How to gauge investors’ fear of inflation
May 22nd 2021WHAT DO INVESTORS fear most? In the Bank of America’s long-running survey of fund managers, the tail risk that has mostly preoccupied them until recently has been the pandemic. In this month’s survey, though, inflation rose to the top of the list of worries. It is not hard to see why. High inflation,…
The global chip shortage is here for some time
May 22nd 2021FOR WANT of a chip, the factory was lost. On May 18th Toyota became the latest carmaker forced to cut production amid a global shortage of microchips, announcing it would suspend work at two of its plants in Japan. Firms including Ford, General Motors and Jaguar Land Rover have also had to send…
Samoa’s long-serving prime minister is struggling to cling to power
“I AM APPOINTED by God,” to lead Samoa, said Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, the world’s second-longest-serving prime minister (after Cambodia’s Hun Sen), in response to protests this month demanding that he step down. “They should go to a church and pray instead of protesting in front of the courthouse. The judiciary has no authority over my…
A Nigerian plan to reconcile farmers and herders is not working
May 22nd 2021CHIGOZIE OBIOMA and his family moved to Benue state in 2004 for its tranquillity. Last week, however, Chigozie’s father was awoken by bomb blasts, as the army tried to dislodge an armed band of suspected cattle thieves hiding nearby. Conflict over land and cattle, which has always been common in the north of…
The struggle to save a South African language with 45 click sounds
May 22nd 2021TWO AND a half millennia ago the San had southern Africa to themselves, living lightly on the land as hunter-gatherers. Then came the Khoekhoen from the north-east to wrest some of the San’s hunting grounds for their cattle. The 17th-century Dutch incomers called the hunter-gatherers “Boesmans” (“Bushmen”) after their habitat, while the Khoekhoen…
How covid-19 could impede the catch-up of poor countries with rich ones
May 22nd 2021IT ONCE SEEMED possible that covid-19 might deliver a softer blow to poor economies than rich ones. Instead, the virus seems likely to set the emerging world back in its quest to attain advanced-economy incomes. Real GDP per person in America shrank by about 4% in 2020, only about half a percentage point…
Learning to live without LIBOR
May 22nd 2021A RESTAURANT CHAIN in Huntsville, Alabama, draws an extra few thousand dollars from its working-capital facility with a local bank. Meanwhile, its employees’ pension scheme needs to convert the variable interest rate on $10bn of its assets into a fixed revenue stream. The scheme agrees to an interest-rate swap with a hedge fund,…
Australia and New Zealand cannot hide from covid-19 forever
LAST MONTH Six60, a mystifyingly popular Kiwi band, played a gig for a real, flesh-and-blood audience of 50,000 people. “Next time they tell you it’s impossible,” the band wrote online, “Show them this.” Alongside was a photo of the sort of crowds unseen in most of the world since early 2020.Listen to this storyYour browser…
Why are hundreds of huge stone jars scattered across north-east Laos?
ASK LAO elders, and many will tell you that their lands were once ruled by giants. The greatest was a warrior king named Khun Jeuang whose armies, the story goes, celebrated their conquests in modern-day Xieng Khouang province in north-east Laos, with whisky served from enormous stone urns. Today more than 2,000 of these vessels,…
Why vessels passing near Iran may have trouble staying on course
May 22nd 2021THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ is hard to navigate at the best of times. It is narrow, crooked, dotted with islands and, as the only way in or out of the Persian Gulf, busy. Recently, a new peril has joined the list: that satellite-navigation systems may be “spoofed” to lure vessels off course.Listen to…