In The News

Financial Times: China’s Balancing Act on Debt Is Becoming Trickier

November 17, 2017
Some factories in China are paying workers to stay home, part of a plan to ease the nation’s serious debt levels – which has grown nearly fivefold over the past decade to $29 trillion today. “The debt, equivalent to 260 per cent of gross domestic product, has brought with it dramatic declines in credit efficiency,” explains the Financial Times. “The International Monetary Fund points out that in...

The Economist: The Balfour Declaration

November 10, 2017
While the Balfour Declaration was not as strong as Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann had hoped when ratified in 1917 as it turns out, the public statement of support issued by the British government during World War I for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine did reinforce the settler project and deliver Israeli statehood. According to the Economist, “...

ICIJ: Leaked Documents Expose Secret Tax Haven Secrets

Simon Bowers November 6, 2017
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists released 13.4 million leaked files from a group of offshore service providers that show how companies and individuals thwart government efforts to collect taxes. One of the many stories of the so-called Paradise Papers focuses on Apple, the largest public company by market capitalization. Company officials admitted to US Senate...

National Review: Aren’t Republicans Supposed to Care about the Deficit?

Michael Tanner November 1, 2017
In the United States, Republican candidates promise fiscal discipline and debt reduction. With a new budget resolution and plans to adjust the tax code and reduce the corporate tax rate, US political leaders are on track for annual spending deficits greater than $1 trillion, with total debt reaching $30 trillion within a decade. Michael Tanner, writing for the National Review, explains that the...

The Atlantic: Tax Havens and the Manafort Indictment

Krishnadevj Calamur October 30, 2017
Paul Manafort, the US president’s former campaign chairman, and a business partner have been indicted for laundering $75 million through shell companies and foreign bank accounts in Cyprus, Seychelles and elsewhere. “The indictment emerged from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election,” reports Krishnadev Calamur for the...

The Economist: The Boycott of Qatar Is Hurting Its Enforcers

October 27, 2017
Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt “closed their borders and cut diplomatic ties with Qatar” in June and in the four months since, the effects of the broad-based boycott have hit both ways, observes the Economist. The quartet continues to push the Qatar to stop supporting political Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and “to shut down Al Jazeera, the Arab world’s most popular...

Inside Climate News: US Unprepared to Face Costs of Climate Change, GAO Says

Georgina Gustin October 25, 2017
The United States is not saving money by ignoring the risks of climate change. "The Government Accountability Office, in a report issued on Tuesday, cited a range of research concluding that the costs of worsening droughts, floods, wildfires, heat waves and storms will run into hundreds of billions of dollars and threaten many parts of the economy, while hitting some regions particularly...