In The News

Existential Threat to Erdoğan: Spiegel

Maximilian Popp July 3, 2019
The mayor-elect of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, countered authoritarian tactics and demonstrated their weakness. Turkey’s largest city elected Imamoglu, and Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, rejecting the defeat of the Justice and Development Party candidate and claiming election fraud, ordered a repeat of the election. Imamoglu won again by a greater margin. Erdoğan, a former mayor of...

Everest Rules Might Change: New York Times

Bhadra Sharma and Jeffrey Gettleman May 29, 2019
Images of long lines at the summit of Mount Everest and stories of climbers, desperate for air, stepping over the bodies of others who succumbed, are a public relations disaster. Reaching the summit, what should be a glorious achievement, has become another garish display of human excess. Some blame Nepal for selling too many permits. Others complain about rude behavior. At least 11 people have...

The US as Economic Bully? Wall Street Journal

Gerald F. Seib May 14, 2019
The United States is the world’s largest economy in nominal terms and also the largest market. But flexing economic muscle could chase other major economies like China and the European Union to pursue their own partnerships. Under the Trump administration, the United States has applied economic leverage on China, Mexico, Canada, Europe, Iran, North Korea and Venezuela. “The weapon works, at least...

US Federal Reserve, Arctic Council, Climate Change

Michael S. Derby May 9, 2019
Climate scientists warn that global warming is underway, promising severe disruptions for economies. The Trump administration denies climate change is a crisis and resists pullback on fossil fuels. Yet officials at all levels of government and business – financial, insurance, health and more – must confront costly weather disasters, so the United States issues mixed messages. For the Arctic...

History as Excuse for Abuses: Economist

April 24, 2019
China and India at times engage in a process of mythmaking and historical erasure in championing their thousands of years of history. A recent article for the Economist observes, “Nowhere more than in Asia do states and their rulers tend to think they represent not just, say, defined territories or peoples with a shared language, but rather whole civilizations, often cosmically ordained.” However...

Capitalism or Socialism? Common Dreams

Robert Freeman April 8, 2019
The United States prepares for the 2020 presidential election and Republicans as the party in power insist that their opponents, the Democrats, are increasingly socialist and want to upend the capitalist system. Proper economic governance cannot rely on all capitalism or all socialism, and the definitions suggest that successful and prosperous countries rely on a combination of both. “Tools of...

Costs of Global Uncertainty: Project Syndicate

Michael Spence March 27, 2019
Global economic activity is on decline as investors and businesses confront uncertainty. The US-China trade war contributes to the hesitation, as trade partners ponder the costs and benefits of global economic connectivity and players retreat toward old patterns. For example, China’s state-owned enterprises, a target for complaints from the United States and elsewhere over subsidies, have an...