It is fifty years since the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962. Many people have said that this period marked the most important historical event of the twentieth century, namely that the USA and the USSR did NOT go to … Continued
I last visited South Africa in 1987, during the apartheid period. Since at that time there was a cultural and economic boycott of the country, I should explain to alarmed friends that I was there because I was working for … Continued
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is the one organisation that has come out of the financial crisis of 2007-09 in better shape than it went in. Set up to police the system of fixed exchange rates that was the basis … Continued
Australia is often known as the lucky country. Not that all of its history has been lucky but in the last twenty years it has been one of the largest beneficiaries of fast Chinese economic growth. About a quarter of … Continued
The summer lull is a time for conspiracy theories and wacky ideas to be rolled out to fill space in the media. But one current topic of discussion has a deadly seriousness: the probability of an Israeli attack on Iran’s … Continued
A phrase that pops up regularly in Chinese financial and economic commentary is the internationalisation of the RMB (renminbi – the people’s currency). What does this actually mean? Internationalisation is not an official or recognised economics term but China uses … Continued
It has been a long time since I walked the streets of the United States capital. Like Cambridge, much remains unchanged, but there are some telling alterations. I thought it was a sign of the times that on K street, … Continued
I’ve been accused of being rather pessimistic about the Euro mess and the risk of Europe’s historic tensions rising to the surface again. But here is a really bleak imagining of the next few years from Harvard’s Dani Rodrik. It’s unlikely … Continued
Listening to BBC Radio Four earlier, while doing the ironing (it makes the time pass better) I heard a woman describe Iran as having a very long history. We hear similar things said about China, Egypt and other countries which … Continued
By way of a counterbalance to my earlier blog link to Tim Judah’s argument that Greece isn’t really European (I’m simplifying a lot), here is a link to a Stratfor article that argues Greece cannot so easily be dumped by Europe. Robert Kaplan … Continued
As everybody has by now noticed, Greece and the ECB/EU are playing a game of chicken. If the opinion polls are correct, the anti-austerity vote will rise in the second set of Greek elections in June. A failure to keep … Continued