The global economy is not out of the woods yet. Some 2024 predictions to focus the mind. History is back with a vengeance. But it isn’t all bad news – good things are happening too. How to stress less this year.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
ARTICLE OF THE WEEK
Kenneth Rogoff, The Global Economy Is Not Out of the Woods
(Project Syndicate, 3 January 2024)
Short and sharp. From an economic standpoint, 2023 went much better than expected, but we should not infer that 2024 will necessarily be the same. The former IMF chief economist argues that, as geopolitical tensions spike and interest rates remain elevated, 2024 is poised to be yet another tumultuous year for the world economy. This is especially true for emerging markets, which managed to avert a crisis in 2023 but could struggle to do so again if global growth fails to meet expectations (metered paywall that requires prior registration (free), reads in 5-7 min).
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Adrian Wooldridge, The Trump Comet and Four More 2024 Predictions
(Bloomberg, 2 January 2024)
Predictions often prove wrong, but that’s not the point: they force us to think. The columnist offers five. (1) The end of win-win: the idea that we can have our cake and eat it; (2) The search for talent: elite companies will stop contracting to elite universities; (3) The Trump Comet: a second Trump administration will be much more radical than the first; (4) The domestication of AI: its growth as a trusted virtual assistant will revolutionize our daily lives; (5) The threat of war: it is everywhere and “will create a once in a half-century opportunity for entrepreneurs to pry contracts from the hands of dinosaurs” (gifted article, reads in 6-7 min)
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Adam Tooze, The Return of History
(Chartbook, 1 January 2024)
The escalation of violence around the world was one of last year’s most prominent features. Each conflict has its own particularities, but all of them exhibit a new trend of “internationalized intrastate conflicts”. “Western weakness” is part of the explanation, with the new rivalry between the US, Russia, China and regional players fueling these conflicts. Pacification, when it happened (like in Europe after WWII) relied upon economic success, with political integration in turn enabling economic growth in a virtuous circle – a process led by American power and money. Today, this model of economic convergence leading to geopolitical and political alignment is dead (free access, reads in 7-9 min).
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Malcolm Cochran, 1,000 Bits of Good News You May Have Missed in 2023
(Human Progress, 30 December 2023)
The fact that the world is in a bit of a mess doesn’t preclude positive things from happening. This posting is presented as “a necessary balance to the torrent of negativity” – a nonrandom sample (n = ~1000) of positive news collected by the Cato Institute, and separated by topic areas: agriculture, conservation and biodiversity, culture and tolerance, energy and natural resources, environment and pollution, growth and development, health, freedom, technology, science, and violence (free access; each item being a hyperlink, reading time can exceed thousands of hours!)
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Rhitu Chatterjee, Want to stress less in 2024? A new book offers ‘5 resets’ to tame toxic stress
(NPR, 4 January 2024)
In a book to be published in two weeks-time (The 5 Resets), a Harvard University physician and researcher offers a range of science-backed tools to help people recover from chronic stress and cope better in the long run. The book’s 5 resets: (1) Find what matters most to you; (2) Stop scrolling and carve out some quiet time; (3) Harness the mind-body connection to lower stress; (4) The importance of taking breaks; (5) Quiet the nagging, negative voice of a stressed-out brain. Common sense, easier thought than done, but far from impossible. (free access, reads in 4-5 min).
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