See the power of wishful thinking in FT coverage of Russia. Eg "Russia is running out of money" Martin Sandbu, Nov 2024, "Russia's economy flatters to deceive" Nov 30 2024.
Now "Russian economy is faltering despite oil windfall" www.ft.com/content/04a9...
www.ft.com/content/b4bc...
All wrong.
Thanks, couldn't read it all as it's paywalled. I'm not that keen on Cohen, partly due to his dodgy past at the Grauniad.
Whether or not you agree with their conclusions, some of his early academic writings and books are quite interesting, and, I would say, insightful - certainly provocative. Now he's just a bore.
Frank Furedi is such a dodgy grifter. A few decades ago he arguably had some semblance of intellectual insight and coherence, but this is just weak -- and transparently in service of his paymaster. As ideological odysseys go, his is quite the trip.
There's a fundamental point here, where politics drives economics. An authoritarian state exports its surplus and undercuts wages and manufacturing in the rest of the world because it doesn't want to empower its people. Authoritarianism threatens RoW without overt aggression.
"China will continue to rely on the rest of the world to absorb their excess production because the domestic political cost of empowering their own consumers is too high.”
giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...
During my visit to Bangladesh last week the Daily Star newspaper ran my piece on how the middle powers are abandoning the global South. Seems to have resonated well with that country, struggling as it is with a succession of foreign-born crises.
www.thedailystar.net/opinion/view...
Wow, I didn't know that. I reported from Beijing in the year 2000 and the story was all about how foreign investors were getting ripped off.
Amazing that Europe is now pleading with China to share its IP. Sign of the times. Used to be the other way round.
Not sure i'm 'renowned' though.
Something I love about visiting countries in the global South is being able to talk to so many bright, young people, who are full of ideas. In a murky world it gives you a bit of hope. Here's a summary of the chat I had at the Rapid thinktank in Dhaka yesterday:
www.rapidbd.org/conversation...
Carney pronounced the rules-based international order dead. “We knew it was false.”
If you knew it was false, why did you promote it, benefit from it and shape it? Were your other Davos chums in on the con?
The 'middle powers' ditch the world's least advantaged:
open.substack.com/pub/dangay?u...
Trump's refusal to allow safe passage through Hormuz strikes at the heart of Pax Americana. US guarantees of secure shipping, alongside new efficiencies like containerisation, underwrote the global trade boom by slashing transport costs. The implications for world trade will be profound.
I'm off to Dhaka tomorrow to present our UN report on Bangladesh's readiness to graduate from least developed country status. It isn't ready because it's been hit by a series of crises over the past decade. Losing LDC benefits would come at a particularly bad time.
drive.google.com/file/d/1TMAP...
In a blog for the Institute for Development Studies, myself and colleagues argue that an evidence-based World Trade Organisation of the future must empower all members and make better use of knowledge about the real impacts of trade. www.ids.ac.uk/opinions/fut...
The rise of electric vehicles is inevitable. Everybody wants to buy them again because of the Iran war.
In UK, advert views for new BYDs up 77%. Searches for used BYDs up more than 375%. In France, requests for test drives of Kia EVs up 84% since February 2025.
giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...
A sinister clown dad-dances embarrassingly with a sword.
Dictators push the boundaries of acceptability to humiliate their audience and encourage obedience.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxs7...
Yes, its poorly-designed structure hampers progress, but I think the fracturing world order would spark disagreement among the big and newly rising powers regardless.
WTO not unique - other multilaterals also failing.
Also WTO made some ltd progress in the past - tariffs ⬇️, trade facilitation.
The failure to extend the digital services moratorium at the #WTO Ministerial conference might mean that countries impose tariffs on digital services. The US is fiercely opposed.
What does the US expect, though, when it's levying such high goods tariffs?
giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...
Could you explain? Maybe I misunderstand, but I see the WTO's problems as very much being to do with geopolitics.
As rich countries slash aid spending; a dozen countries wage war in the Middle East; and the World Trade Organisation and other multilateral organisations fail, i'm reminded of what Captain Kirk said when asked what he thought about civilisation: "International cooperation, wouldn't that be nice?"
As #WTO #MC14 predictably ends without an agreement, we're witnessing one more stage in the breakdown of multilateralism and global cooperation. This article, by some friends in Bangladesh, describes the harsh reality for the least developed countries. www.tbsnews.net/analysis/wto...
As usual it's the poorest who pay the price.
Low- and middle-income countries are the worst hit by the energy shock.
giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...
Locals in charge of a choke point charge a fee to pass through: exactly how tariffs originated many centuries ago.
Shares in the big 3 Chinese battery makers have way outperformed even those of the oil majors since the start of the war.
Asia's overtaking manoeuvre on a carbon-addicted US is electrifying.
It costs more than $25,000 an hour to keep a single F-16 fighter in the air.
Total cost of war so far: $24bn+
But we can't afford the green transition😕.
Alternatively, Newsom will win, we'll forget about the Iran invasion, weak political leaders will sigh with relief and the world will revert to the same old mediocre compromise.
