The Economist (August 29)
“The background music of Donald Trump’s second term has been the sound of norms breaking. On economic policy alone, the president has used tariffs to usurp Congress’s taxing powers and launched attack after attack on the independence of the Federal Reserve, which he accuses of keeping interest rates too high.” While it may be “tempting to tune the noise out,” the Treasury’s recent intervention in bond markets “deserves to echo far and wide.” And “so long as government debt stays high,” more of these unconventional Treasury follies will probably ensue, but America will ultimately come to “regret Scott Bessent’s bond-market misadventures.”
Tags: Attack, Background, Bessent, Bond markets, Congress, Debt, Economic policy, Federal Reserve, Government, Independence, Interest rates, Intervention, Misadventures, Noise, Norms breaking, Regret, Tariffs, Taxing powers, Treasury, Trump, Unconventional, Usurp
Foreign Policy (November 24)
“The pro-business Free Democratic Party is about to wield power in Berlin, thanks to the country’s youngest voters—but doesn’t yet know what it wants.” Whether the voters will ultimately “regret their choice is an open question. All of the party’s appeals to philosophical traditions and grand concepts have left more open questions than concrete approaches to governing,” but skyrocketing COVID-19 cases will increase the urgency to produce “concrete proposals for governance.”
Tags: Berlin, Concepts, Concrete approaches, COVID-19, FDP, Governing, Power, Pro-business, Questions, Regret, Skyrocketing, Traditions, Voters
Wall Street Journal (February 28)
“Hong Kong authorities moved this weekend to imprison nearly the entire opposition movement. The message is that anyone who runs as a pro-democracy candidate will be treated as a criminal…. China is violating its international obligations as it tramples Hong Kong’s freedoms. So far it has paid little price, which the world may come to regret as President Xi Jinping sets his sights on Taiwan.”
Tags: Candidate, China, Criminal, Freedoms, Hong Kong, Imprison, Obligations, Opposition movement, Pro-democracy, Regret, Taiwan, Tramples, Violating, Xi
Chicago Tribune (July 11)
“By voting no in last Sunday’s referendum, and by such an impressive margin, Greece won itself a moment’s elation — and may come to regret the consequences for years. It was one more in an absurdly extended series of miscalculations.”
Tags: Absurd, Consequences, Elation, Greece, Miscalculations, Referendum, Regret, Vote
