Make Sense of the world
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Many Western governments are willing to climb any mountain and pay any price to save lives. In the process, many of them are also politicizing their response to the coronavirus pandemic while acting too late and too meekly, setting the stage for what is yet to come. The West can learn a lot from...
We are now entering the second decade of the existence of cryptocurrency, and it seems that some of the initial predictions of early adopters may have come true. The most commonly cited prediction by the mainstream media was of Bitcoin’s failure, either because of its lack of intrinsic value or...
As the global COVID-19 pandemic engulfs the world, the grand strategy of revisionist powers will either falter or accelerate. At the dawn of the post-coronavirus world — whenever it might come — the Chinese Communist Party will push forward with its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which will...
Many people would consider Bill Gates’ announcement that he is stepping down from the board of directors of Microsoft a historical event, even in these times dominated by the coronavirus crisis that has squeezed most other stories out of the news cycle. Gates became a legend as the founder of...
Other sectors of the world economy may be suffering but the arms industry continues to do a roaring trade, and nowhere more so than in the MENA region. In its annual report released on March 9, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), notes a dramatic increase in...
Who isn’t interested in any random pronouncement that Elon Musk makes? After all, he’s smart and he’s rich and getting richer every day. He also acts like a media celebrity, saying provocative things in public, which most smart or rich people — who don’t seek to be known as brands —...
The dawn of a new decade always comes alongside predictions of how the stock market will perform over the next 10 years. The start of the 2020s has not been an exception, with analysts predicting everything from a roaring bull market to a global recession, in some cases sequentially. This...
At a time when commodity markets are slowing down, when China and the United States are quarreling to reshape global supply chains to their benefit, with climate change adversely affecting emerging markets and the coronavirus outbreak threatening business continuity worldwide, Latin American...
At a dinner party in mid-February, an architect told me that he was having a problem finishing his building projects. It was the carpets. Most wall-to-wall carpeting for big construction projects in the United States, he explained, comes from China. The coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan — and the...
TikTok’s latest viral challenge has the world’s teens gluing up their top lips with eyelash adhesive to achieve a poutier look, while parents and health experts look on in dismay. Risking scarring and skin problems, depending on what adhesive is used, it is all worth it for young users eager...
The banking world reacted with relative indifference to the massive fine that Wells Fargo has agreed to in a settlement with regulators over manifestly criminal behavior that lasted for at least a decade. According to Andrew Murray, US attorney for the Western District of North Carolina, the bank...
