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In a Reuters article dated August 5, with the title “As dollar slides, some investors fret about its status as world's reserve currency,” Saqib Iqbal Ahmed signals what may be the indicator of a looming seismic shift in the global economy. The article highlights the ever more visible fragility...
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are businesses with revenues, assets or employees below a certain threshold. SMEs are important to the health of any country as they tend to form the backbone of the economy. When compared to large enterprises, SMEs are generally greater in...
July 15 was a very good day for Apple. Not so much for the European Commission, nor for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). What happened? In 2016, the European Commission (EC), following a lengthy investigation, ruled that Ireland had granted Apple “illegal tax...
Wirecard AG, the Munich-based payments and financial services company that was a member of the DAX index of Germany’s 30 leading blue-chip stocks, collapsed spectacularly and filed for insolvency on June 25. Among many lessons, this disaster has revealed major gaps in audit...
Editor’s Note: These are unprecedented times. A global pandemic has changed life as we know it. In recent months, Fair Observer has examined the crisis through political, economic and social lenses, publishing articles from around the world. The result is three 360° series that we urge you to...
Dubai — memorably called the world’s fastest city by author and analyst Jim Krane — was already traveling in the slow lane when COVID-19 arrived. The Gulf city-state is one of seven that make up the United Arab Emirates. It had survived the crash of 2009 and thrived anew on...
Two reports published in early 2020 shed new light on this challenge. The European Central Bank’s (ECB) risk report on less-significant institutions is the first of what is intended to be an annual series. The impact assessment study on the most important differences between...
US President Donald Trump had already taken a sledgehammer to the export-led growth model. With the COVID-19 pandemic rousing primal passions, hitherto unfashionable ideas are emerging like Dracula from their grave. Protecting infant industries to improve future competitive advantage or strategic...
You pay little attention to the systems of your body — circulatory, digestive, pulmonary — unless something goes wrong. These automatic systems ordinarily go about their business, like unseen clockwork, while you think about a vexing problem at work, drink your morning cup of coffee, walk up...
The COVID-19 global pandemic has become a make-it-or-break-it moment for many businesses, particularly startups and industry disruptors. With market forces and rules being reshaped daily at lightning speed, large swaths of the world have been forced to adopt technology and embrace the digital age...
With the second monumental bailout of wealthy corporations in a little over a decade, the public is beginning to discover both the shabby reality and the hyperreal absurdity of a financial practice termed “stock buybacks.” It sounds innocent, as if it described a process by which conscientious...
