The Economist Magazine– May 27, 2023 issue: The race to become the Republican nominee for the presidential election in America next year is properly under way. And Donald Trump has a huge, perhaps insurmountable, lead.
Hopes of depriving the former president of the Republican nomination are fading
Belatedly and nervously, the would-be assassins have been lining up. On May 22nd Tim Scott, a senator from South Carolina, became the latest Republican to announce a run for president. Greater fanfare accompanied the official declaration (on Twitter) on May 24th that Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, is joining the race for the Republican nomination. He has been widely heralded as the candidate with the best chance of defeating the favourite, Donald Trump. But even as more plotters step forward, the chances of a successful coup to overthrow Mr Trump are growing slimmer by the day.
In “wall-e”, a film released in 2008, humans live in what could be described as a world of fully automated luxury communism. Artificially intelligent robots, which take wonderfully diverse forms, are responsible for all productive labour. People get fat, hover in armchairs and watch television.
Viktor Orban and Xi Jinping bond over their anti-Americanism
To ears accustomed to a swelling chorus of China-scepticism in the European Union, the language of Hungarian diplomats is striking. Not for them the common talk of European officials about the need to “de-risk” relations with China and to treat it as a “systemic rival”. Co-operation between Hungary and China presents “opportunities rather than risks”, said Hungary’s foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, in Beijing on May 15th. Wang Yi, China’s foreign-affairs overlord, told him that relations between the countries had entered their “best period in history”.
Our energy roundtable predicts higher crude prices as global demand grows faster than supply. What’s ahead for U.S. shale, the majors, and the energy transition.
The CEO sat down with Barron’s to discuss his critics’ complaints, the challenging climate for banking, his growth ambitions, and DJing side gig.Long read
The president underestimates America’s strengths and misunderstands how it acquired them
In the 1940s and early 1950s America built a new world order out of the chaos of war. For all its shortcomings, it kept the peace between superpowers and underpinned decades of growth that lifted billions out of poverty. Today that order, based on global rules, free markets and an American promise to uphold both, is fraying. Toxic partisanship at home has corroded confidence in America’s government.
A deal for Ghana is the first test case for a new approach
Ghana made history when it led the wave of sub-Saharan African countries that won independence more than six decades ago. It may now be making history again, as the first test case for a new approach to debt relief. China and Western governments may have overcome one barrier to restructuring the billions of dollars owed by countries with unsustainable debts.
The country’s historic ascent is levelling off. That need not make it more dangerous
The rise of China has been a defining feature of the world for the past four decades. Since the country began to open up and reform its economy in 1978, its gdp has grown by a dizzying 9% a year, on average. That has allowed a staggering 800m Chinese citizens to escape from poverty. Today China accounts for almost a fifth of global output. The sheer size of its market and manufacturing base has reshaped the global economy. Xi Jinping, who has ruled China for the past decade, hopes to use his country’s increasing heft to reshape the geopolitical order, too.
Bud Light is the latest casualty in a battle over whether companies are embracing too many progressive goals on everything from gender identity to climate change. What’s at stake as companies fight back.
Everyone is talking about Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro and Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic. Now, the drugs are poised to go from conversation starters to profit makers.
An industry reckoning over carbon credits could refresh the market for renewables derived from things such as cooking oil and cow manure. These beaten-down stocks that could get a lift once headwinds subside.
The U.S. Congress began imposing debt limits in 1776. When the Continental Congress authorized its very first loan from France, it instructed U.S. commissioners to borrow a “sum not exceeding two million sterling.” Congress continued to permit the Treasury to borrow only up to bond-by-bond specific limits until 1917. Prior to then, U.S. Treasury secretaries actually operated under multiple debt limits, authorized bond by authorized bond. The single, aggregate debt limit we’re more familiar with today was first adopted by the U.S. in 1939.
The consumer health company features a range of leading brands, a relatively cheap valuation, a solid balance sheet, consistent earnings, and a healthy dividend yield. It’s no tech unicorn, a good thing in 2023.
The country needs a new political settlement that diminishes the power of extremists
As israel marks its 75th anniversary, take a moment to admire how it has triumphed against the odds. Before it declared independence in 1948 its own generals warned that it had only a fifty-fifty chance of survival. Today Israel is hugely rich, safer than it has been for most of its history, and democratic—if, that is, you are prepared to exclude the territories it occupies. It has overcome wars, droughts and poverty with few natural endowments other than human grit. It is an outlier in the Middle East, a hub of innovation and a winner from globalisation.
Or Russian fighter jets may win control of Ukrainian skies
As Ukraine prepares its forces for a crucial counter-offensive, the argument among its Western allies about what equipment to provide chunters on. Having finally received the tanks it had been pleading for since last year, Ukraine has increased the intensity of its demands for fighter jets. Yet its pleas are falling on largely deaf ears.
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