This year’s long-lasting and still on-going social turbulence in Hong Kong, a Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, reminds me the Crimea crisis in 2014. There are indeed several similarities between the two events.

Sorry to have been absent for so long. Actually I haven’t been bone idle. At least, not all the time, though I did manage to stow away on a couple of long cruises.  But even then, surfing the ocean waves in my 40,000 ton dinghy, I’ve been thinking about that funny old subject – yes, my favourite, money. From a different angle – the arts and sciences, history, literature, faith and illusion. And the result is – another book! Here is the beast:

https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9783030258931

The passing of legends prompts renewed consideration of their achievements and, of times, conjures not-so-favorable comparisons to their successors. Paul Volcker, who died at 92 this week, set the standard for bold monetary policy as Fed chairman from 1979 to 1987. Taking the helm amid stubbornly high and rising inflation and lackluster trend real growth, he faced the Federal Reserve’s greatest challenge since the Great Depression. Like that earlier episode, bad decisions by his predecessors had created much of the crisis.
 

The title of this session is leadership dialogue and the focus is “deepening China and EU economic and financial cooperation” in what this forum is calling the new global context. I’d like to use my time to look briefly at two dynamics that are affecting the evolution of this China/EU cooperation and then conclude with a comment about the importance of political leadership for quality outcomes as well as for a more peaceful world order.

Co-authored with John Kerins, Director in Cain Brother’s Corporate M&A Advisory practice.

Key Takeaways:

1.The Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) is faced with unprecedented anti-government demonstrations. Whether there was foreign intervention (there might have been), the scale of the riots and the depth of popular anger has been unprecedented, especially come from the “deplorables”. The regime reacted with extreme brutality. However, it has been forced to acknowledge the killings, especially at the city of Mahshahr—even Parliament is reacting, with talk of a special commission of inquiry

Today's podcast guest is a fellow Chicagoan, best-selling author Michele Wucker. Her thought-provoking book, the Gray Rhino, was published in 2016 and has been quoted by President Xi Jinping of China.  Michele’s key insight is that even when we see the future charging at us, we often fail to act. 

To listen to the full podcast, please click here.

In 1919 John Maynard Keynes wrote the first best-seller in economics, The Economic Consequences of the Peace. The title is a bit misleading, since it is really about the cost of war. He railed against the Treaty of Versailles, correctly predicting that inequitable conditions of peace made another world war inevitable. 

Written By Eleanor Shiori Hughes -  November 14, 2019

Our subject is health - both the health of the global economy, and the health of its global citizens. Each is dependent on the other, especially in a world where healthcare expenditures continue to rise. According to the World Bank, they average ten percent of GDP and are nearly double that in the US.