Janet Yellen has said that she wants to consider raising the Federal Reserve’s target inflation rate from 2% to a higher level. By doing so, she hopes to impose more steeply negative real interest rates without the difficulties of abolishing cash or conducting state roundups of savers. Morally as well as economically, her call must […]

On June 8, Theresa May’s Conservatives came close to losing an election they should have won easily. The commentariat, all of whom like the Brussels bureaucrats and love the Brussels restaurants, claimed she had lost because of her firmness on Brexit and the Tories’ excessive devotion to fiscal austerity. Actually the Tories, not notably devoted […]

Five years ago, the future for emerging markets seemed set fair. Globalization was driving much of the world’s manufacturing to them, as Western companies sought optimal global supply chains. All they needed to do was avoid selecting lunatic Marxist or Islamist dictators as leaders. Yet the future has changed; globalization is in retreat, though it’s […]

Following the G7 meeting last week, Angela Merkel declared that the EU would need to deepen, and should cease relying on the U.S. and Britain. Judging by his macho “handshake” of Donald Trump, a man 31 years older, Emmanuel Macron agrees. Their dream has two problems: it would lead Europe into poverty and it almost […]