Obama's mercantilist State of the Union address
Like other wonks, I watched last night's State of the Union address with a mixture of curiosity and whiskey. As I noted a few days ago, each State of the Union address contains some statements that...
View ArticleAll this negative energy about global economic governance just makes me stronger
As longtime blog readers are aware, I'm working on a book-length project arguing that global economic governance has done a surprisingly good job of things in the post-2008 world. Not perfect, mind...
View ArticleFour thoughts on the Cyprus deal
So, after reading up on the Cyprus deal from the Financial Times, the Economist, and Quartz, I think I have a pretty good idea of what happened. Tyler Cowen isn't happy with the deal, and I can see...
View ArticleThe Friedman Forum... and its coming competition
Yesterday the New York Times announced a brand new conference called The Next New World. The URL gives the game away, however -- it's the Friedman Forum. The précis: Pulitzer Prize–winning New York...
View ArticleStop trying to make the next Silicon Valley happen. It's not going to happen!
Since I was a young boy studying global political economy armed with little but an Economist subscription and a smile, I've noticed that, at some point, every country and their neighbor tries to do...
View ArticleWhy global political economy scholars are consumed by envy
Let's be clear at the outset of this post that its content is almost completely driven by envy. Total, abject, rage-inducing envy. Now, with that in mind, I see that KKR is creating a fancy-pants new...
View ArticleThe Strategic and Economic Dialogue: almost as interesting as a sharknado
The U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue has only generated fitful levels of interest in recent years. With this year's SED coming on the heels of Sino-American rancor involving Edward Snowden,...
View ArticleHow to undermine American power for less than $10 million
During my brief time working for the Treasury Department, officials who travelled to Europe were allowed to take the red-eye flight two nights before the beginning of any negotiations. The premise...
View ArticleThe North American energy scene keeps getting more interesting
So yesterday Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto made some news, according to the Washington Post's Stephanie McCrummen: Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto proposed historic changes to this...
View ArticleIt's the End of the World Economy and I Feel Fine
As John Boehner continued to dig in his heels over the weekend, it seems more and more likely that the current government shutdown/impending debt ceiling deadlock will not be resolved until the very...
View ArticleAn Open Letter to Foreign Leaders Worried About the U.S. Debt Ceiling
Dear Rest of the World, Hi there. Let's get some preliminaries out of the way. First off, I'm really sorry about the whole U.S. government shutdown/possible "possible default on the U.S. debt"...
View ArticleEverything Old Is New Again to Parag Khanna
Your humble blogger has been growing out his beard in support of the Boston Red Sox this playoff season, a decision that paid off handsomely last night. There's a little more salt in this beard than...
View ArticleThe Hipster Global Political Economy of Karl Marx
Over at Tablet, Michelle Goldberg writes about the new trend among critics, hipsters, and intellectuals -- Karl Marx. [We are] at a moment of newly fervent interest in Marx among young writers,...
View ArticleThe Mother of All Natural Experiments in Global Political Economy
If I'm reading the tea leaves correctly, the United States Congress is pretty close to a debt/budget deal. Still, the U.S. is right up against the deadline, and even if capital markets aren't...
View ArticleThanks for the Natural Experiment, Wikileaks!!
Way back in the Early Stone Age of the Internet -- i.e., the mid-1990s -- a group of developed countries started negotiating a Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI). Negotiated in semi-secret,...
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