We’d better control machines before they control us.
Avoiding the Robot Apocalypse
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global economy
How Covid-19 Could Upend Geopolitics
Trust is the fuel that makes global institutions run. And it looks as though we’ve passed Peak Trust.
A New Eco-Economic Paradigm
The coronavirus has exposed the failures of the global economic system. Here’s a post-pandemic alternative.
The World is in Crisis. We Need a Global Green New Deal.
The rules of the global economy have created climate change, inequality, and deep vulnerability. But rules can change.
YOLO Economics
Fossil fuels provided a one-time-only quantum leap in growth. Coming up with a new economic model should be on everyone’s bucket list.
The BRICS: Challengers to the Global Status Quo
Can the BRICS wrest control of the global economy from the United States and Europe, or will their internal contradictions tear them apart?
Breaking the Rules
Both Koreas have recognized at some deep level that the rules of the game are rigged in favor of the already powerful.
From Davos to Dystopia
The World Economic Forum has released a new report calling for a “shift in mentality” to address a looming crisis typified by rebellion, protest, and political violence sparked by inequality and marginalisation across the world. The seventh edition of the organization’s Global Risks report highlights the increasing importance of marginalization as a security issue over the coming decades. It describes the “seeds of dystopia” threatening both social and political stability across the world.
The Year of Living Dangerously
Get ready for a rocky year. From now on, rising prices, powerful storms, severe droughts and floods, and other unexpected events are likely to play havoc with the fabric of global society, producing chaos and political unrest. Start with a simple fact: the prices of basic food staples are already approaching or exceeding their 2008 peaks, that year when deadly riots erupted in dozens of countries around the world.
Recovery Recedes, Convulsion Looms
The dominant mood in liberal economic circles as 2010 drew to a close, in contrast to the cautiously optimistic forecasts about a sustained recovery at the end of 2009, was gloom, if not doom. Fiscal hawks have gained the upper hand in the policy struggle in the United States and Europe, to the alarm of spending advocates like Nobel laureate Paul Krugman and Financial Times columnist Martin Wolf who see budgetary tightening as a surefire prescription for killing the hesitant recovery in the major economies.