Toxic politics and constrained central banks could make the next downturn hard to escape Just a year ago world was enjoying a synchronized economic acceleration. In 2017 growth rose in every big advanced economy except Britain, and in most emerging ones. Global trade was surging and America booming; China's slide into deflation had been quelled; even the euro zone was thriving. In 2018 the story..
After a bitter nomination fight, America's highest court gets its ninth judge Almost three months to the day since Donald Trump nominated him to the Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed on Saturday afternoon by a 50-48 margin. The saga ended in a manner appropriate to the United States Senate: with neither a bang nor a whimper, but with hours of pointless verbiage preceding the final vot..
A project to create what would be the first for-profit hospital on the resort island of Jeju is expected to go under. According to a public poll, opposition to the plan was 58.9 percent compared to the 38.9 percent approving it. Since Jeju Gov. Won Hee-ryong accepted Jeju residents' petition to hold a referendum on the matter, the outcome can be predicted with certainty. Unlike general hospitals..
The Moon Jae-in administration's peace initiative toward North Korea faces a crisis after Pyongyang has stated that it will not exchange denuclearization for a declaration to end the 1950-53 Korean War. On Tuesday, the Korean Central News Agency, North Korea's mouthpiece, made the comment that a declaration to end the war cannot be a gift to North Korea, nor is an item to exchange for denucleari..
Brett Kavanaugh's accuser raised serious concerns about his fitness for the Supreme Court At midday on September 27th Brett Kavanaugh's prospects of reaching the Supreme Court Bench looked distinctly shaky. Dr Christine Blasey Ford, an academic psychologist who accuses him of sexually assaulting her 36 years ago, had given a moving and credible account of the alleged attack to the Senate Judicia..
Marijuana is appearing in a growing array of products A hundred years ago, Coca Cola contained cocaine and was held up as a cure for impotence, headaches and morphine addiction. The hard narcotics are long gone, but folk are aflutter at the possibility that the fizzy drink might one day contain cannabis. For it emerged this week that Coca-Cola, the company, is taking a close look at the cannabis..
Still flushed and fatigued from the excitement of his three-day visit to North Korea, South Korean President Moon Jae-in is wasting no time on the diplomatic front. He will fly to the United States on Saturday to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday and deliver a speech at the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday. During his tight schedule, he must get full support from the Unt..
The Economist's Johnson columnist argues that linguistic change should be embraced as evolution Much of the public debate around linguistic change tends to be polarized into two camps. In one are the descriptivists, for whom change is a natural feature of a living language; in the other are the prescriptivists, who view such changes in strictly negative terms as evidence of slipping standards. "..
Donald Trump announces another wave of tariffs. China retaliates Another week, a further ratcheting up of trade tensions between America and China. On September 17th President Donald Trump announced that he had approved another wave of tariffs on Chinese imports. From September 24th, imports of products which in 2017 were worth as much as $189bn, including furniture, computers and car parts, wil..
A book excerpt and interview with David Runciman, author of "How Democracy Ends" History provides uncomfortable lessons. Among them is that systems of governance are not immortal and that democracies can devolve into autocracy. As institutions decay and social norms fray, democratic processes and practices are prone to apathy, demagoguery and disintegration. One scholar ringing the loudest alarm..
Success turned liberals into a complacent elite. They need to rekindle their desire for radicalism Liberalism made the modern world, but the modern world is turning against it. Europe and America are in the throes of a popular rebellion against liberal elites, who are seen as self-serving and unable, or unwilling, to solve the problems of ordinary people. Elsewhere a 25-year shift towards freedo..
Americans, probably President Donald Trump reckons foreigners will pay the cost of the $200bn in tariffs he plans on Chinese goods. Others disagree, claiming that tariffs will bite into budgets at home. Duties are payable by importers, but the question of who bears their burden is more complicated. Foreigners can end up paying for tariffs if the prices they charge slump in response. For example,..
Their armies of content moderators are expanding Every other Tuesday at Facebook, and every Friday at YouTube, executives convene to debate the latest problems with hate speech, misinformation and other disturbing content on their platforms, and decide what should be removed or left alone. In San Bruno, Susan Wojcicki, YouTube's boss, personally oversees the exercise. In Menlo Park, lower-level ..
Banks are safer, but too much o what has gone wrong since 2008 could happen again When historians gaze back at the early 21st century, they will identify two seismic shocks. The first was the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001, the second the global financial crisis, which boiled over ten years ago this month with the collapse of Lehman Brothers. September 11th led to wars, Lehman's bankru..
Great success has brought high costs and structural change The garage in which Hewlett-Packard was started in 1939 is now a private museum - a modest monument to the cut-price creativity and bare-knuckle entrepreneurship that made Silicon Valley famous. Drive south from Palo Alto through 20 minutes of inevitable traffic to Sunnyvale and you will find a landmark of a different kind. Nothing of te..