Worldcrunch
-Analysis- TOKYO — High-tech toilet seats, diapers, cold medicine, rice cookers: These are some of the hottest items for a Chinese tourist on a shopping spree in Japan. The Japanese call this Bakugai or “explosive buying,” and associate it with the Chinese travelers’ impressive purchasing power. Bakugai even became 2015’s Japanese Word of the Year. […]
SANTIAGO — China has been one of Latin America’s main trade partners in recent years, driving the engine of development in the region with a hungry demand for raw materials to help sustain the Asian giant’s growth. But the recent slowdown of China’s economy has been felt acutely in the economies of several Latin American […]
And it’s cheaper than you think …
-OpEd- WASHINGTON, D.C. — Spend enough time watching politicians talk, and pretty soon you’ll have a good idea of how to address the public like a seasoned elected official. No matter the topic, our nation’s leaders invariably find a way to tie things back to members of the hard-working middle-class who just want a fair shot at the American dream, perhaps with a side of help for small business. Lawmakers today might be able to give this kind of political speech in their sleep. But with the way technology is going, they might as well have a robot write it […]
With a low birth rate and grappling with how to maintain a work force and economic development, Japanese officials believe they have a solution in AI.
MORE NORTH KOREAN NUCLEAR BOMBAST North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has ordered further nuclear tests to improve attack capabilities, national news agency KCNA reports today. Pyongyang has stepped up its threats and statements boasting about its nuclear capabilities since the U.S. and South Korea initiated joint military exercises on Monday. Today’s statement was made three […]
The rapid growth of the sharing economy is both inevitable and generally good. But only a fool can believe it will truly disrupt the natural capitalist forces of our market economy.
-Analysis- LA PAZ — As of Sunday, Bolivia is once again divided in two. It had taken President Evo Morales almost a decade to build a consensus around him, a consensus that had enabled him to be re-elected for a third five-year term in 2014 with 61% of the vote. But his failure this week […]
More than eight years after the beginning of the financial crisis, U.S. banking groups are dominating the financial world more than ever. This leadership has technical, political and legal grounds. But it also relies on one quintessentially American quali
“But there is no money,” reads the front page of this week’s edition of Moscow-based magazine The New Times, alongside a caricature of Russian President Vladimir Putin as an empty-handed, pants-less joker whose socks need mending. Russia is facing a deepening economic recession, caused notably by the low international oil price. And though Putin has […]
Five centuries after Spanish conquistadors took over Mexico, Mexican billionaires are busy buying up chunks of Spain. After four years of recession, it was the perfect match between cash-rich customers and a needy economy.
“Saving the Planet” isn’t enough. Activists must begin to think about other ways to push people towards an ecological approach to life.
A study recently released in Germany demonstrates that right-wing parties win on average 30% more votes after a financial crisis. The success of France’s Marine Le Pen is just the latest example.
More consumer spending in the short term, and a demographic correction over time, but China’s loosening of its birth policies may be most powerful as a symbol.
Argentina’s next president, the center-right Mauricio Macri, must be deft in reforming the economy of a society that has moved beyond a developmental stage, to one that sees itself as “at risk.”
After the attacks in Paris, Marc Simoncini, the founder of Meetic, asked French entrepreneurs living abroad, sometimes for fiscal reasons, to come back to France.
Faced with enormous challenges both at home and abroad, China reveals itself as a land of double standards and growing uncertainty.
The extreme economic condition that is now practically extinct across the globe could return in Venezuela if a range of corrective measures that are anathema to the socialist government aren’t swiftly instituted.
TEL AVIV— The recent wave of violence and Mahmoud Abbas’ threats to dismantle the Palestinian Authority could represent not just a security emergency for Israel, but also an economic nightmare. More than 1,000 factories in the West Bank rely solely on the manpower of Palestinian workers. And they’re just a small part of the financial […]
What if everything were free? Well, it is at Debora Fischkandl’s little Paris shop, no strings attached. And hers isn’t the only one. A look at the radical side of the sharing economy.
