Markets

Across the world, protestors are agitating for change. On one level, the protesters are asking for little: a chance to use their skills, the right to decent work at decent pay, a fairer economy and society. Their hope is evolutionary,...

If Russia has its way, a Eurasian Union (EuU) will be formed by 2015 – comprising of Russia and many of its former territories under the old Soviet Union regime. The EuU, while not a recreation of the Soviet Union,...

 For a few years now, the banking industry has shouldered much of the blame for the massive financial crisis that is threatening the health of the global economy, while many others have been quick to point out the glaring lack...

Many believe that science is about innovation that can improve the living conditions of humanity. For decades, the study of economics was conceived and taught as a “moral science,” until the fateful day Cambridge University decided to categorize economics under...

Systems analysts have shown that a “super entity” of interconnected transnationals dominate the world economy. Their political power is such that even politicians fear the consequences of breaking their monopoly. But unless something can be done, the whole system is...

In April this year, the IMF published a preliminary set of guidelines for capital controls that would impose a “code of conduct” for governments that wished to regulate the flow of capital in and out of their capital accounts. It...

China-bashing in the US has now reached unprecedented levels. While China does account for 42 percent of America’s trade deficit, few realise that the US actually also runs deficits with 87 other countries. At the same time, most of the...

The Financial Stability Board (FSB) was formed in the midst of the global financial crisis in order to coordinate urgent international regulatory-reform efforts and ensure greater financial stability and global consistency of rules. Yet today, the FSB continues to be...

  Modern capitalism, as we know it, is a sick and distorted perversion of its true origins. Since the 1980s, the form of capitalism that has dominated western economies has been one where large corporations and most financial institutions are...

Stall speed is a terrifying risk for an economy like that of the US, which desperately needs to grow robustly. However, The private sector alone cannot and will not counter the risk of stall speed. What is desperately needed is...

At last month's UN General Assembly, Bhutan's Prime Minister denounced what he called a “monster of a consumerist market economy” that “enslaves humanity and thrives on the insatiable nature of our greed,” urging instead for an alternative form of economic...

Despite the need for strong and sustained fiscal stimulus in many countries, today's political leaders seem to be held hostage by financial interests and associated media, ideologists, and oligarchs. As a result, the main threat that now confronts us is...

  If Moody’s, Fitch and Standard & Poor’s had a decent public relations consultant he/she would advise a calm period of low profile, or, in other words, the exact opposite strategy to the headline-chasing frenzy that appears to have gripped...

Any economic model that doesn’t properly address inequality will eventually face a crisis of legitimacy, as today's global protests are now demonstrating. Unless the relative economic roles of the market and the state are rebalanced, the protests of 2011 will...

The Libyan Investment Authority, the sovereign wealth fund in which Muammar el-Qaddafi’s regime allegedly stashed and misused Libya’s oil wealth, has cast a dark shadow on SWFs all across the world. While no one should infer from the Libyan case...