The war in Afghanistan that goes on forever on August 27, 2017 In 2010, Barack Obama’s vice president, Joe Biden, vowed that the United States would be “totally out” of Afghanistan “come hell or high water, by 2014.” In 2014 Obama said that he would leave about 8,000 US troops there after all, and made an agreement with the new Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, that extended […]
Davos – the rich are worried on January 23, 2017‘I can’t wait to see how the incoming administration deals with AI,” said US Secretary of State John Kerry in a less-than-gracious reference to the fact that the Trump team has not got a clue about the real driving force in the changing world economy. What was striking was that Kerry did not have to […]
Brace for an interesting year on January 9, 2017The main message of 2016 was that we are entering a period of economic and political upheaval comparable to the industrial revolution of 1780-1850, and nothing expressed that message more clearly than Donald Trump’s desire to appoint Andrew Puzder as his secretary of labor – even though it’s clear that neither man understands the message. […]
The end of big trade deals on November 28, 2016US President-elect Donald Trump announced on Monday that he would cancel the “Trans-Pacific Partnership” on his first day in office (Jan. 20, 2017). That will kill the TPP off for all 12 countries that agreed on it just over a year ago: As Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said, the TPP would be meaningless without […]
Rise of the gig economy on November 13, 2016The notion that Uber in London is a mosaic of 30,000 small businesses linked by a common “platform” is, to our minds, faintly ridiculous, said one of the judges on the employment tribunal. So the tribunal ruled that Uber’s 30,000 drivers in London were actually employees, and therefore entitled to be paid the minimum wage, […]