The Economist (July 13)
Matteo Salvini has in effect “been the most powerful man in Italy since shortly after he became a deputy prime minister in June last year.” His domestic rise has been “relentless,” though it is not connected “to pre-eminence by solving or showing how he might solve any of Italy’s obvious malaises.” Even more worryingly, Mr. Salvini has a very antagonistic relationship with the EU and he could very well instigate a new crisis, willingly or otherwise. “The troubling fact for Europe is that no one knows what this meteor that has flashed across Italy’s skies will do next.”
Tags: Antagonistic, Crisis, Deputy prime minister, EU, Italy, Malaises, Relentless, Salvini, Troubling
South China Morning Post (June 20)
The trade war between the U.S. and China “is pushing the world economy closer to the edge. The longer it goes on, the harder it will be to undo the damage,” which clearly already is being inflicted. “Compared to pre-2008 crisis levels, world economic growth has plummeted by half and is at risk of a long-term, hard-to-reverse stagnation. Returning to global integration and multilateral reconciliation could dramatically change the scenario.”
Tags: China, Crisis, Damage, Economic growth, Integration, Plummeted, Stagnation, Trade war, U.S., World economy
Bloomberg (April 24)
“China has mismanaged an epidemic of African swine fever that’s on course to kill 130 million pigs—or roughly one-third of China’s herd, the biggest in the world.” The response has taken the pattern of past mismanaged crisis and shows that China remains “systemically unprepared…to report and manage the inevitable next epidemic that kills people.”
Tags: African swine fever, China, Crisis, Epidemic, Inevitable, People, Pigs, Unprepared
Reuters (February 1)
“Socialist President Nicolas Maduro is under intense pressure to step down, with Venezuela in deep economic crisis and the government facing widespread international condemnation for elections last year seen as fraudulent.” It appears he is making plans “to sell 29 tonnes of gold held in Caracas to the United Arab Emirates by February in order to provide liquidity for imports of basic goods.”
Tags: Basic goods, Condemnation, Crisis, Elections, Gold, Imports, Liquidity, Maduro, Pressure, Socialist, UAE, Venezuela
The Economist (January 19)
Brexit has become the “mother of all messes. Solving the crisis will need time—and a second referendum.”
New York Times (January 9)
President Trump “has been painfully out of his element. Two years in, he remains ill suited to the complicated, thankless, often grinding work of leading the nation.” Clearly there is a crisis, but “the crisis is in the Oval Office. The president has exaggerated threats but ignored the hazards his border policies created.”
Tags: Complicated, Crisis, Exaggerated, Grinding, Ill-suited, Oval Office, Threats, Trump
New York Times (December 6)
“If Emmanuel Macron survives this crisis, something good may come out of it. He, along with French and European elites, could draw the lesson from the revolt of the Yellow Vests and find a way to govern with the people, not against them. That is, after all, what democracy is about.”
Tags: Crisis, Democracy, Elites, Europe, France, Govern, Macron, People, Revolt, Survives, Yellow Vests
Chicago Tribune (November 26)
“Global warming is a Midwest crisis in the making.” A just released federal climate change report predicts “sopping rains will damage crops, then heat waves will fry them. Humid conditions will spur the growth of pests and pathogens that will degrade the quality of stored corn or soybeans. Before mid-century… Midwest agricultural productivity will slip back to levels of the 1980s.”
Tags: Agriculture, Climate change, Corn, Crisis, Crops, Damage, Global warming, Heat waves, Midwest, Pathogens, Pests, Productivity, Rains, Soybeans
The New Yorker (November 7)
“A Democratic majority in the House will not only thwart Donald Trump’s legislative ambitions; it could also intensify the state of crisis and siege in Washington” because the result was mixed. “The vote certainly was not a decisive repudiation of Trump, nor was it anything like the resounding endorsement he craved.”
Tags: Crisis, Democratic, Endorsement, House, Majority, Repudiation, Thwart, Trump, U.S., Washington
The Economist (September 15)
“Debt stalks Africa once again. Over the past six years sub-Saharan governments have issued $81bn in dollar bonds to investors hungry for yield. Piled on top of this are murkier syndicated loans and bilateral debts, many to China and tied to big construction projects. Public debt has climbed above 50% of GDP in half the countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The risk of a crisis is growing.”
Tags: Africa, China, Construction projects, Crisis, Debt, Dollar bonds, GDP, Investors, Murky, Sub-Saharan, Syndicated loans, Yield
