Bloomberg (January 26)
“Why are economists so willing to declare to the world that free trade is good?” Their consensus flies in the face of popular opinion and “powerful evidence that industries and regions that have been more exposed to Chinese import competition since 2000—the year China joined the World Trade Organization—have been hit hard and have not recovered.”
Tags: China, Competition, Consensus, Economists, Evidence, Free trade, Imports, Industries, Popular opinion, Regions, WTO
Financial Times (November 7)
Germany needs to take a more “active role in a disordered world,” and this means articulating their foreign policy. “Ms Merkel has built her political career on caution–on taking the temperature and weighing all the options before acting…. But leadership in foreign policy demands something more: an understanding that doing nothing can be more dangerous than doing something, and a readiness to step out in front of the crowd. Consensus may be comforting; it does not impress the likes of Mr Putin.”
Tags: Caution, Consensus, Disordered world, Foreign policy, Germany, Merkel, Putin, Readiness
Wall Street Journal (August 20)
“Mr. Modi’s plans to unleash market forces will lift millions of Indians out of poverty, but he also has ideas about how government can better meet the immediate needs of the poor.” Though some of his plans “may sound oddly simple to developed-world ears” (e.g. access to toilets and bank accounts), “the Prime Minister’s humble background gives him an understanding of what the poor need to find their own path to prosperity and the credibility to build a new consensus for those policies.”
Tags: Background, Bank accounts, Consensus, Credibility, Government, Humble, India, Modi, Policies, Poverty, Prosperity, Toilets
Institutional Investor (August 12)
“Disappointing sentiment data and continued conflict in eastern Ukraine” are leading to investor apprehension. “Slowing production levels and low inflation appear to leave the door open for European Central Bank intervention but political support for action from European Union leaders is still far from consensus. With a strong correlation between primary global equity indexes that has been noted by multiple strategists in recent sessions, deteriorating investor confidence in Europe is likely to cast a shadow over U.S. equity markets in the near term.”
Tags: Confidence, Conflict, Consensus, Disappointing, ECB, Equities, EU, Inflation, Intervention, Investors, Production, Sentiment, U.S., Ukraine
USA Today (September 12)
“Five years ago this weekend, the world economy was in uncharted waters and sinking rapidly. The bankruptcy of Lehman Bros. on Sept. 15, 2008, touched off a horrifying financial crisis…. Far too much hasn’t been done, or hasn’t changed, since those scary days when it seemed the world financial system was unraveling.” Though the consensus in favor of urgent reform has long since faded, reform is nevertheless urgently needed. Today, “the shoring up of the financial system is no better than a work in progress, and another severe crisis in the not-too-distant future is hardly out of the question.”