Is capitalism coming to Kim Jong-un’s North Korea? According to South Korean daily Chosun Ilbo, North Koreans who got rich thanks to state-backed monopolies are being encouraged by the regime to open small banks across the capital in a bid to boost the free economy. Some of the money-lenders even have installed ATMs, though these […]
-Analysis- BUENOS AIRES — We’re now very much in the “hangover” stage, the proverbial “morning after,” as countries all over the world face painful adjustments now that the party years — when China’s booming economy fed a seemingly insatiable appetite for outside products — are finally over. While the pain may not be as intense […]
Brazilian governments again are guilty of spending too much when exports and revenues were booming. A view from neighboring Argentina, where bad economics is endemic.
People’s Daily, Sept. 23, 2015 “Xi Jinping begins U.S. visit” reads the front page of Chinese state-run People’s Daily Wednesday, together with a picture Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan waving upon their arrival in Seattle on Tuesday. The Chinese president’s seven-day visit, aimed at strengthening diplomatic and commercial ties with the […]
When Rio de Janeiro won its Olympic bid back in 2009, Brazil was hailed as a nation on the rise. Now, it is the wrong place at the wrong time to host the 2016 Summer Games.
As the lifting of sanctions appears to move closer to reality, business and government leaders from leading economies are eager to restore trading ties with Tehran
Offering new economic opportunities is at the top of the agenda, though questions about human rights still must be addressed.
This week, we shine the spotlight on Portugal: DOES RECOVERY SPELL REELECTION? After years in the doldrums, the Portuguese economy is showing signs of picking up, with the country’s GDP growing — albeit slowly — and unemployment figures reaching five-year lows, Diário Económico reports. According to official data from Portugal’s National Statistical Institute INE, private […]
Has Canada entered a recession, or is it “already over,” as Quebec City’s French-language daily Le Soleil asks on the front page of its Wednesday edition? The Canadian economy shrank for a second straight quarter, dragged down by falling energy prices and economic troubles in China, as shown by the latest GDP numbers published Tuesday; […]
CHINA STOCKS RESUME SLIDE AMID CRACKDOWN Chinese equities fell again today despite ending higher on Friday, following a devastating week for the country’s stock markets. The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index dropped 0.8%, and although the Shenzhen CSI 300 ended up 0.7%, both fell by as much as 4% at one point, Reuters reports. This came […]
El Tiempo, August 18, 2015 An already critical economic situation is spiraling out of control in Venezuela, with newspaper El Tiempo reporting that “the word “cheap” is disappearing from the Venezuelan vocabulary.” In the northern city of Puerto La Cruz, a kilo of tomatoes or onions can cost a whopping 400 bolivars ($63), double what […]
TEL AVIV — Despite its ongoing problems, the Palestinian economy has recently shown significant signs of recovery. It’s particularly evident after a period of deep recession, economist Yitzhak Gal notes in an article published by a Tel Aviv University journal. The Palestinian Authority has faced the threat of collapse and, with it, the destruction of […]
STUTTGART — Experts are hailing it as a global novelty, and inventors are celebrating it as the “innovation of an era.” The new euro coins that will be released in spring 2016 have a ring of blue plastic minted into them, and the oddity is expected to make them a desirable export. Coins are typically […]
Banks are back, the stock market has reopened and all economic signs (including the banks and stock market) are disastrous. Normalcy has returned to Greece! The more serious truth is that the deal signed last month by Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras — which includes new austerity measures in exchange for a third bailout to […]
The Church is hugely wealthy and exempt from almost all taxes. But its charitable works are crucial in Greece, ravaged by financial crisis and an inept public sector.
TEHRAN — She could be the future of Iran. It has been a long parade of investors and foreign CEOs in the office of Nazanin Daneshvar, a young female engineer who founded the e-commerce company Takhfifan (Persian for “discount”). She welcomes such visitors, and foreign journalists, who have come to Iran to discover a country […]
President Barack Obama is restoring United States influence on the American continent, a reminder of the importance of neighbors.
“Wounded, He Continues Until Further Notice,” writes left-leaning Greek daily Efimerida ton Syntakton on the front-page headline of its Thursday edition after the Greek parliament approved a package of tough measures leading a third bailout deal. The he in question is Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who won a bittersweet approval late Wednesday of the […]
Too many nations and peoples with too many grievances. A wealth divide that grows deeper. A new (new) world order is needed, with the U.S. and China firmly in charge.
Behind the Chinese government’s easy shows of strength is a rising sense of insecurity within the regime.