Should governments in emerging economies worry about their debt?
FINANCE MINISTERS of yesteryear would have been shocked by the amount of borrowing their successors must now contemplate. But they would have been just as gobsmacked by how cheap that borrowing has turned out to be. In many countries, the interest rate on government debt is expected to remain below the nominal growth rate of…
Lessons in betting against bubbles from the Big Short
Feb 11th 2021HE NOW RUNS a chain of hotels in his native Ghana. But in the 1990s Tony Yeboah played football at a high level, his two seasons at Leeds United sandwiched between longer spells in the Bundesliga. In England he is fondly remembered for a wonder-goal against Wimbledon FC. Watch it on YouTube. Trapping…
Bangladesh’s government lavishes money on the army
Feb 11th 2021WHEN AL JAZEERA, a Qatari television network, accused Bangladesh’s army chief not only of helping to hide his two fugitive brothers, who are on the run from a murder conviction, but also of steering military procurement contracts their way, the Bangladeshi government did not investigate the allegations. It did not even bother to…
Congo’s president cuts free of his would-be puppetmaster
IN THE LAWLESS eastern parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo, nomads and sedentary folk often clash. Cattle-rearing groups rub up against crop-growers over access to land. In the absence of a strong state, disputes can quickly turn violent. By contrast another type of nomadism obsesses the population in Gombe, the wealthy core of Congo’s…
Kevin Hart Scammed Out Of $1 Million By His Personal Shopper
A personal shopper working for Kevin Hart reportedly stole more than $1 million from him by making unauthorized transactions with the comedian’s credit cards.On Thursday, Dylan Jason Syer, 29, was indicted on grand larceny and other charges in Queens Supreme Court. Syer was charged with scheme to defraud in the first degree, criminal possession of…
Conversational computers have come a long way
Feb 11th 2021PEOPLE HAVE been conversing with computers since the 1960s, when Joseph Weizenbaum of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology created a “chatbot” called Eliza. Eliza was designed as both an electronic parlour trick and as a gentle mockery of psychotherapists. Its chief conversational gambit was repeating its interlocutors’ statements back to them in the…
European banks need new chiefs
Feb 13th 2021EUROPEAN BANKS’ fourth-quarter earnings, releases of which are clustered around early February, have been surprisingly perky. Those with trading arms, such as UBS or BNP Paribas, rode on buoyant markets. State support helped contain bad loans; few banks needed to top up provisions. Markets should keep them busy and, as the economy recovers,…
Inflation will rise in the coming months
INFLATION IS likely to jump in the coming months, as last year’s oil-price drop falls out of the annual comparison. Prices spiked in the euro area in January, owing in part to the expiration of a temporary value-added-tax cut in Germany. Will the pickup be sustained? Investors are bullish in America, where a huge stimulus…
If America leaves Afghanistan there will be trouble
Feb 13th 2021WHEN HE CAME to office last month President Joe Biden inherited, in Afghanistan, America’s longest war. He also inherited a deal that his predecessor struck a year ago with the Taliban, who have fought a bloody insurgency ever since American-led forces ousted them from power in late 2001. Under the accord, Donald Trump…
The obstacles to holding the Tokyo Olympics in July are daunting
Editor’s note: On February 12th, after this article was published, Mori Yoshiro resigned as president of Tokyo’s organising committee.THE RED digits on a clock outside Tokyo Station tick off the seconds until the Olympic games begin, on July 23rd. Yet the closer the date gets, the greater the uncertainty about whether the games will go…