High Global Anxiety as Europe Still Has No Plan
Get ready for a tense week—yes, another one. If Europeans meet their own deadline, by the end of next weekend, when a summit of European Unionleaders is to convene in Brussels, we will see Europe’s proposed solution to its debt…
Behind Apple’s iPollution Problem in China
You could hardly ask for a company with a cleaner image and more conscientious corporate culture than Apple. But now the maker of the iPhone, iPad, and all the other “i’s” seems to be in hot water over pollution allegedly…
Why America Isn’t Headed for a ‘Lost Decade’
You have a country with a banking crisis that spreads to the financial markets. Then a puffy bubble in the real estate market pops. After that, there’s a persistent overhang of private-sector debt, and everyone starts deleveraging. This last renders…
Euro Crisis: How to Stop the Contagion
Even a couple of months ago, the idea that Greece would be forced to default on its debt and exit the eurozone seemed some kind of distant horror. Now both seem all too near as possibilities. What was a short…
Europe: The Strings Attached to a Chinese Bailout
Will your children—or maybe even you—someday find it perfectly natural to put the household savings into the Chinese yuan because it is the world’s safest, steadiest currency? That thought would have been unimaginable even a few months ago. Now we…
Trade: How China Is Big-Footing U.S. Companies
General Motors, which has been making Buicks and other cars in China since 1998, wants to sell its new Chevrolet Volt, an electric hybrid, on the mainland. That’s fine, Beijing says, if Chinese companies get to share three of the…
Asian Unrest: An Ominous Sign for the Global Economy
The specter of social unrest is haunting the high-growth economies of Asia. In one nation after another, rising expectations are being dashed as economic conditions deteriorate. In effect, Asia’s nascent middle class is getting its first taste of middle-class insecurity…
Decline of America: Have We Given Away the Store?
The past weeks of wrenching volatility in the financial markets and the evident confusion in both Europe and the U.S. over how to avoid tipping into a double-dip recession — or a straight-out depression — have once again brought the…
Japan Snaps Back, Moody’s Drops Credit Rating. Huh?
This week Japan became the latest nation to get a downgrade from one of the rating agencies that seem to whizz around the world pronouncing this economy or that unworthy of its previous status. On Wednesday, Moody’s dropped Japan from…
Do’s and Don’ts of a Post Qaddafi U.S. Policy
“American aid, not American troops,” President Obama declared from a Martha’s Vineyard vacation house on Monday as news of Tripoli’s fall toinsurgent forces flowed in. In five simple words, the President described a fundamental turn in U.S. policy abroad – a…
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