We should all commend the scientists responsible for the speedy rollout of various Covid vaccines. True, we understate the risks of mass inoculation with an inadequately tested product. But we could easily make a case that the global emergency warrants such risk taking. Yet, as illustrated by its latest conflict with President Biden, the pharmaceutical industry does not consider public health its main priority. I’ll go further: Big Pharma lacks any decency. I’ll admit that I appear to have underestimated …
Exchange Rates and the Dollar: The Short and Long View
December 23, 2020Last week the U.S. Treasury Department took the unusual step of labeling both Switzerland and Viet Nam currency manipulators. If the accusation stands, the two countries will then need to come to an agreement with the U.S. and the IMF or face possible retaliatory tariffs. The mainstream press has, as always, focused on reasons for, as well as the possible consequences of, the artificial currency deflation by the two countries. And as someone asked by many a puzzled student why …
The Logistics, Ethics, and Political Economy of a Covid-19 Vaccine
November 29, 2020Recent news about Pfizer’s and Moderna’s progress synthesizing a Covid-19 vaccine has been met by an understandably ebullient global reaction. According to the CDC, the first batch will be available to Americans before the end of 2020. Analysts believe that positive news about the vaccine – and really, how could the news be better? – explains much of the most recent surge in stock prices. More substantively, if the optimism were well founded it would not be unreasonable to expect …
Debt, More Debt, and Yes, Even More Debt
November 22, 2020In August of this year, Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz and Hamid Rashid warned that a global debt crisis was looming. And just last week, Zambia became the sixth country this year – after Argentina, Belize, Ecuador, Lebanon, and Suriname – to default on its sovereign debt when President Edgar Lungu’s government failed to make a $42.5 million interest payment that was due. Under normal circumstances one sovereign default is newsworthy; the latest announcement merely underscores what a strange year it has …
The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership: Why It Should Matter to Us
November 18, 2020Just two days ago, 15 Asia-Pacific nations agreed to what is arguably the most important trade deal in history. Known as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), it will unite the 10 countries from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) – Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Viet Nam – with Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea to create the largest trade bloc in the world. With its members accounting for about one-third …