Here Comes the Chinese Spring
Social unrest is erupting in China—again. Simmering protests that began in two industrial cities several weeks ago have spread and intensified over the past few days, prompting yet more vigorous displays of force on the part of local governments and…
Merkel’s Bold Rejection of Nuclear Power
The continuing fallout from Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster has taken us well beyond disrupted supply chains. Case in point: Chancellor Angela Merkel’s just-announced decision to turn Germany into a nuclear-free economy within a decade. The move by Merkel, who is meeting…
Jobs Crisis: Forget Ideology. Get People Working
Friday’s calamitous jobs report, prefigured by private-sector numbers earlier in the week, brings the Obama administration and Congress to a truth-or-consequences moment. The president has been groping for many months, in perfectly evident frustration, for credible job-creation policies. The Republican-controlled Congress…
India’s Multibillion-Dollar Message to America
India’s recent rejection of bids from two American jet manufacturers for the biggest defense contract in Indian history made minor news in the U.S. The rest of the world paid closer attention because that decision shot down a dozen years…
23 Surprising Insights about Free-Market Capitalism
One of the noted features of economics for the past century or so is its ever-fainter relationship with history. Statistics, method, data-collection, econometrics, modeling, empirical observation – these are the tools and preoccupations of what is to some a grim…
Made in America: Manufacturing Jobs Are Coming Home
The tale of American manufacturing has long been one of woeful decline. Just about a year ago, China replaced the U.S. as the world’s No. 1 maker of things, and that seemed a sure sign that the glory days had…
Sex, BRICS, and PIGS at the IMF
Dominique Strauss–Kahn’s stunning resignation as director of the International Monetary Fund provides Asians and other emerging nations with their best chance yet to break precedent and claim leadership of the IMF. The question is whether these countries are ready to…
China May Not Place Its Big Bets on America
Right now we should begin to worry about one of the following: 1. A flood of Chinese money is coming and Americans will react rather badly, as they did when big Japanese investments arrived in the U.S. 20 years ago. 2. A…
Is What’s Good for GM, Good for China?
General Motors announced months ago that “China is the future.” it is gearing up for a big push into the low end of the Chinese market, making stripped-down cars and minivans that it hopes will double sales in China to 5…
Japan’s Crippled Economy: Signs of a Snap-Back
Not quite two months after the earthquake-tsunami-nuclear disaster entered the record books as Japan’s worst tragedy since World War II, the economic picture is becoming clearer. It’s a bigger-than-expected blow for corporations, suppliers, consumers, taxpayers, and many others. In fact,…
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