9 February 2021 China was the only major country to record economic growth in 2020, with GDP expanding 2.3%. Indeed, following three consecutive quarters of expansion, national output is already 6.5% above pre-Covid levels. As we approach Chinese New Year, the IMF optimistically projects 8.1% GDP growth during the year of the Ox. Likewise, I [...]
22 October 2020 The long-anticipated Covid second wave is here (third wave in the USA). Experts project, correctly I suspect, that as winter arrives and activity heads indoors, the rate of infection will accelerate significantly further. In the United States, for example, I would not be surprised if daily new cases rise from 50,000 to [...]
12 October 2020After Europe's devastasting Coronavirus outbreak in early 2020, painful measures succeeded in suppressing the spread of Covid-19 during the summer. As health experts warned, however, social lockdown is only akin to hitting the pause button; buying time to allow more sustainable mitigation to be put in place. Unfortunately, as lockdown measures were eased [...]
10 September 2020 With Labour Day celebrations marking the unofficial end of summer, the US electoral race now will enter its final (and likely most brutal) phase. We do not need President Clinton's 1992 campaign strategist James Carville, who famously coined the phrase "it's the economy, stupid", to remind us of the role the economy [...]