Events, dear boy, events. Policy makers, governments and companies need to forecast the future as they shape their policies and decide what to do to serve their citizens or customers better. In recent years the main international forecasters like the IMF and World Bank, the ECB and the US authorities, have struggled to anticipate the banking crash of 2008-9 or the Euro crisis that followed. Many companies have expressed surprise at the turn of events from Tokyo to New York, and were not anticipating the election of Mr Trump.
Ukip can no longer survive by railing against the EU, so now it’s going after Theresa May
If the European Union didn’t exist, it would have been necessary for Ukip to invent it. The likes of Herman van Rompuy and Angela Merkel drove voters into the party’s hands with their pro-migration evangelism and scepticism of national sovereignty. They were easy to cast as an out of touch elite, so it was little surprise that voters would take the first chance they could to be rid of them by voting for Britain to leave the bloc.
Today’s GDP data reveals one thing: Mark Carney should have kept his cool after Brexit
Inflation is rising. Real wages are stagnant, and GDP is being revised downwards, putting us down there with the likes of Italy. If Theresa May had a script for the final fortnight of the election campaign it probably didn’t include figures like those. Today’s revision of the quarterly GDP number, down to a sluggish-looking 0.2 percent, from the initial 0.3 percent, will no doubt be seized upon by critics of the government, and by the increasingly battle-weary battalions of hardcore Remainers, as evidence that the wheels are finally coming off the economy, and the impact of a ‘hard Tory Brexit’ is finally being felt.
The parish is the perfect scale for moral community
Humans’ tendency towards trust, social solidarity and moral commitment is deeply tested in a globalised world with fewer and fewer boundaries
5-24-17
India and China will help the world economy this year
Between them India and China account for almost two fifths of the world population. Both have in recent years been growing quickly. China enjoyed a major growth spurt based on industry, exports and heavy investment. More recently India has moved ahead of the slower Chinese growth rate based on a more balanced growth, coming from a lower average income level.
Last week’s Across the Pond.
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Across The Pond is edited daily by Steve Parkhurst. Steve is a political consultant, a writer at his blog as well as a Senior Editor here at US Daily Review. Follow Steve on Twitter @SteveParkhurst
