Category: ENG
Revisiting George Kennan’s Containment Argument In February 1946, George Kennan, then an American diplomat in Moscow, sent his famed “Long Telegram“, which predicted the Soviets would only respond to force and that the best way to handle them would be through a long-term strategy of containment. The content of this telegram was later published by George […]
Biden’s plan for a Clean Energy Revolution and Environmental Justice is a watered down and more realistic version of the Green New Deal championed by Bernie Sanders and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (AOC). It aims to reach net-zero emissions no later than 2050, which would put US environmental ambitions on par with the latest Green Deal proposal put forward by the European Commission, through a legislative enforcement mechanism in 2021 that would achieve legally-binding emissions reductions. We analyze the general philosophy, the technical measures and the potential impact of this plan.
The 2020 US presidential election will probably be remembered as one of the most tense electoral contests in the nation’s history. Not only because it happens amid a global pandemic to which Americans paid a heavy human and material price. Political and social polarization is arguably at its highest level in the Land of the Free. There are many […]
More than a decade after the invention of Bitcoin in 2008 by a group of techies using the name Satoshi Nakamoto and almost three years after the Great Crypto Crash of 2018, crypto-currencies and digital assets are finally coming of age. A few countries are spearheading the global regulatory effort by focusing on the opportunities associated with the crypto revolution in what looks increasingly like a fierce global competition to replace the traditional foundations of money, banking and finance with new principles and procedures.
The Congressional Budget Office published this week its annual Long-Term Budget Outlook presenting its projections of what federal deficits, debt, spending, and revenues would be for the next 30 years if current laws governing taxes and spending generally did not change. Federal deficits are projected to increase from 5% of gross GDP in 2030 to 13% by 2050. The projected budget deficits would boost federal debt to 104% of GDP in 2021, to 107% of GDP – the highest in US history – in 2023, and to a whopping 195% of GDP by 2050.
For someone with a such a personal and professional interest in the future of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region – cf. my bio, my book “A New Development model for the MENA region”, published in French in 2019 with a foreword by Former WTO Managing-Director and current President of the Paris Peace Forum Pascal Lamy), and my 12-sessions long seminar on the MENA […]
Known as the Digital Currency Electronic Payment (DC/EP), the CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency) project piloted by the People’s Bank of China is so far the most advanced projet of its kind in the world. The introduction of a CBDC in the world’s most populous country and second largest economy may have far reaching consequences.
The released Official China NBS/CFLP PMI and the Caixin/IHS Markit PMI for August showed both that the Chinese economy was undergoing a robust growth recovery in August. However, the Official PMI shows that the economic recovery is uneven and is driven first and foremost by large manufacturing enterprises and by the construction sector., which benefited the most from the fiscal and monetary stimulus measures. Export orders continued their recovery initiated in June but the major driver of growth was domestic demand. Employment remained muted as companies still face uncertainties related to the COVI19 pandemic and its impact on economies across the world. Expectations remain anchored at a high level, although they edged lower compared to July and June.
The pace of recovery of the Eurozone economy following its sharp contraction in 2Q 2020 slowed down significantly in August. The Eurozone PMI Composite Index came up at 51.9, still largely in positive territory but significantly down from the 54.9 level reached in July. The Manufacturing Index remained on a healthy recovery trajectory thanks to the strong rebound observed in Germany (cf. our Macro Flash on German Manufacturing PMI) and despite the stagnation observed in France. However, the Services headline index came almost flat at 50.5, due to a marked growth slowdown in France and a return to contraction in Italy and Spain. Regardless of the softness observed in the Services sector, Confidence about the future continued to peak up reaching its highest level in two years. This confidence will need to be supported by additional monetary and fiscal stimulus, else it could fade out. Indeed, Eurozone inflation moved into negative territory for the first since 2016 and unemployment continued to grow across the Eurozone which bodes ill for domestic demand, especially given the record savings growth due to precautionary motives.