Some of China‘s most respected public intellectuals are warning that society and economy are being held hostage to the wealth-maximizing requirements of the political elite. These warnings echo privately in business circles, too, where entrepreneurs continue to be enthralled by the prospects of short-term profits but increasingly alarmed about their personal and financial security. Officials in developed […]
TRADE and growth go hand in hand. When the economic crisis first hit in 2008, world trade and growth collapsed together. In 2009 both recovered, and did reasonably well until this year, when both slipped again. Cutting tariffs and red tape would boost trade, and support the faltering recovery. This should spur efforts to replace […]
The unrelenting negative reports about Facebook Inc. (FB) are enough to rattle even the true believers among us. Yet it would be premature to despair over the company’s long-term viability and health. Facebook is still potentially the most valuable information-based business. It had 955 million monthly active users at the end of June, and benefits from a tremendous […]
Concern is growing that China’s economy could be headed for a hard landing. The Chinese stock market has fallen 20 percent over the past year, to levels last seen in 2009. Continued softness in recent data – from purchasing managers’ sentiment and industrial output to retail sales and exports – has heightened the anxiety. Long […]
In an exasperated outburst, just before he left the presidency of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet complained that, “as a policymaker during the crisis, I found the available [economic and financial] models of limited help. In fact, I would go further: in the face of the crisis, we felt abandoned by conventional tools.” Read […]
Over the past few years, largely out of sight, governments have been clawing back freedoms on the internet, turning an invention that was designed to emancipate the individual into a tool for surveillance and control. In the next few months, this process is set to be enshrined internationally, amid plans to put cyberspace under the authority […]
