A U.S. Election Year G7 Summit
With a focus on Global South, the war in Central Europe, trade embargoes and sanctions, the Group of Seven -- the West’s key economic and political forum -- will deliberate in its standard framework of “liberal democracies vs. autocracies” during the meeting in Italy on June 13 – 15, 2024. P...
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World Trade Grows Along Geopolitical Fault Lines
The wars in Europe and in the Middle East, ongoing military confrontations in the South China Sea and nuclear capable ballistic missile firings on the Korean Peninsula are all part of a global fight between West’s “liberal democracies” and “autocratic societies.” There is nothing “hybrid...
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The Yen Is Undermined by Structural Problems of Japanese Economy
Widespread market comments that a 5.3 percentage points interest rate differential favoring dollar assets is the main source of the yen’s intractable weakness is a typical simplification of Japan’s enduring and deep-rooted economic problems. The first symptoms of Japan’s deteriorating economic...
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U.S.-China Relations Are Opening a New Page in World Order
Military confrontations unfolding in Europe, Middle East and East Asia all come down to one crucially important bilateral relationship. Unable to put an end to those rapidly spreading wildfires, Washington is turning to Beijing for cooperation while leveling allegations that China is using “non-ma...
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Worry Not About East Asia – Europe Is a Smoldering Powder Keg
A peaceful and prosperous East Asia is coalescing around a steadily growing Chinese economy and the region’s determination to foster cooperation and amity. ASEAN (ten Southeast Asian countries) and China now represent one-fourth of the world population and one-fifth of the global GDP. That huge an...
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Excessive Public Debt Relegates the U.S. to a Slow Growth Lane
It will take quite a bit of revenue raising and spending cuts just to stop the progression of America’s current $1.7 trillion budget deficits -- accounting for 6.3% of GDP. No political party contending for power in next November’s elections has made this national emergency part of its campaigni...
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Asian Trade Is Expanding Despite Geopolitical Tensions
“We don’t do sanctions …” was a calm response, with a disarming smile, of an ASEAN (an association of ten Southeast Asian nations) official to western demands to punish and expel one of its member-countries allegedly violating a democratic code of statecraft. Americans and Europeans were als...
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China Is Open for Business
Ever since China’s paramount leader Deng Xiao Ping began his relentless drive for economic development in late 1970s, Beijing has been offering a de-risking masterclass on trade and incoming foreign direct investments. And the long march from sweatshops and smokestacks to productive agriculture, h...
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America’s Monetary, Fiscal and Trade Policies Must – and Will – Change
The economy is currently held together by a roughly neutral monetary policy that ignores inflation and monetizes an irresponsibly loose fiscal policy. The markets and the mainstream media are supporting the idea that we shall somehow muddle through the next elections in early November. After that ...
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Geopolitical Trade Fragmentation Is Amplifying
Trade and investment flows between the U.S.-led West and the Global South – represented by the BRICS – are drying up in an increasingly direct, proxy and hybrid warfare. Ideological and political underpinnings to this epochal change of world economy stems from the U.S. assessment that its “rul...
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