The warning by Standard and Poor’s that there was now a 50% chance that it would downgrade U.S. Federal debt from its traditional AAA-rated status has concentrated a lot of minds, in Washington and elsewhere. At one level it has forced commentators and investors to recognize that without the United States and the European countries […]

In previous pieces I have compared the current global political and economic situation to the 1930s, suggesting that neither economically nor politically is the current position so dire, but that there are important similarities. However a much closer comparison is to the 1970s – not to the U.S. 1970s, a relatively benign comparison that has […]

The 2008-9 Great Recession centered on the wealthy Western economies with emerging markets suffering significantly shorter, less painful downturns. Then in 2009-11 the emerging markets, particularly the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China — so named by Goldman Sachs’ Jim O’Neill in 2001) soared ahead of the wealthy West, leading to considerable talk of […]

The 1930s is remembered in the United States as a period of economic despair, with unemployment well into double digits throughout the decade and a generation’s lives ruined. In Britain it is remembered as a “Gathering Storm” with satisfactory economic performance after 1932 marred by an increasing fear about the inevitability of future conflict with […]