Pulse


Merle Power! Living Long and Prospering

Merle Phillips is a petite 110-year old 4’9” fireball who keeps doing big things. She’s writing her twelfth book and recently created a new version of Scrabble to pitch to game-maker Hasbro. Reaching 110 makes Merle a “super-centenarian.” This is a most exclusive club. There are likely fewer than 50 American super-centenarians alive today.

10-Year Retrospective: Lesson 3 | Why Reform Must be International

Gradually, inch by painful inch, the central bankers are losing their clothes – the comforting ideology that has enveloped them like a warm garment for more than a generation. This is the ideology, or “regime”, of central bank independence and inflation targeting (CBI+IT). Oh, how shy they are! Look how they hold onto any scraps!

EconVue Spotlight | What's Next for The World Economy

Last Sunday I gave a speech at the Adlai Stevenson Center on Democracy. The center website quotes Adlai Stevenson, who twice ran for president in the 1950's: "A free society is a society in which it is safe to be unpopular." Never was that more true or more apt than today.

Are things really different this time?

September 24, 2017

Are things really different this time?

Presentation by Lyric Hughes Hale, Editor-in-chief, EconVue, Inc.

The Adlai Stevenson Center on Democracy

1.  INTRODUCTION: FALSE EMPIRES

10-Year Retrospective: Lesson 2 | Central Banks into Milch Cows

A leading economist has predicted that central banks will not remain independent much longer. His forecast was made  at  a Bank of England conference called to celebrate – yes – 20 years of independence. Guests included Mrs Theresa May, the Prime Minster. It was opened by the Governor, Mark Carney, who drew a different, but equally startling, lesson from the crisis.

Willem Buiter, chief economist of Citi, put up two slides where he declared that:

New Era of Mutual Learning for China and Singapore

This report originally appeared in the Straits Times.

China and Singapore share longstanding and broad-based bilateral relations. Singapore's founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew visited China 33 times over 37 years, witnessing China's extraordinary progress.

Today, China is firmly entrenched in the era of the "Four Great New Inventions", namely the high-speed railway, e-commerce, mobile payment and the sharing economy. When Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong visited China again recently, he must have had some different and impressive experiences.

Going Digital

Three reports this week show how incumbent financial institutions grapple with going digital. Taking the certainties of studies at face value:

1. Bank branches will continue to add value to customers while incorporating more technology
2. Insurers will accelerate investments in digital technologies
3. Central banks will face a decision on whether to issue cryptocurrencies

Here are the week's links:

Digital Bank Transformation: The Evolution of Branch Banking

A New GOP Nightmare: Trump and Democrats Cut a Deal on Taxes

Here they go again.  Despite the Republicans’ control of the presidency and both houses of Congress, their internal divisions keep on frustrating their plans to accomplish anything of consequence. So, the most polarizing GOP president since Abraham Lincoln has come up with a startling work-around:  Cut deals with the Democrats on selected major matters, including funding the government, raising the debt limit and, perhaps soon, legalizing the Dreamers.

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