If you have a bully pulpit, use it. That’s precisely what BlackRock’s CEO Larry Fink did when he championed corporates’ engagement with purpose to staunch the pace of climate change and embrace the preservation of the public commons together with its specific stakeholders.

What a week it was!  Equity markets and cryptocurrencies, both of which appeared to defy the laws of gravity, and the US dollar took a dive.  However, the story of synchronized global growth does not seem to have changed. Have we finally escaped the long dark shadow cast in 2008?  Renowned Japanese economy expert Takatoshi Ito thinks that things are changing at the Bank of Japan, the institution that invented and led the world in quantitative easing. This could be a signal of things to come in a new global monetary policy environment.

I am passing along the English-language version of the article on Trinidad and Tobago, just published by the Center for Doctrine of the Colombian National Army (CEDOE) in its official professional journal "Military Expertise." Click here to read the full text of the report.

We conclude 2017, clinging tightly to a still uncertain confidence that job expansion and strong consumer spending can somehow continue, that advancing gains in the capital markets will persist and the promise of global growth engines in China and India, the world’s two most populous countries, is realistic. Growth projections are now pushing north of three percent – and yet there is an uneasy undertow to such an outlook for investors. 

7. Neglect of international causes

This is the most fatal flaw, as it is the one least understood  by economists, governments or bankers.

My interpretation of the crisis emphasises its international dimensions – not only in the rapid spread of the crisis but also in its root causes (see Lesson 3).

Yet this perspective is still denied, derided or ignored.

I am sharing an article on the topic of Taiwan-PRC diplomatic competition in Central America.

The article examines the recent visit by Taiwan's president Tsai Ing-wen to Central America, in the context of the possible breakdown of the informal "diplomatic truce" which has prevailed between Taiwan and mainland China since 2008.

This work is available from the ejourunal "Global Taiwan Brief," and the full text can be found below as well.

I would like to introduce my recent work on the crisis in Venezuela, and the potential for the incoming administration of President-elect Trump to contribute to a solution, applying the unpredictability that he has already applied, with surprising success, in his dialogue with the President of Taiwan.

You can check out the report here.

On November 21, 2016, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) published its second white paper on its policy toward Latin America and the Caribbean.   Although the document received very little attention in either the U.S. or region, it serves as a valuable indicator of China’s intentions toward the region, both through what it says on its face, and how it may be read “between the lines.”