almost all countries will be what we now call lower-middle income or richer.”
Read moreWhat America Won in the ‘War on Poverty’
In an unabashed endorsement of government action to alleviate the plight of the poor, this week President Obama commemorated the 50th anniversary of the War on Poverty with his own call for new policies to address the continued struggles of tens of millions of Americans.
Read moreThe New Unemployment Figures
As the equity markets take another huge step down, it's assumed that American consumers are so shell shocked by their loss of wealth that they will continue to hoard what little cash they have. Yet this relentless negativity may well be overblown: consumers didn't begin this crisis, but they may very well end it.
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