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
Bloomberg (September 7)
“One of the paradoxes of this year’s trade tensions is that in many parts of the world, it doesn’t yet feel like a crisis.” Although it may be “tempting to think the global economy is riding out the turmoil,” it would be “mistaken. Look closely: The slowdown has begun.”
Newsweek (September 4)
“September 15 will mark the tenth anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers and near meltdown of Wall Street, followed by the Great Recession.” With household debt at “an all-time high of $13.2 trillion,” we’re now close to a repeat. The direct cause will be income imbalance, not a banking crisis. “The U.S. economy crashes when it becomes too top heavy because the economy depends on consumer spending to keep it going…. For a time, the middle class and poor can keep the economy going nonetheless by borrowing. But, as in 1929 and 2008, debt bubbles eventually burst. We’re getting dangerously close.”
Tags: Anniversary, Banking, Collapse, Consumer spending, Crisis, Great Recession, Household debt, Income imbalance, Lehman Brothers, Meltdown, Top heavy, U.S., Wall Street
Washington Post (August 14)
“Even in a world where the United States’ military and diplomatic power seems to be in retreat, there is an element of the U.S.-led order that’s as strong as ever — our dominance of the global economy.” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey “may think he can bluff his way through the Brunson crisis, but Turkish banks, construction companies and bondholders know better. In the still-global economy, going it alone really isn’t an option… This summer, as ever, we sink or swim together.”
Tags: Banks, Bondholders, Brunson, Construction, Crisis, Diplomatic, Dominance, Erdogan, Global economy, Military, Power, Retreat, Turkey, U.S.
